photo credit: Tanya Ryno

I recently had to send this email message to my normally well-behaved 12-year-old:

Hey, Cheechooguy (or whatever your screen name is these days),

You seem to be circumventing (that means “going around”) parental controls lately by asking permission to add people to your instant messaging list, then signing into my email and giving yourself permission. This is NOT how parental controls are supposed to work. Please don’t do this anymore, or your supply of bean/cheese burritos, brownies and ESPN will be cut off. If you force your dad and me to change our email passwords to something even we won’t be able to remember, we will be eternally crabby. Seriously.

Love you,

Mom

[Note: This is not a child who engages in risky behavior. If he were, I would have a totally different response.]