Lately, a lot of things have been going on in my life. And, my ability to influence them – aka control them – is pretty much ZILCH. What a surprise. I like to quote myself and the title of this column is one of my quotes. In fact, on my website I have a scrolling quote bar right below my name at the top of each page.
Anyone who has a family member or friend in AA has heard of The Serenity Prayer. You don’t have to be part of AA to either agree with it (or not). It says, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This week’s Moral Question is: Do you believe (in it)? Or do you believe we have more control than the prayer implies?
No, we are not going to be doing drugs or drinking at #DadChat Thursday, March 27 from 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. PT/9:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET. We are going to talk about them and the issue. Drugs and drinking is a huge problem worldwide. Our kids have unfettered access to these dangerous substances. Heck, many parents are suffering their own issues with substance abuse.
There’s no doubt that there will be more and more columns, magazine covers, and television coverage of the affects of technology on our lives. Our kids have grown up in a smart-phone tech world and know nothing other than that reality. We all now have what I call virtual friends, those “friends” that we actually consider friends but that we’ve actually never met or even spoken with. When I was kid that was the stuff of science fiction. So, it was inevitable that some of us would get addicted to our tech, to Social Media, and the devices we seem to cherish.
First air date: Thursday, August 4, 2011
Featured guests:
Pastor Drew Sams (WeWillSingaNewSong) for “Teen Rap”
Jim Scheinberg (North Pier Fiduciary Management) for “Family Financial Matters.”
The column referenced is, “Lessons from Amy Winehouse”
Perhaps we can learn something from Amy Winehouse. She died at 27, and thus has joined that exclusive “27 Club” of performers who died at the tender age of 27. That list includes Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain. Are there lessons we parents can learn from these senseless deaths?
Of course there are. Our kids don’t live in the often-insular world of celebrities. Famous people influence our kids, but the social circles of our kids do not usually include numerous sycophants in their “entourage!” Elvis Presley was the first and prime example of this pattern when he died in 1978, in his own bathroom.
