0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised.
0:00:35 – Speaker 2
Today we have a teenager in the studio, my teenager actually. We’re doing a show titled A Day in the Life of a Teen. This is Mandy. Kim is out today. My daughter is here and if you guys have read my book, you’ve heard some of her stories. She’s over here like yes, she’s smiling. I’m going to let her introduce herself, just so we know. For privacy purposes, we’re not going to say her name, so I’m just going to refer to her as my teen girl. But go ahead, tell us a little bit about yourself All right, little one, little I’m, little Kim.
0:01:16 – Speaker 1
Now I’m filling her shoes.
0:01:20 – Speaker 2
So that means you got to sing some tunes or something? Oh no.
0:01:23 – Speaker 1
All right. Well, I’m Matt and Mandy’s oldest child, and that sounds weird to say their first names. They’re just mom and dad to me. I’m 15. I’m a freshman out of public high school here in Texas yes, here in Texas. Yeah, a little bit about myself. This is just the generic thing I say to anyone who I’m meeting, like in church, meet and greets, or you know, when the teacher at school is like you guys need to learn more about each other, do you hate that?
0:01:53 – Speaker 2
Oh my gosh, it’s so annoying Because when I met church and the pastor likes stand up, I’m like oh, it’s like stand up for one minute.
0:02:00 – Speaker 1
I want you to meet three new people.
0:02:02 – Speaker 2
We’re such introverts Like that’s. That’s the introvert in this. Yes, okay, go ahead.
0:02:07 – Speaker 1
Well, anyways, we’re going to get so sidetracked this episode I know, I know. All right. Well, I have a bunny. She’s adorable and, mom, you better believe I’m going to use this platform to plug her Instagram. Her Instagram account is at pixiethebunny. Go, follow her. It’s super cute. I don’t know why you wouldn’t follow her.
0:02:27 – Speaker 2
Okay, so wait a minute. Let’s pause a minute for the bunny. She’s a little holland lop.
0:02:34 – Speaker 1
Yeah, holland lop. That means her ears like flop next to her face.
0:02:37 – Speaker 2
She’s super cute, she looks she’s black and white, so we kind of call her the chick filet cow, like that’s kind of like a cow bunny. She’s a cow bunny and I did not want the bunny and the bunny stinks. Yeah, you put together a PowerPoint presentation and convinced us to get the bunny. That’s true. And now we love the bunny, yes, okay, all right. All right, we just had to get that out there, because if you don’t follow me on my Facebook page, you don’t know about the bunny yet.
0:03:05 – Speaker 1
No, okay, go ahead. So you know, go follow the bunny. You know, tell your children to follow the bunny.
0:03:10 – Speaker 2
It’s appropriate material.
0:03:12 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s all appropriate. It’s just pictures and videos of a bunny. Like you can trust your kids with the bunny, yes, okay. Next thing Well, I just got my driver’s permit. Really excited about that my mom actually just ordered on Amazon, those magnets that you stick on the back of your car that say you know, please be patient. Student driver.
0:03:37 – Speaker 2
Tell me what you, tell me how you feel about those. They’re just, they’re something else. They’re something else. They’re embarrassing, right, they’re kind of embarrassing. Okay, my thought process is I know drivers and I know that they are going to honk and give us the finger. Yeah, and I’m trying to not let that happen to you, I’m trying to protect you.
0:03:59 – Speaker 1
Anyways, and right when I got my permit the night of, I was driving us all around in our family vehicle and I almost ran us into a ditch. Yeah, I didn’t though, so it’s all right.
0:04:10 – Speaker 2
You didn’t and you recovered and everybody was con-. Well, not everybody, no, not everybody’s call.
0:04:15 – Speaker 1
Not everybody was called.
0:04:18 – Speaker 2
But we survived and it was a teachable moment for all of us, right? Yeah, that’s true. Okay, what else about?
