DR. WALLACE: I love football, and I mean American football, not the soccer "football" we all enjoyed watching with the World Cup this summer. I'm a guy who's never been big enough to play organized football, but I'll be a junior in high school this coming year, and I've had an interesting summer.

My friends and I would playing pick-up touch football games at our local high school, and once we were all tired and ready to wrap up, I asked a friend of mine to hold the ball so I could see if I could kick it through the uprights, like a football kicker would do when kicking an extra point after a touchdown or attempting a field goal kick.

At first, I didn't have much rhythm and didn't kick the ball very well at all, but after a few weekends of playing these pick-up games, I started kicking the ball better and better at the end of the game. After about four weekends, I got pretty good at it, so I got my best friend to go down with me to practice kicking field goals at those uprights some afternoons during the week even when we weren't meeting other friends for pick-up football games.

Long story short, I've developed into a really good, accurate kicker. I don't have a lot of distance, but I can reliably kick the ball through the uprights at least eight out of 10 times from all different angles from around 35 yards or so away. Should I show up and try out for our varsity football team this year? Or do you think it would be too embarrassing for me to even say anything, since nobody in the football program even knows who I am and I'm also pretty small? — Small but Accurate Kicker, via email

SMALL BUT ACCURATE KICKER: Since you'll be a junior in high school, there's likely a junior varsity football team as well as a varsity team. I absolutely encourage you to find out exactly when the first workouts are being held, then go down and introduce yourself to the JV coaching staff.

Explain who you are and what you think you might have to offer, and ask them if it would be all right for them to watch you attempt a few kicks. At the high school level, having an accurate field goal kicker from moderate distance is usually much more important than having a kicker who can kick the ball from farther away but with much less accuracy.

Who knows? Your varsity football team may already have an excellent returning kicker from a previous season, or the job could actually be wide open for this upcoming season. Approaching the junior varsity team first, given that you're a junior, makes the most sense. If you impress them enough, the varsity coach will soon learn all about you, and that's a much better way to approach things than to start with the varsity coach directly.

I DON'T LIKE SEEING MY PARENTS SO CLOSEMINDED

DR. WALLACE: As with most teenagers, my siblings and I find that our parents are pretty much out of touch when it comes to a lot of the things that we teenagers do that are important to us and that we like to do on a regular basis. The things we do, we do for good reason and not just because we're acting out or trying to act cool or anything like that.

Often my mother will make a comment about something she heard or vaguely knew about at our family dinner table. My father always makes a comment about how it's simply "a sign of the times," then they both have this negative conversation about how young people are doing things that are illogical or don't make sense.

If I didn't know my parents so well, and love them and respect them like I do, I would think that they were curmudgeons, the type of old people who do nothing but complain about the youth of today! Is there anything I can do about this so that they can at least open their minds up a little bit before they assume everything we teens do is no good? Many times there are some interesting things that they don't understand, and they dismiss them way before they even understand them. — My Parents Dismiss the Modern World, via email

MY PARENTS DISMISS THE MODERN WORLD: Over 60 years ago, a famous folk singer named Bob Dylan sang, "The times, they are a-changin'." Not only was he right back then, he's been right every decade — and, for that matter, every year — since then!

I fully agree with you that when your parents use the phrase "a sign of the times" in a negative or disparaging way, they are truly showing off their closedmindedness.

I do have a suggestion for you. Instead of mentioning something that you know quite well, likely inside and out, and that your parents likely know nothing about, pose it as a question, not a comment. Don't just go through conversations about things that you understand and they don't, because it will be as if you're speaking a foreign language in front of them.

Instead, think things through in advance and come up with a way to bring up the subject matter in a manner in which you can ask your parents for their advice! Older parents typically enjoy being asked for advice, and they're usually happy to offer suggestions freely and frequently. I'm sure you have experienced this, likely more than you would prefer!

Start your subject matter by discussing it slowly, and bring up a point that you can use to "ask advice." Then if they don't understand specifically what you're asking advice about, you can take your time and explain the subject matter you are talking about enough for them to advise which way they think you (or a friend of yours) should go at that point. Do this in increments, repeat as necessary, and hopefully over five or 10 minutes, your parents will have doled out their earnest advice, and you will have educated them on a topic they would have summarily dismissed previously.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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