A Word of Advice: Make time for your family

Lifestyles

Discussion

COMMENTING ON STORIES:

Welcome to our story comments feature. We welcome your thoughts and your opinions, including the unpopular ones. We only ask that you keep your conversations clean, civil and on the topic of the story you are commenting on.

Coinciding with our websites redesign, we launched our new story comments feature through Disqus.

Disqus gives users the ability to log into our story comments feature so that they may be able to track their conversations, receive emails when their comments get a reply or to even have your comments update onto your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

For the time being, our story comments feature will continue to have the ability to post comments anonymously. We reserve the right to require registration in the future using your name and verified email address.

Not all comments are deemed printable. Some are disqualified at the newspaper’s discretion for a number of different reasons. Please follow our Online Rules of Conduct at all times.

RULES OF CONDUCT:

We reserve the right to remove comments that are unacceptable, to wit:

1. False and inacurate statements.
2. Personal attacks. Explicit name-calling.
3. Harassing, harmful, vulgar, obscene and defamatory language.
4. Threatening statements or statements that suggest violence.
5. Hate speech of any kind.
6. Intolerant comments on religion, race, age, gender, sexual preference or disabilities.
7. Accusations of criminal activity.
8. Content that is harmful to children and minors in any way.
9. References to any type of sexual activity and other private matters.
10. Random and inflammatory statements that are off topic.
11. Advertising of any kind.
12. Typing in all caps.

WE ENCOURAGE REASONABLE AND COURTEOUS COMMENTS THAT:

1. Create conversation on issues of interest and concern to fellow readers and local community members.
2. Express opinions and contrarian views.
3. Stimulate debate with respectful language.
4. Stay within the boundaries of these rules.

WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SUSPEND OR TERMINATE ACCESS FOR:

1. Violating any of these Online Rules of Conduct.
2. Deliberately disrupting discussions with repetitive messages, meaningless messages or spam.
3. Misrepresentation of identity or impersonating another user.

WE WELCOME:

1. Flagging violations of these rules that you observe to our attention.

MONITORING:

We monitor comments regularly Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Approval of comments outside of this time (including weekends) will be sporadic.

comments powered by Disqus

August 20, 2011

A Word of Advice: Make time for your family

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Sat Aug 20, 2011, 03:30 AM EDT

When times get busy, it's easy to lose yourself in the chaos. However, it is important to make sure you stop and make time for your family.

With college right around the corner, I have been working my butt off to save as much money as I can. With work every day, chores to do and preparing for college, it is hard to make time for everyone. However, this summer, I had to make sure that I spent time with both sides of my family before I left for college. This means visiting family on both my mom's and dad's sides.

No matter how crazy your life seems to get, don't forget about the family that has helped make it all possible. I can say that without my mom and dad pushing me to get a job, I probably would not be working today. They made me see that with a job, life does get easier. Although it can be stressful and tiring working a lot, it is all worth it when I get my paycheck at the end of the week. Having my own money to spend on what I need is wonderful, no question about it.

With going off to college in a few weeks, I feel overwhelmed with excitement and, at the same time, nervousness. I have never been away from my mom for more than a month, and now I'll only get to visit every so often. I will make the most out of the time I have at school by studying, meeting new people and introducing myself into the field in which I want to have a career.

Without a doubt, college is crazy, hectic and complete chaos, so it's important that you take a break every once and a while to make a phone call back home. We all know your parents will be worrying about you.

Some of us may not be used to spending time with our families. However, no parent would deny the request of having a family night. Watch a movie together, go mini golfing or even sit down and have dinner together.

What my dad and stepmom used to do at dinner time when I and my sister would visit, was bring out a "question book." The book was filled with question of all sorts, from "What would you do with a million dollars?" to "Would you ever backstab a friend for a boy?"

Some of the questions were silly, however, no matter what the question was, it was interesting to see what the responses were from family members. Asking questions at dinner makes for great bonding and getting to know one another even more.

We take advantage of family time nowadays, but I know that as soon as I go off to college I will miss the days when we all watched TV together or went out to dinner.

So put your phone away and spend some time with the family that has always been there for you.

Soon enough, you will be on your own, wishing you could go back and eat some of your mom's famous (or not) mac and cheese.

Melissa Flathmann, a 2011 graduate of Oneonta High School, will be a freshman at the State University College at Plattsburgh this fall. Would you like A Word of Advice from her? Send her an e-mail at melissa_flath@yahoo.com or send her a letter to "Teen Talk: A Word of Advice," C/O The Daily Star, P.O. Box 250, Oneonta, NY 13820. 'Teen Talk' columns can be found at www.thedailystar.com/teentalk.