0:04:24 – Speaker 1
yourself. Last thing about myself I really love theater. That’s like my extracurricular. It’s a lot of time and a lot of energy, but I really love it and I think it’s really fun.
0:04:33 – Speaker 2
Well, and you started that in sixth grade, I remember, and you were really shy and I was like, honey, do you realize you may have to be on stage? And you’re like, no, I’ll work lots. You actually, you wanted me to do band. I did, because I did band, and so I wanted you. And you were like, uh, no, no, and I had to respect that. And it turned out to be the coolest thing because it really has taken you out of your shyness. I mean, you’ve been on stage, you like work and life, you like doing it all. That’s true, it’s cool to see. Okay, well, I’m glad that you’re here today.
Kim and I were recently brainstorming ideas for a show and we talked about how much we love to hear from teenagers like their perspective on things. There’s so many times we think we understand their culture, but we really don’t. You don’t, oh, yes, you don’t, we don’t. And so there’s little things and like I’m always trying to listen to you at home, and so that is how this show was born. We were like, well, I wonder if your daughter Kim was like I wonder if she would be willing. And I said, well, I don’t know, I’m gonna ask her. And when I did, you were like, yes, you can do it. So that’s really cool.
On this show, I really want to talk about a typical day for you, just kind of what that looks like. I want to walk our parents through that so they know, and then maybe, if we have time, at the end maybe talk about some general stressors, and if we don’t have time for that, we’ll roll it into the next show or something. But that’s kind of my vision for this for this one. So let’s start out your typical day like Monday through Friday what it looks like.
0:06:10 – Speaker 1
So let’s see, morning comes, you so.
0:06:14 – Speaker 2
I am not a morning person. I am not a morning person, I’m not either.
0:06:18 – Speaker 1
So most of my friends have to get up really, really early, either to catch a bus or they have like athletics or an extra curricular that they do in the morning and in addition to in the afternoon. You know both. That’s crazy. I can’t even imagine.
0:06:32 – Speaker 2
Which is the good thing about theater. We have a lot of late practices after school, but it’s kind of good because we miss all the traffic a little bit and you don’t have the morning practices typically.
0:06:43 – Speaker 1
So that’s good for us. And another reason some people may have to get there really early is maybe their parents have to go to work and they can’t. You know, they, their parents, have to go to work early and they can’t drop them off late because they’re going to be you know, late to work. Thankfully, my mom has a very flexible schedule.
0:07:01 – Speaker 2
I’m very blessed at that Most of the time.
0:07:03 – Speaker 1
I mean sometimes we got to tweak it, but for the most part so I wake up about seven and then I snooze my alarm clock four or five times and wake up around 745. You are so me, yeah. And then you know, by the time I wake up, like actually get up, I’m like, oh, I’m going to be late, I have to leave in 15 minutes.
0:07:23 – Speaker 2
Well, and let’s talk about that morning routine, because it’s not as easy as when you were an elementary child, when I would do everything for you. Right, let’s talk about that for a second and for one thing.
0:07:33 – Speaker 1
I mean you used to pick out my outfits and that’s something I have to do now. Was that cause stress? Um, cause stress for you? I mean a little bit, because I have to find out, like, what’s going to work for this day, and I’ve, I’m like a planner. I try and plan out my outfits, yeah, but I’m also a procrastinator. You’re a planner and a procrastinator. Yeah, yeah, I see.
0:07:58 – Speaker 2
I actually see that in, but in you. It’s kind of funny to say it, but it’s true.
0:08:02 – Speaker 1
So I try and plan out my outfits, but I usually don’t get to that, so you’re picking out your outfits.
0:08:09 – Speaker 2
Uh-huh, you’re, I don’t. I mean, I help you with your lunch, sometimes Occasionally, but for the most part you’re a teenager now. Like that’s on you, yeah.
0:08:17 – Speaker 1
Get it together.
0:08:18 – Speaker 2
I gotta make my lunch.
