【推荐1】The other day, I came home from work to find my son Lucas ignoring me. When I asked him what he was up to, he said he was working on some schoolwork and couldn’t talk. Seeing the focus and attention he was giving to this “assignment”, I decided to wander over and see what he was up to. After sitting next to him for a minute, I was lost in focus, trying to observe and remember as many details of the crime scene as possible. This was my son’s school. He logged in with his iPad, and did all his schoolwork online. This was his Forensic Science course.

After completing this “assignment”, Lucas decided he wanted to go out and played basketball and then danced while playing his guitar. He may be only 15, but he sets his own schedule. He has shown he is responsible when it comes to this.

Last summer, my wife needed to develop a website for her new business. We had looked into some services online, but my son insisted he knew how to do it. After consistently surprising us, we decided to give him a shot. When we saw the final results, we were floored. We could not believe a 15-year-old child created this professional-looking site.

I could not be happier with our decision to send Lucas to an online school. He is learning far more than he would be at his public school. I can actually have an adult conversation with him. We discuss politics, history, and science, among many other things. It’s amazing he is only 15. He is well behaved and respectful, and I don’t worry who he is hanging out with. I’m grateful we had this opportunity.

【推荐2】Parents and kids today dress alike, listen to the same music, and are friends. Is this a good thing?

Sometimes, when Mr. Ballmer and his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, listen to rock music together and talk about interests both enjoy, such as pop culture, he remembers his more distant relationship with his parents when he was a teenager.

“I would never have said to my mom, ‘Hey, the new Maroon 5 album is really great. How do you like it?’” says Ballmer. “There was just a complete gap in taste.”

Music was not the only gulf. From clothing and hairstyles to activities and expectations, earlier generations of parents and children often appeared to move in separate orbits.

Today, the generation gap has not disappeared, but it is getting narrow in many families. Conversations on subjects such as sex and drugs would not have taken place a generation ago. Now they are comfortable and common. And parent-child activities, from shopping to sports, involve a feeling of mutual trust and friendship that can continue into adulthood.

But family experts warn that the new equality can also result in less respect for parents. “There’s still a lot of strictness and authority on the part of parents out there, but there is a change happening,” says Kerrie, a psychology professor at Lebanon Valley College. “In the middle of that change, there is a lot of confusion among parents.”

Family researchers offer a variety of reasons for these evolving roles and attitudes. They see the 1960s as a turning point. Great cultural changes led to more open communication and a more democratic (民主的) process that encourages everyone to have a say.

“My parents were on the ‘before’ side of that change, but today’s parents, the 40-year-olds, were on the ‘after’ side.” explains Mr. Ballmer. “It’s not something easily accomplished by parents these days, because life is more difficult to understand or deal with, but sharing interests does make it more fun to be a parent now.”