How to Teach Your Teenager Common Sense

Recently I’ve started to think about how common sense relates to raising kids.  Being a father of teenage daughters, this article comes from that perspective.  I think the approach of teaching common sense can be a dangerous and precarious path.  After all, being the only one in the house with testosterone, explaining things can get dicey at best. 

 

I’m a firm believer that the most important lesson a parent can instill into their kids is common sense, no matter what gender.  You start the lessons off with them as toddlers.  You tell little Johnny that, “The stove is hot sweetie.  Don’t touch or you’ll end up with melted fingers.”   Or telling little Heather, “Sweetie, don’t pet the doggie you don’t know, or they’ll end up calling you stubby”.  

 

As your daughters get older and start discovering that boys are different and not just in the yucky way , you need to educate them.  I like to call this the fine art of “Boys are Bad”.   When I was a young father and just starting out, I used to think that maybe my daughters were just naïve.  With time under my belt I’ve discovered that they were just lacking good old common sense.

 

I am a father who is acutely aware of the raging hormones of the adolescent teenage boy (I was one of them once) and their lack of common sense.  I’m also equally aware of the seemingly naive girls, who take it upon themselves aloof to what is happening around them.  Therefore, my duty as a father is to instill that common sense and hopefully save them from themselves.

 

I’ll close with a bit of common sense advice I gave to my oldest daughter when she went off to college.  First, don’t come home one day and tell me, “But Daddy, he loves me and we want to keep the baby”.  And second, I don’t want to find out that your college extra curricular activities included making the cover of “Girls Gone Wild”.  I’ve been lucky neither has happened, yet.