0:08:20 – Speaker 1
Everybody’s going a hundred miles an hour in the morning to get it so tempting to just throw in Bag of chips, like you know.
0:08:27 – Speaker 2
Unhealthy.
0:08:28 – Speaker 1
Unhealthy stuff. Bag of chips, burger from Sunday and you know all this junk.
0:08:36 – Speaker 2
You gotta do your chores, you gotta feed the pets. You got responsibilities in the morning. That’s where I’m going at. It’s not like when you were in kindergarten when you woke up and the breakfast was on the you know counter for you and everything was made, and it’s not like that.
0:08:53 – Speaker 1
Because you’re a teenager and you have more responsibility.
0:08:57 – Speaker 2
Okay, so we finally get to school, probably about 8.30 on most days. Now, lots of times you may have to go early, but you know to talk to a teacher to make up work, anything like that. But let’s talk about school now. So classes start about 8.45. And I know you have you’re in classes from like 8.45 to 11.45. So tell us a little bit about stuff. Class stress, like what you know. You don’t have to be general, protect your teachers right here. Don’t call anybody out so tempting. Tell me like just general stressors that you have when you’re in class in the hallway, that kind of stuff.
0:09:39 – Speaker 1
Well, I mean in every class. There’s always the thing in the back of your mind like what if I get called on? You know you’re always scared.
You need to be paying attention, or else the teacher’s gonna see that and they’re gonna be like oh look, they’re not paying attention. I think I’ll embarrass them, right? You know there’s tests. You know we have to study for those. There’s projects In high school. A lot of teachers don’t like to give homework every day. They more of just give you like general, like big assignments at the beginning of the week and then say here, this is due Friday.
0:10:10 – Speaker 2
So you have to manage your time way more. Yeah, yeah. Time management is a big one, yeah, so what about? Okay? Well, I remember sitting in class in high school and always being feared of being called on, right? But I always like to point out to parents, like, the shift that’s happened in parenting, you know, and for me, I remember that and if I did something embarrassing or I said something embarrassing or I humiliated myself, that class would know yeah, but that’s it. But how has that changed?
0:10:40 – Speaker 1
today. Well, you know, we’re supposed to put our phones up during class. We don’t. You know, we’re rebellious teenagers, we don’t do what we’re told. Who would do that? Anyways, I’m glad you’re so honest. If you get called on and you do something totally embarrassing, you know, in your day, that sounds really bad.
0:11:04 – Speaker 2
In your day. It’s okay, I know I’m old.
0:11:07 – Speaker 1
You know just that class with Dylan, maybe a few students outside, but now we have phones, we videotape and we post and you know what started is just you know, a trip in the stairs, Like you’re walking upstairs and you just trip and fall. You know that would have just humiliated yourself in front of those two people that saw you. Yeah, but instead now they can videotape that or post a picture of it and totally make you a meme and then everyone knows.
0:11:36 – Speaker 2
Make you a meme. So this is like a just for the art listeners who don’t know what that is. It’s like a picture or a video with words on it. You see them all day long. They’re just memes. They’re just funny, yeah, and so you are. There is that fear. There’s a real fear that you’re gonna be made into a meme, that you’re gonna be made into like a laughing stock and then it’s gonna be posted, Absolutely Okay. So, parents, here’s where I also wanna interject. These things wouldn’t just get posted on personal pages. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. So in every high school I mean this happens everywhere and middle schools too there are pages run by and I’m doing air quotes here run by anonymous people that nobody knows who they are, and they will post funny things that happen throughout their school. There’s sometimes tell us about these pages Like there could be couples pages.
0:12:28 – Speaker 1
There’s couples pages, relationship pages, there’s meme pages, there’s like gossip pages, and those are the worst. Because you know, meme pages they’re kind of teasing people a little bit, they’re just, you know it’s funny.
