MJ Vieweg | RealiTeen

Tia Bandavanis

My name is Tia and I'm very excited to join the Realteen team. I am a fun-loving, caring, and colorful person. I begin and end everyday with a smile. There is only one man in my life and that is my 15 yr. old son John. It's been my job to raise my son from a young age through his teen years. I am a single mom and I feel as though I have done my best to help my son become a responsible young man. I was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in the Maryland and D.C. area. I moved to Jacksonville, North Carolina in 1992. I now consider myself to be a native. I miss family dearly but find ways to visit often. My home and heart is here in Onslow County. This is pretty much due to the fact that I have raised my son here and found it to be a great place to live. I currently teach preschool at a local preschool. I have been teaching for over 20 years. I love children of all ages and could not imagine myself doing any other profession. I enjoy outings with my son to the movies, watching football, visiting local spots such as the Lynwood Park Zoo, going to the beach, and canoeing along our local rivers. I look forward to writing and reading the blogs. I feel this is a great opportunity to explore my parenting role and others. Parenting my teen son has been very rewarding and challenging. However, I have learned that being an effective parent is about learning and growing along with my son!

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I’m MJ Vieweg, one of the original MomTalk Bloggers. Other than a 6-month hiatus, I have been sharing my thoughts on the trials and joys (yes, there are some) of raising teenagers for over two years. I have two teen sons; Max who is nearly 14 and Gus, who is 16. Max is still with me at home, Gus got a chance to fly the coop early and is finishing his high school years at the North Carolina School of Math and Science in Durham. Like any mom, I’d like to have a good relationship with my sons. In addition, I try to parent with a purpose - I want to raise confident, optimistic, and resilient kids. Maybe not so easy to do for a single parent, and not something you can assume will happen even when you think you are doing your best, but certainly worth striving for. Much of what I share on this blog are my experiences trying to secure that good relationship with my boys and encouraging those three traits in them. I believe whole-heartedly in this quote attributed to Jackie Onassis: "If you bungle raising your children, nothing else in life you do really matters." Stop by often, read my posts and share your thoughts!

Selective Hearing

February 5th, 2012 MJ Vieweg

"Do you hear me now?" Do teens develop hearing problems?

I think Max has a hearing problem. Lately, it seems he hears only half of what I tell him. For instance, the other day as I headed out …
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Mom’s Annual Inspection

February 4th, 2012 MJ Vieweg

Are you better at taking care of your kid's health than your own?

I took the van in last week for its annual inspection and emission test. For some reason that prompted me to wonder when was the …
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Un-Civil Society

February 2nd, 2012 MJ Vieweg

Maybe bullying is still tolerated too much these days.

A friend and I met for coffee to catch up. She had worked on a media project promoting Teen Suicide Awareness and talked about how widespread the problem teen …
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Laughter is in the House!

January 30th, 2012 MJ Vieweg

"Count the day lost that you don't laugh with your kids." - authour unknown
A wonderful by-product of having kids is the laughter they bring into our lives. It’s a rare day when one of my boys doesn’t …
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Exercise Your Brain

January 29th, 2012 MJ Vieweg

Exercise is good for the brain, too.

There seems to be a new trend in health and fitness literature. One email newsletter I subscribe to featured an article about how exercise impacts the ability and ease with which …
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