by Pam Parish

Alright, I have girls, so I know this is probably a bigger issue for us than if we had boys. However, no matter the gender of your children, you must realize the importance of talking with them - about stuff that interests them. Do I really care what Zac Efron’s (that’s Troy Bolton in High School Musical for those uneducated of you out there) favorite fast food is? No, really, I don’t - but I know it’s Quiznos (at the time of this writing [cause we all know it'll change] he’s Heather’s dreamboat). You have to know what interests your kids and get interested too, if you don’t they’ll find friends who are and you can’t always guarantee that it would be friends you’d approve of.

But it’s not just the small stuff that you have to talk with them about. It’s the big stuff too. Our girls talk to us about sex, boys, friendships, fights, struggles in their relationship with God, when they hurt, when their confused and when they just simply want to rattle on-and-on-and-on-and-on about their day. No subject is off limits in our house (and believe me sometimes they shock us), if they’re coming to us for advice, we’re all ears and we want to help them because we want them to know the truth from a place of wisdom and love. Moms of daughters, when’s the last time you curled up in bed beside your daughter and just said, “Wazz up?” - try it sometimes, they love it. (by the way, Heather made me change ‘What’s up’ to ‘Wazz up’ because she said I wasn’t being cool…hmmm…need to work oh my ‘cool factor’, I guess.)