By CAROLYN ZIKE

For The Beachcomber

Have you ever wondered how you would answer if your middle schooler asked you if you drank in high school when “bottoms-up” was your nickname? Or how to teach anger management when you find yourself yelling? Ever worried about your teen being peer-pressured and wonder if they have the skills they need to refuse?

This October and November, Vashon Youth & Family Services has teamed up with McMurray Middle School to host a five- week workshop series called Guiding Good Choices. This workshop series brings parents together to delve into the mysterious inner workings of adolescent development and the risks kids face today. We look at what we, as parents, can do to increase our influence over our kids’ behavior, lowering the risk of our teen getting into trouble.

The series builds parents’ skills to better handle the budding and sometimes unfriendly personality of these young adults, while setting firm boundaries and family policies to keep kids safe.

“Think of rules or family policies as guardrails for kid’s behaviors,” said Yvonne Zick, who works with school districts to host these workshops. “Raising teens is difficult, and what we try to accomplish in our workshops is looking at why it’s hard, where to step in to make things easier on everyone — including the pre-teen or teen — and how to increase bonding with our kids so that we have more influence.”

“We don’t tell parents what’s right for their children,” Zick adds. “We give them facts and tools to help parents set policies that match their family beliefs. If taking a sip of mom’s champagne at a wedding is okay, when is it not okay, and have you clearly explained the difference to your kids? If your middle school child is at a friend’s house and something occurs that is against your family’s policy, do they know how to decline the trouble and still keep their friend? We ask questions and offer tools to help parents set boundaries and send a clear message of what their expectations are.”

Parents try to do the right thing when it comes to raising kids; these workshops just give them a few more tools to make the job easier and the message of what we want from our kids clearer.

Guiding Good Choices will meet from 6:45 to 8:45 p.m. Wednesdays, Oct. 8, 15, 22, 29 and Nov. 5, at the McMurray Middle School Library. Contact me at 463-9168, ext. 211, or czike@vashonsd.org to enroll.

— Carolyn Zike is a counselor at

McMurray Middle School.