I received an email from Lynette Tan, a student of SMU inviting me to attend their  parent-child communication talk as well as to give them some publicity on my blog.  While I’m not certain if I will attend the talk, I’m most happy to help them publicise their event.

The free talk is titled Talking With Your Child and is part of the SMU module to help enhance parent-child communication on the topic of sex.  

It will be held on Saturday, 4 November 2006 at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business from 0930 to 1330.  The speaker is Ms Liz Gay, a certified non-violent communication trainer. 

RSVP required.  Please contact:
lynette.tan.2006@smu.edu.sg or cheryl.ong.2006@smu.edu.sg

Being parents these days is really tough.  Not only do we have to provide for our kids, we need to know the right communication techniques and not come across as too over bearing or protective.  At the same time, we still need to be extra vigilant in order to keep them out of trouble. 

I have blogged about how some mummies are manually keeping track of their kids and joked about hiring a professional to do the job for me in time.  It might not have to be that extreme but with children today being able to access to a whole gamut of computer tools, we do need to be very technologically savvy to keep track of their activities.  I’ve even read of parents having to resort to sophisticated survelliance software to monitor their kid’s online activities.  And to think that I thought such programs were only used to monitor spouses!

Some will probably irk at the thought of spying on their kids and find this totally intrusive and ridiculous.  I do too.  But think about it.  There are too many weirdos lurking online.  Do we want to take the risk to let our kids, especially those who are more gullible, fall prey to these predators?  It’s a fine line between privacy and responsibility really. 

Fortunately for me, my boy is still young and I still have time to think about this.  So perhaps I should find time to attend the talk and pick up the communication skills first.   

Oh, before I forget.  Refreshments are included for the free talk.