Can you believe how ridiculous some adults act when they have to face the consequences for their bad choices?

Take Paris Hilton's recent brush with the law. She was pulled over a while back for reckless driving and sentenced to 36 months of probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines. Do you think she learned her lesson? Nope - she continues to drive even though her license was suspended, and finally ends up in jail.

She literally screams at the judge's recent decision to keep her in jail (she must think she's above the law because after all she's a hot celebrity) after the sheriff unlawfully released her a few days ago due to some "unknown medical conditions".

Pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Well, she's finally getting a good dose of reality behind bars.

Now I admit that I don't know anything about her childhood or the kind of parents that raised her, but I do know for certain that I don't want any of my kids to turn out that way! I want them to learn at an early age that there are consequences in life for the choices they make.

I feel it's my job as a dad to raise kids who are prepared for the realities of every day living, which means letting them experience the consequences for the choices they make.

I'm not talking about letting them do something that would cause them any lasting or physical damage. If a car is coming and they continue to walk out into the street, I'm not going to let them "experience reality". I'm going to yell at them to get out of the street!

But if one of my kids decides to be disrespectful to me or their mother, then they get to experience the consequence for that choice. For my oldest daughter that meant losing the privilege of a sleep-over last night with one of her best friends. After the third warning within the span of about 20 minutes over an issue involving an argument she was having with her sister, it was time for her to experience the consequences of her disrespectfulness.

If she doesn't learn this now while she's young and the consequences are minimal, then she might venture into the workplace someday as an adult and lose her job after being disrespectful to her boss. That's a much more painful consequences, and one that I hope she won't have to experience because she will already have learned that lesson as a child.

Next Monday my oldest daughter's class will walk 6 miles in groups of 4 friends on their version of "The Oregon Trail".

They'll pull a home made wagon made to look like the historical horse-drawn wagons, crossing over imaginary rivers (roads) and mountains (hills).

This evening after work I got together with the other 3 dads in my daughters group to assemble the wagon and make it look as realistic as possible. We had already made a trip to Home Depot last week to stock up on supplies, and with power tools in hand we were ready to build a wagon.

Our supplies consisted of:

• plastic wagon - 2 seater
• peg board for cutting out wheels - 1 sheet, 1-foot by 4-feet
• half-inch flexible PVC pipe for bending in arcs under the white sheet cover - 4 pieces.
• brackets to attach the PVC pipe to the wagon - 8
• old white sheet for the wagon cover
• 2" x 2" wood slats to form a frame to sit on top of the wagon sides, and to hold the PVC brackets - 4 pieces.
• handles to attach to the wagon for lifting it over rivers - 4
• screws and washers - too many to count
• cardboard for the sides, made to look like wood with cutouts for the wheels.

We also replaced the plastic wagon handle with a wooden version of our making, and the girls colored the cardboard sides and wheels to make them look like wood. An "Oregon or Bust" sign on the rear end completed the production, and they were ready to take it for a test drive.

This was a lot of fun and gave me a chance to meet one of my daughter's dads for the first time. It felt good to team up with a few other dads to build something together.

I wonder if that's how great it felt back in the olden days when a community got together and built each other's houses one at a time. Comradre, friendship, teamwork, and loyalty. Values to live by, and this fun little event gave us a brief taste of the good life.

About 8 years ago I bought a black Honda lawn mower from Costco for $269. It was one of my first "man purchases" and I've mowed hundreds of lawns with it (well, actually about 3 lawns for each of the three houses we've lived in since then, but hundreds of times on each one... you get the idea).

My mower has served me well, but as I mowed the lawn yesterday I noticed a trail of grass clippings flying up from the front left side of the mower. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the clippings were coming from a few holes that had rusted through the blade housing, near the front left wheel. The holes were actually pretty large, so they must have been plugged with dried grass for some time.

I called my wife over to show her the damage, and told her "Honey, I need a new lawn mower, and that's what I'd like for Father's Day... oh, and I want to pick it out." Fortunately for me, my birthday is also in June, so I can combine Father's Day with my birthday for a double-whammy gift wish list.

I have my eye on a self-propelled Yard-Man mower that's on sale at Walmart. Our current lawn is pretty small and only takes me 10 minutes to mow the front and another 15 for the back, but I'm planning ahead for a mower that'll accomodate a larger lawn in the future. I also like the larger rear wheels that make turning a lot easier.

Last year it was my grill. I had one of those $150 CharBroiler grills that you pick up from Home Depot. I had replaced the burner 2 or 3 times, and the inside was thickly coated with "grilling goo" that had accumulated over several years of grilling burgers, chicken, and steak. My wife bought me a new stainless steel gas grill with porcelain burner plates, temperature monitor, side burner... the works. I absolutely love it!

Do you have a son or daughter who is 9 or older, who thinks they're turning 13? Notice how when they hang out with their friends for a couple hours they come back a completely different person?

If you don't mind my being honest, I have to admit that lately I've felt more and more clueless as a dad when it comes to my oldest daughter. I love her dearly, as I know you do yours, but all of the tricks I've learned so far seem to no longer work with her.

She goes through these phases where she feels compelled to challenge everything that me or my wife says, and argues tooth and nail about every decision we make. The phases last a week or two, and then she's back to her sweet angel self.

By then she's typically grounded from everything we can think of (friends, TV, computer, and Nintendo DS), and I've completely lost any resemblance of a kind, loving, and patient father.

I'm sure this is all normal behavior for a young child developing their independence, but I don't want it to be a dividing factor in our relationship. It doesn't feel healthy to always be losing my temper and getting in these big arguments with her over every little thing.

I asked my wife for advice, and she felt I needed to listen more to her instead of jumping on her case and dishing out consequences for bad behavior. I'm working on that, and I'm also trying to spend more time connecting with her before bedtime (which seems to be when she most wants to talk).

What works for you?

If you don't have a son or daughter at least the age of 10, then please hold off on replying. No offense, but I'm looking for veteran advice here guys - from someone who has been through it and figured out some healthy ways to cope with their children's budding independence and attitude problems. After all, I thought I knew the game myself up until now...