What’s going on? This post is a call for your thoughts.

I simply don’t understand what today’s parents are thinking—assuming they are thinking at all.

18 years ago Wanda Holloway tried to hire a hit man to improve her 13 year old daughter’s chances of making the cheer-leading squad.

More recently Lori Drew helped her teenage daughter fake a MySpace page that drove another teen to suicide.

Parents launch efforts to destroy teachers who don’t hand out ‘As’; they scream at referees and umpires when they disagree with a call; they threaten coaches who don’t allow their kids to play enough.

On one hand they enable their kids to avoid all responsibility and on the other castigate them for not living up to whatever parental dreams they are trying to realize.

I know that it’s not all parents; and this isn’t a new rant, but it’s one to which I keep coming back.

And it came back with a vengeance, in fact you might say my outrage cup runneth over, when I read that Senator John Ensign’s parents paid off his mistress.

“The wealthy parents of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) gave $96,000 last year to the staffer who was then his mistress and to her family, his attorney said yesterday.

The gifts to Cynthia L. Hampton and her family were given “out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time,” according to the lawyer, Paul Coggins.”

Ensign’s parents aren’t Gen-Xers and probably not Boomers, so this problem isn’t new.

You read stories about helicopter parents all the time, but when does it end?

How can anyone expect a person to make good choices when their mistakes (and worse) are ‘handled’ for them by their parents?

What do you think about Ensign’s parents’ actions? Obviously, pay-offs aren’t in the same class as murder; are they better or equal with bullying?

I don’t have any answers, but we’d better find some—and fast!

An open discussion is a place to start so let’s hear your thoughts.

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: Army.mil on flickr

The problem with generational labels is that one size never fits all—they are merely convenient designations.

As with any large group, negative attitudes and actions often get more attention and press than positive ones and I’m no exception.

Leadership’s Future is often about Millennials—their sense of entitlement, expectations, impatience, and the parental intervention that fuels it.

My Millennial friends kid me that I’m ignoring a large number of their demographic, although even they don’t claim that it’s anywhere near a majority.

But they do have a point, so I’m offering up a new term to designate those who are chronologically, but not psychologically, Millennials.

aMillennial, because placing an ‘a’ in front of a word nullifies its meaning (see a-6).

I ran into a great example of the positive at AARP’s u@50 contest.

It wasn’t the first place winner that blew me away, but the second.

Her words are an inspiration for us all and a good lesson to remember that people change as life changes.

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: YouTube

As most of you know I write a series on Thursday called Leadership’s Future that looks at education, parenting, kids, Millennials, etc. In the course of my reading I see a articles that would be of interest, but I can’t fit them all in, so I thought that today I’d offer up some of the good ones that I haven’t had time to feature.

Assuming you live on this planet you’re aware that there’s a recession going on, so what’s happening in the world of youth and parents?

Business Week had a great article on Growing Up In A Recession, while the NY Times says that parents finally are figuring out that whatever doesn’t have to be new and are opting for hand-me-downs and cutting off their trust-fund babies. Good grief, they might have to make it on their own!

Do you tweet? Some college professors are finding uses for Twitter in their teaching, although enhancing spelling isn’t one of them; speaking of education, some schools are delivering sex ed via cell phone.

How fair or valuable are anonymous teacher rating sites, such as Rate My Professors or Professor Performance, some teachers don’t aren’t concerned, but others may not be so sanguine.

Multiple studies by professors at a variety of universities show that having interracial roommates reduces prejudice. Not that surprising, it’s hard to hate a real individual vs. a hypothetical stereotype.

Finally, there’s a new texting champion (control your enthusiasm) who practiced by sending 14,000 texts a month. Isn’t that thrilling?

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Image credit: nono farahshila on flickr and SBARTSTV on YouTube