0:12:44 – Speaker 2
But gossip pages, it’s like the real deal, it’s like real cyber bullying, it’s bad stuff, yeah, so you always have that fear that you’re gonna end up in one of those places. Now, what I have seen, though, is I will tell you parents, let me just say, when we’ve seen really bad stuff, like it gets taken down and we haven’t had to report it.
So I feel like people are out there I mean kids are doing the right thing, and also like what would you say? 90% of what you see is just fun stuff. It’s not mean, but we worry about that 10% or you know that small. I mean I’m generalizing here. We worry about that small percentage of stuff that’s really hateful and really mean and uncalled for. Okay, so you’re in classes 8.45 to 11.45. You’ve got those things that you have to worry about. Oh, one other thing that you always complain about. Let me bring this up real quick Group work.
0:13:43 – Speaker 1
Oh my gosh, I can’t, I can’t even. Okay, hold on, hold on.
0:13:48 – Speaker 2
If you’re just now tuning in, this is nextTalk Radio at 2pm on AM 6.30,. The word nextTalk Radio is sponsored in part by PAX Financial Group and listeners just like you. Everything we do at our nonprofit to keep kids safe online is accomplished through your donations To support our organization. Go to nexttalkorg and click on give.
0:14:12 – Speaker 3
There’s big news if you are an investment client of USAA. Just recently, USAA announced that a Cleveland Ohio Corporation has entered into an agreement to purchase USAA Asset Management. They have always been an exceptional organization and will continue to serve our community well, but if you are considering a change, this might be the right time to look at San Antonio’s PAX Financial Group. 210-881-5700, PAXFinancialGroupcom.
0:14:38 – Speaker 2
Investment advisory services offered through PAX Financial Group. Okay, if you’re just now tuning in, I’ve got my teen daughter in the studio today and we are talking about stresses that she has at school and I just asked her about one that she complained a lot about. Oh, my gosh Group work.
0:14:59 – Speaker 1
Group work will forever annoy me. It doesn’t matter who I’m with. I will always end up doing work and I will never get the credit. What it’s true. You can’t deny it. It’s true.
0:15:14 – Speaker 2
Okay for you parents that are listening, I’m working on this. I know that she needs to be a team player. You don’t have to tell me. I know she needs to be a team player, but this is stressful for you it’s terrible.
0:15:27 – Speaker 1
Why? Because, okay, for one thing, I’m an introvert. I work best by myself. Yeah, and I’m also a very opinionated person. Don’t say Really no, and I’m also very controlling. I guess I like to have things my way.
0:15:47 – Speaker 2
Well, you like to have it done, right? Yeah, I see that you think you’re controlling. I don’t know that that’s really the right word to use, but I you’re humbling yourself.
0:16:00 – Speaker 1
I want things done right and I want things done efficiently.
0:16:05 – Speaker 2
I think that’s the perfectionist in you. Yeah, that really we need to work on a little bit, because in the real world, girl, you’re going to have to have a lot of teamwork, but it’s really good. What I love about it is you recognize that you struggle with this. Yeah, you recognize it and you know it’s a challenge. We have a lot of conversations about this, okay.
So then let’s see. So you’re in class 845 to 1145. Then you go to lunch. Lunch is the best part of the day, but you have 30 minutes for lunch. Okay, lunch is the best part of the day, why?
0:16:42 – Speaker 1
Because you don’t have to worry about getting cold on. It’s not class, got it. You know you can hang out with your friends, but you know, on like the first couple days of school it’s also the most stressful part of the day. Okay, because you know in your classes you usually have a science eating, so they’re just tell you where to go and you’re just like all right, you know, I’ll try and make some friends here, but at lunch it’s it’s literally like a movie All the stereotypes and you know you try and sit down at one table and they all move away. That’s. That’s how I felt on the first day. I was like where do I sit? Where are my friends?
