We asked readers in our April 19 story, “Champ parent or chump?” to tell us their parenting experiences. Apparently, few parents were willing to own up to being chumps and responses were low. However, we did get some excellent examples of how to get past a headstrong child.

        Debi Hertel of Reading faced a champ or chump dilemma when her 18-year-old son Justin gave his parents a jolt.

        “We are pretty fair, and he is a wonderful young man,” Ms. Hertel says, a thought both parents had to cling to when the son called home one day with the news.

        “He went on to say, "Mom, I got my tongue pierced,' I said, "No, you didn't' because he is a teaser sometimes. I thought he was actually joking.”

        Turned out he did get his tongue pierced and rationalized to his shocked parents that they never told him he couldn't.

        “We told him we preferred he wouldn't do certain areas of piercing and assumed he would read between the lines and not do it.”

        After a squeamish look at the piercing and talking it over, “He has promised never to do anything like that without coming to us and discussing the situation with both of us, as long as he is living in our home.”

        He also lost his driving privileges. In April, after suffering a bad reaction to the metal in the piercing, he took the tongue ring out.

        Solving a rise and shine problem kept Georgetown resident Barb Virost and her husband Ray on their toes. Their 17-year-old son Ben was a bit low on the “bright eyes in the morning” scale.

        “Despite two alarm clocks,” Ms. Virost says, “my husband still ended up waking him for school most mornings.”

        One particular week, Mr. Virost had to leave town and his son lost his live-in wake-up service for a few days. How did the parents finally get their son to wake up and get to school on time?

        “On each day that my husband and I have to wake him up, he has no computer privileges that day . . . no games, no chat. Since we started tying his responsibility for getting himself up to his use of our computer, he has overslept perhaps twice, both times during the first week” of the new rule.

        Chris Gaietto Lemmon of Milford enjoyed taking the test listed with the original story, but says we missed something.

        “I took the test and did well,” Ms. Lemmon says. “But you were missing a classic question:

        “You have $1,500 in the vacation budget.

        a) You go where your kid's soccer tournament takes you.

        b) You go where your kid's volleyball tournament takes you.

        c) Heck with the tournaments, you take your very own family on a vacation when it's convenient for YOU.

        d) You pull all the kids out of sports, take the extra money and go on a cruise.”

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