How do you know that you are making the best choices for your child? Be aware that things can go very wrong.

We are all motivated to do the right thing by our children! We love our kids and secondly we are the parents believing that we know what is best. Or do we?

But what if we get it wrong? What if you choose a private high school and your teenager is very unhappy? What if your child does not want to be at school? Or does not like your idea of of home schooling away from his/her friends? Or worse still your child truants because he/she has fallen in with the wrong crowd.?

Needless to say the choices kids make have the potential to create the biggest dramas and dilemmas. It then ends up for the parents to cope and fix up if possible. All they really want to do is raise and educate their kids to reach their potential.

The kids are doing is what is best for them. Friction and dissension happens creating worry and heartbreak.



Hazel's son Adrian was flourishing academically at a primary school in Sydney when the family shifted to a regional town in Queensland, for Adrian's dad to take up a manager's position. Everything changed when they moved. Despite finding an excellent state school with a good reputation, he changed after about 6 months. Hazel saw him slowly disengaging from learning as he joined the 'naughty crowd of kids'. She recalls how carefully her husband and herself chose a private high school for Adrian thinking that this would be a successful placement for him, but he only fell in with the wrong crowd.

By grade 10 Adrian's attendance at school was very spasmodic until he completely disengaged from school. Rather than living on the streets Hazel and her husband opened their home for Adrian and his girlfriend. The police knocked on the door one day asking to search their room for drugs. Hazel and Martin agreed to the search believing that Adrian must accept consequences. Hazel said that eventually Adrian got a Boiler Making apprenticeship which he stuck at and completed. She has never stopped supporting Adrian and his girlfriend, who ended up having children, she continued doing her best for Adrian and her two grandsons.



This is a true story. I recall Hazel blaming the shift for Adrian's changed behaviours. She was most reflective and sad. Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. Maybe he would have still changed if the family had stayed in Sydney.

The reality is that parents cannot ultimately control what their children/teenagers do. This is the hard part, parents can only wait, watch and jump in when things go wrong. Sadly in some cases it is not always in their power to make it better. Kids make choices, they hold the balance of power.