0:17:18 – Speaker 2
It’s kind of like where do I belong? Well, yeah, you kind of feeling that way and you know what. This is the good part about technology, because I know we talked about this and you were stressed out about it, you know, the first day, because a lot of your friends didn’t have the same lunch as you and you were like how am I going to do this? And one of my one of the girls on the nextTalk team said, which was great advice, Ms Holly. She said have her, take earbuds and a book and a book. You always have the option to sit there with earbuds and a book in and you won’t look, you know, misplaced, because a lot of teens like to keep to themselves, and so we had that as your backup plan, but it was still stressful for you.
0:17:57 – Speaker 1
Still stressful and all the stereotypes at lunch. It’s like I said, it’s it’s literally like a movie. You know you have all these different stereotypical tables. You have the jock table and the cheerleader table and the the nerd table all these people.
0:18:12 – Speaker 2
Well, and the other thing that I like to talk to parents about is the difference. So we had that when we grew up. We, you know, we had exactly what you’re saying, just trying to figure out where to set. But there’s a new element to this because, again, the phones. So when you said, I mean, are you exposed to things at lunch on other people’s phones?
0:18:32 – Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, yeah, all the time I mean all the time, all the time, because I’ll be talking about a video and then I’m like, wait, what are you talking about? And they’ll just turn their phone and there it is. I’m like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t need to see that.
0:18:46 – Speaker 2
Yeah, TMI. So being in TMI is too much information for those of you.
0:18:51 – Speaker 1
Oh my gosh I got it.
0:18:54 – Speaker 2
Girl we got people minds. That’s not new slang, I know it’s not, but we got to. I mean, I don’t know some of this, so I want our listeners to be able to know exactly what we’re talking about when we say it. Whatever you say All right, All right, all right all right, OK, Matthew McGottagay.
Ok, so the phones at the lunch table? Definitely exposure. What about, say, you pick a table and you’ve been there a week or so and then you’re getting exposed to things and they’re showing you really cruddy stuff online and you’re like I got to get away from this table. What is that like?
0:19:30 – Speaker 1
It’s hard. It’s really hard to try to switch tables because you’re just trying to protect yourself, but the people you’re sitting with don’t know that. They think you’re being mean and they think you’re just abandoning them and betraying them and that you’re just moving on to someone cooler. So it’s a whole thing. It’s a whole thing.
0:19:49 – Speaker 2
It’s a whole thing. Ok, so let’s go back to your schedule. We’re done with lunch. Now. You get 30 minutes of downtime, Then from 12.15 to 4.10, you’re in class again.
0:20:03 – Speaker 1
Yeah.
0:20:03 – Speaker 2
So tell me stressors other throughout the day, like one that I’m thinking about, bathrooms. Oh my gosh, let’s talk about the bathrooms.
0:20:12 – Speaker 1
Well, most high school bathrooms are just disgusting, just everything about them. Like they don’t have locks on the doors, some of them I mean it depends where you go to high school but there’s toilet water on the ground and people throw. The thing now is people throw whole toilet paper rolls in the toilet. Oh my gosh, that’s disgusting. It clogs it up and what a waste. Yeah.
0:20:35 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I can’t OK. And what about what goes on in the bathrooms Like let’s?
0:20:41 – Speaker 1
talk about that for a second. A lot of people like to refer to bathrooms as jewel rooms, as in places where you go to vape.
0:20:49 – Speaker 2
OK, so let’s pause here for a minute. Jewel J-U-U-L we talked about on our vaping show, and if you don’t know about this, go listen to that show. Jewel is one of the leading producers of this e-cigarette. Yes, these vapes and these vapes. They come in all different scents and it’s almost like candy, yeah, so, grape, coconut, melon, everything, yeah, watermelon, bubblegum, bubblegum, all these flavors, and so when you go into the bathroom sometimes you will smell that correct.
