Be a parent, not a friend, to teens, author says

Tampa columnist HOOPER E-mail: Click here Archive

A day after spending the weekend with her teenage daughter in Washington, D.C., "looking at monuments, having dinner and being silly," Dr. Nancy Snyderman told me one of the keys to parenting teenagers is to not be your child's friend.

That advice would appear to contradict her fun-filled weekend, but it really doesn't. Snyderman, a former ABC medical correspondent, can explain. She will be a guest speaker at this week's Ophelia Project two-day national conference at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay.

While parents should want a meaningful relationship with their teenagers, she said, mom and dad shouldn't make decisions based on a desire to be liked by their kids.

"Hanging out and spending time is a part of friendship," Snyderman said. "But if your daughter wants to stay out until 5 o'clock in the morning, the answer has to be no.

"That's the boundary that has to be recognized. I'm not a stern parent, my husband is more the disciplinarian. But sometimes I have to say, "no,' and that doesn't necessarily mean you get an explanation."

Author of Girl in the Mirror: Mothers and Daughters in the Years of Adolescence, Snyderman is an ideal person to speak at the conference's dinner Thursday. The Ophelia Project aims to help the community create a safe culture for youths, particularly teen and tween girls. The book's title comes from a moment on an airplane when Snyderman said she looked in the mirror and saw not a girl, but a middle-aged woman with two teenage daughters staring back. Friends had told her she would be lucky to survive the teen years, but she had a different outlook.

"I didn't believe it, primarily because I had such a great relationship with my mother," Snyderman said.

Parents should view the teen years as a tremendous opportunity to foster social, emotional and intellectual growth, Snyderman said. That doesn't mean, however, that she is overlooking those trying episodes. She jokes that parents need to cement their eyebrows in place and not overreact.

"When a daughter says, "I hate you, get out of my room,' what she is really saying is, "I need some space, but don't get out of my life,"' explained Snyderman, a surgeon who also serves as vice president of medical affairs for Johnson & Johnson.

The conference begins at 8 a.m. Thursday and will include more than 20 sessions on topics such as creating safe schools, preventing eating disorders and mobilizing a community around girls' needs. For information, see www.opheliaproject.org

Here's an update on the Sunday Simcha. The Jewish music and news radio show on WMNF-88.5 FM was part of the station's annual fundraising drive Sunday. With Marc Rosenwasser and Kevin Frye taking over for the late Mike Eisenstadt, the goal was to surpass Eisenstadt's annual net of $10,000.

The station had promised that if the show generated $15,000 during its two-hour broadcast, it would name the WMNF live music studio after Eisenstadt, who died in September after hosting the show for nearly 20 years.

Rosenwasser and Frye, longtime friends of Eisenstadt's, were optimistic, but the total even surpassed their expectations. More than 270 callers pledged $24,000. Station officials think the total is a record for a single two-hour show.

"We are so proud that the Jewish community expressed their appreciation of Mike and the gratitude for what he did for our community at large," Frye said. "We are absolutely elated with these results and can't wait to dedicate the studio in the near future."

It's a tremendous tribute to Eisenstadt's legacy, one I'm willing to bet that Rosenwasser and Frye will proudly carry on.

By the way, Frye, who plays trumpet in the Mike Eisenstadt Band, wants people to know the band is like the radio show - still going strong.

That's all I'm saying.

Ernest Hooper can be reached at 813 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com

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