Just last year, I thought my parents were actually getting cooler. That’s when I learned that I was completely wrong. It all started when the Topsfield Fair came back into our town and my parents said that I could walk around with my friends instead of with them. The look on my face was probably priceless. Finally, when we got to the fair, I went off with all my friends constantly getting texts from my mom asking how I was and if I was okay. Now and then I would get a call from my mom, who was constantly annoying and embarrassing me in front of my friends. Then around 10:00pm on First Night thought I heard my little sister Jaime complaining so I turned around and I saw my parents spying on me and my friends. Then I thought to myself if you looked “un-cool” in the dictionary you would find a picture of my mom and dad. As if that is not bad enough, they said they wouldn’t do it again and the next time I watched them leave and go to the little kid part of the fair. They still ended up behind me about an hour later. So if you don’t think my parents are “un-cool” something is going on in your head that’s making you not think straight. If you are like this and you are a parent, you have a lot of work to do to get you to even be able to act and pull off being a cool parent. Another thing, don’t treat your teen like they are five years old and embarrass them all you want. Let them be free for a few years and learn how to be a cool parent.

If you think that you are one of the “cool” parents but you really aren’t, here are some things to help you get some coolness points and move yourself up in the parent popularity chain. Just to start you off, don’t live under a rock and not know how to work electronics. If you don’t have and IPad, IPhone, or IPod you should stop whatever you’re doing and at least get one of those things. If you don’t do that, than stop living in the 21st century and go back to the dark ages where there was no technology at all. But, if you do have one of these very advanced technologies your popularity will rise because everyone likes the people who have the cool technology. It will also help your teen’s popularity a little if you get an IPhone and get them one too.

Another way to get lots of “coolness points” from your teen and for your teen is to get them an Xbox 360 with Xbox Live so they can play and talk with their friends while playing MW3 (Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3) or NHL12 or whatever other games that they play. If you don’t get this for your teen, or let them play MW3 they will probably drop in the popularity chain and you will definitely lose “coolness points” from your teen and his friends. Always remember this, Teen + MW3 + Xbox 360 = Happy teen and more “coolness points” for you.

Some other good “deeds” you could do to help yourself and your teen is to get them a nice touch phone from Verizon or AT&T. If you get them one of those crappy flip phones, how are they supposed to text or play Temple Run or Angry Birds on their phones? Also if they have the phone that nobody has, they move up to like first in the popularity chain. Would you like to see your teen suffer through the pain of having a flip phone?

A really important part of being a cool parents that most parents miss is that they shouldn’t always be the safety first parent. If you are one and you have a habit of being one you should really get a new one. If you don’t get rid of that safety first parenting idea quick you might as well send your teen to school wrapped up in bubble wrap with a helmet on so everybody can figure out that you are a safety first parent. Also nobody wants to hang out with the kid with the safety first “un-cool” parent. So if you ever cross that line to becoming a safety first parent you should just move so your teen doesn’t have to suffer from all of the embarrassment of his parents and all of his friends laughing at him every day.

Something very important to remember is that let your kids have a social life and don’t relive your child life with them. That’s what all the lame parents do. So let your teen go out on his own and don’t ever read their texts or email and definitely don’t but in on one of his conversations with a girl. Just let them go out whenever they want unless they know that they have something to do that night but besides that whenever. Most parents including mine make everything be planned out at least 48 hours in advance. So I’m guessing you can imagine if they wanted to go out one night and they forgot to tell you and you didn’t let them go I’m guessing you can tell what would happen to you. If not they would scream and keep on yelling at you not to talk to them ever again and that they hate you and that you never let them do anything with their friends etc.

Most parents’ miss that if there kids think that they are boring but they think that they are cool than they are usually boring. Every parent of any teen needs to know when to stop using word that they think are cool like… hip, fashionable, groovy, etc. These words will definitely throw your teen over the edge and they will go ballistic on you because you will have embarrassed them so much. As you can probably tell, never in your present and future life ever use these words or it will be a very bad several teen years for you. Good luck to you and your teen.

So really, tell me the truth. There is a lot more to being a cool parent than you thought, right? As Clarence S. Darrow once stated, “The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents…,” so don’t be the lame, overly embarrassing, safety first parent or it will be a very tough next several years for you. So as many of the older Irish men say, “May the Luck of the Irish be with you.”