Teen-busting website coming soon

PARENTS HAVE MOMENTARILY STOPPED complaining about social networking sites – as they now have one of their very own.

For those of you with troublesome teens, there is now help at hand brought to you by Parentline Plus, who also run a 24-hour telephone helpline.

If you have time in amongst all the clock-watching and slamming doors you can log on to new parenting service gotateenager.org which, the charity hopes, will stamp out the myth that parenting becomes easier as children grow older.

The government is keen to get in on this one and it is funding this operation - they obviously have a lot of faith in this country's parenting skills.

It also looks very much like Parentline Plus has set this gig up to get calls of its back, as Valerie Outram of Parentline Plus complains that most of the calls the charity received were from parents of teenagers who had nowhere else to turn.

"After your child turns 13, you are pretty much on your own," she said. This is clearly a dangerous age for any parent.

The website is designed for parents to gossip and exchange complaints about their frightening monsters – basically they have a good old moan behind their child's back and hope that others will give them advice.

Even more ridiculously, this refuge website will carry a "jargon buster" so that parents can effectively de-code what their child is talking about, innit.

However, on a more serious note this website will give advice for more severe problems than an untidy bedroom, as they will provide advice on drink and drug troubles.

Ms Outram also explains a serious condition which parents are frequently suffering from – that of selective memory loss, "One of the things we encourage parents to do is sit down and remember all the awful things they did as teenagers," although we think these memories may be lost forever.

L'Inq

Times