0:21:20 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I’ve just decided to roll for myself, no matter how much I have to go to the bathroom If I start to walk in and I smell a vape or a drug. If I smell mm, mm, yeah, y’all. You know what I’m saying I’m talking about. Yeah, if I smell that, I just walk out. I’m not going in there. You wait, you wait Because even say they get caught. Yeah, say I walked in and I went to the bathroom.
And you saw what was going on and I saw what was going on and then I left and I didn’t do anything, like I didn’t tell a teacher. But then they get caught. They automatically assume I was a snitch, which means I told on them, so you become a target.
0:22:00 – Speaker 2
I become a target. Yeah, so this OK, this sounds really stressful to me, and I mean, I remember it in my school too, but I don’t think I remembered it as a freshman being having to deal with it, and so does this stress you out, or are you like OK, it’s something we have to deal with and I’m fine with it Because you love high school.
0:22:20 – Speaker 1
You tell me all the time, yeah.
0:22:21 – Speaker 2
You love high school For the most part, for the most part, so it’s just a matter of this is one of the things we have to deal with and I’m OK with it Because it’s part of our culture. And I have to know about vaping and I know that and tell me how many kids are doing vaping.
0:22:37 – Speaker 1
Oh, like I say, everyone, not everyone is vaping. There are good people, but it’s a commonality. It is a thing. It’s a commonality, a thing, I don’t know.
0:22:47 – Speaker 2
We can say it. It’s OK. I make up words all the time. Yeah, OK, so let’s talk about OK. Then you have rehearsal after school. We got to hurry Because this show has taken way much longer than we thought. You have normally 5.30 or 7. Is when I’m picking you up. That’s typically the time it’s a range, and what is crazy to me is that some of your friends then go on to basketball and other sports.
0:23:11 – Speaker 1
It’s crazy Like I have some junior friends who they have rehearsal until 5.30 every day and then they go to their sport until like 7. And then they have a game that night and they go till 9. But they also have four AP classes, which are college credit classes, that they’re having to deal with.
0:23:30 – Speaker 2
So literally they are at school from like eight in the morning to like nine or ten at night or earlier, because they had together for practice or nine or ten at night, and then they got four pre-AP classes of homework, which is we’re going to be a lot.
So for us, we’re blessed that she’s only in theater, I mean, and she’s that’s good, but that has allowed you to focus more on your academics. So let’s talk for a minute about class rank, because that is a thing as well. Oh, this is always a thing. Okay, just tell us about class rank, the stress of class rank. In Texas, if you’re top 10 percent, you get into any public university except for UT Austin, which is 6% At the moment. So it’s very competitive to get in that percentage. What happens when you are in that percentage? When you were in the top 10 percent?
0:24:19 – Speaker 1
Well, story time. Just you know, just a little while ago we got our first class rank and GPA and you know I saw my nose like cool, you know that’s good. And then I put my paper down and someone snatched my paper, which means they took my paper away for those people who don’t know, they know what snatched.
Okay, well, it’s coming back, it’s a new thing, okay, okay. So they took my paper and they looked at it and they were like she has this. And so they were telling everyone my class rank and GPA. And instantly everyone looked at me and I was a target. They hated you, they hate me now.
0:24:54 – Speaker 2
So they make funny, you kind of in play in play but still it’s an added stress.
0:24:59 – Speaker 1
It’s like the Hunger Games. It’s every man for themselves. It’s literally that’s how it is. You feel targeted if you’re good.
0:25:06 – Speaker 2
Okay, so we have to touch on that. We’re going to have to roll some stuff into the next show because we’re running out of time, but thank you for being here. We’re going to continue this show on the next one because we have a lot more to talk about, like our evening and how that works. We just couldn’t get it all into this one, so that’s okay, stay around. We’re going to have you on the next show as well.
0:25:29 – Speaker 1
Well, you’re driving me home, so I can’t really leave.
0:25:33 – Speaker 3
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk Radio with Mandy and Kim on AM630, the Word. You are not alone trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and podcast at NextTalkorg. Are you ready for the nextTalk?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
