Silent Parenting: Why Sometimes Saying Less Is Actually Saying More
If you’re raising teens (not Raising Cane’s), you already know the soundtrack of the house. Some days it’s loud, chaotic, full of random noises, and half-finished stories. Other days, you get the famous closed door, headphones on, minimal eye contact. In that mix, there’s a growing concept people keep talking about: silent parenting.
When Will 6-7 Actually End?
If you’ve spent more than five minutes around a pre-teen or teenager lately, or dared to open TikTok without body armour, you’ve probably encountered the unstoppable force known as 6-7. At this point, it feels less like a meme and more like a gas leak slowly filling the house. You don’t see it at first. Then suddenly your kid is muttering “six-seven” while pouring cereal, entire classrooms are chanting it like it’s the national anthem, and some poor teacher is Googling “how to manage children possessed by numbers.”
The real question for those of us in the trenches is simple: when does this actually stop? As a dad who has survived the dab era, the flossing era, the Skibidi Toilet era, and whatever the hell was going on with “griddy” for three years too long, I’ve earned the right to ask.
Teens In Winter: The Annual Negotiation That Makes Zero Sense
Parenting teenagers in Canada during winter is like arguing with a person who fundamentally believes they are immune to the laws of thermodynamics. You can show them sideways snow, minus 20 wind chill, ice pellets hitting the window like BB gun fire…and they’ll still walk out the door in a hoodie like they’re genetically engineered for a climate-controlled mall. Every generation thinks they invented rebellion. Today’s teens seem convinced they’ve also invented not needing a core body temperature.
There is this cultural myth that you get better at parenting the older your kids get. I’m here to report that is absolute nonsense. Parenting teenagers is mostly bargaining, strategic surrender, and muttering to yourself in the backyard while pretending to take out recycling that isn’t even full.
This is the winter version.
When Teens Get Nostalgic for a Life That’s Only Just Begun
It caught me off guard. My oldest son, now sixteen and firmly in the “don’t make a big deal out of anything” phase, casually asked if we were going to do a family walk on Thanksgiving. It was something we used to do when the kids were little, mostly due to needing something to do when all the usual options were closed. You know the walk. A post-breakfast shuffle through a local neighbourhood, everyone bundled up, and ideally enjoying themselves.