For parents, the primary prom-related concerns aren't financial. Our biggest prom worries are the risky behaviors associated with proms, most specifically driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and unsafe sex.

I'm starting to feel like these kids are immune or maybe even hardened to what seems to be evolving into a horrible, cold, cruel world. Do they not care? Or are they simply blasé, as one of my best friends describes her children?

What if the American Dream had little to do with what "we" wanted, and more to do with who "they" are? I'm a firm believer that every student has been given an ability, a desire, a gift even, where they are made to be something.

Sure, your little kids may not have slept, may have barfed in your hair and thrown tantrums in the grocery store, but teens still throw up, only now it is a much bigger worry, and good luck picking them up and putting them in their rooms when you want to change their behavior.

Children have no chance against this tsunami of unhealthy messages that drowns them in a torrent of poor eating and obesity. While your children are immersed in media, playing video games or surfing the web, they are being sedentary instead of physically active.

As I drove Benj to his school, I thought about the poignancy of showing this particular movie to a group of children who struggle with making and sustaining peer relationships, telling and understanding jokes, coloring outside the lines -- all the things Ferris Bueller does so effortlessly.

Luckily, the more I walk on the parenting tightrope, the more confident I am that I'll be able to stay centered. It's not like I have a choice. There's no way I'm going to fall and fail my daughter. I am her rock, her home base, her safety. I am her mother.

Hey, let's be honest, There's no manual for raising teenagers. Sure, there's plenty of parenting books on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, but what happens when your kid decides not to follow the linear timeline your particular parenting favorite outlines?

I'm finding more and more teenagers don't have "hang out places" anymore, they've found their tribe of friends on social media and smart phones. Looking someone in the eye is a foreign concept for a new generation of emerging adults.

As my teenage son has told me, he too is relying on telecommuting to realize his current goal in life. He gets lonely in his home office, aka his smelly sock-strewn bedroom as well.

When you have a baby, you imagine it gets easier as they get older. That by the time they are nearly 19, they won't have the ability to make you doubt yourself. But today I had a day where it was hard to remember the good parenting moments.