It's wrong for books targeted at kids to be full of underage kids drinking to get drunk, sex between people that don't care for each other and kids using drugs. I don't have a problem with kids reading books that contain those things, but I think books targeted at kids have to take into account how influential they are and they have a social responsibility to use that influence for good.

I've been actively looking for book suggestions for a 12 year old that really liked Stephenie Meyer's books, so this weekend I was thinking about kids as I read Vampire Academy. While I enjoyed the book, I would not recommend the book to a 12 year old. And I was pretty upset that the book is targeted at kids. It's a book about teenagers and the reading level is marked "Young Adult". And it has drunken underage parties and sex for favors.

Now the vampire and werewolf genre is full of romance and sex, and although I don't always like that, it doesn't bother me because I can just choose not to read the ones I don't like – like Laurell Hamilton's books, good stories, too much random sex that doesn't further the plot. And I chose to leave them off of my list of recommendations for a 12 year old. And that's all ok.

But to find a book so clearly targeted at kids that contained so much inappropriate sex and alcohol use … I felt like that was irresponsible on the part of the author. (Although I'd feel differently about that if you told me the author is a teenager.) Now I realize that "inappropriate" is highly subjective. I'm not a fan of the way we teach abstinence in schools and others think that is the only right thing. But sex for favors is pretty universally frowned on. And drinking to get drunk, while obviously not a social taboo (at least in the US), is probably not something most parents in today's society would encourage their kids to do.

I'm sure the book with its drink to get drunk parties and sex for favor scenes reflects a reality. But is it a reality the author really wants to encourage to kids? I could understand portraying the reality in a book targeted at parents, so they would know what's going on. And I understand that if the author doesn't portray real teenagers, she'll lose her audience – teenagers. However, I think she could have left out the drinking-to-get-drunk and having-sex-so-guys-will-do-you-a-favor scenes without losing her credibility, audience or story.

Perhaps Richelle Mead feels like she is doing the right thing by showing that the good character waits to have sex but I think she's more likely spreading the word that drinking to get drunk is a fun and cool thing to do.

(And in case you are wondering, I recommended Patricia Briggs, Anne McCaffrey, Susan Cooper, Orson Scott Card, Robert Jordan and Diane Duane.)

Since I recommended Crucial Conversations but didn't really talk much about what it taught, I thought I'd share how I'm trying to apply it in my life.

The authors of Crucial Conversations recommend practicing your new skills with your kids because they are always lots of opportunities. They were right!

Last night I practiced my new skills on my 8 year old and to my surprise it actually worked. (Some day he's going to read this blog and realize what I've put him through!)

I find it really frustrating that you can ask a kid how his day at school was and in spite of the fact that he just spent seven hours there, he'll say "good" and when you ask "what did you do?", you get "I don't remember."

So we usually play 20 questions. (Did you do math? How did that go? Did you read? What did you read? Did you go to art? What did you make? …)

Yesterday on the way home from school (which is a 30 minute drive) I asked how his day went.  And predictably, it turned into 20 questions.

When he started yelling "GOOD!" back at me, I realized I'd hit a "Crucial Conversation". One of the three signs of a crucial conversation is when emotions get involved. So I started applying my new learnings.

1. What did I want from this conversation? I was trying to "hang out" with my eight year old. Find out about his day. Talk to him. Build our relationship. What I was not trying to do was get him trouble. This is key because usually when he acts like this, he's hiding something bad that happened and I usually drill him until I figure out what it is. But that's never my original intent, it just comes out. This time I decided I didn't really care unless he wanted to talk about it. Learning why he got in trouble was derailing me from my intent of building up my relationship with him.
2. Make it safe. When people's emotions run high they often don't feel safe. (And the signs are that they turn to "violence", perhaps yelling like my 8 year old, or they "withdraw".) So I told him that it looked like he was getting upset and asked him why. That didn't work – he got more upset. "NOTHING! MY DAY WAS GOOD!" So I backed up and told him I was just trying to talk to him, not get him trouble. (With a lot more words.)
3. Establish common goals. I told him I was just trying to "hang out" with him and talk to him. And I told him that if something I'd done upset him, I wanted to know what so that I didn't do it next time. Because I wanted to talk to him. (I don't think he was upset about something I did in this conversation but rather something I'd done in lots of previous conversations! Also, there was probably a good chance that he was upset because he'd done something wrong, but discovering that wasn't our goal in the conversation.)

And what do you know? It worked!

I got to hear all about his day. The friends he played with, the marbles that sounded like a machine gun, the general assembly where they learned that their school is going green, …

Photo by T.SC.