Teenage Wisdom

I am always perplexed by the insights I gain from my teenage children. I was thinking about how hyper-sensitive they are to what other people think about them. If a teenager, and I am not naming names, doesn't have the proper attire that is a cause to skip school. You can not go to class if your new. You can't go to class if you've worn your only clean shirt already once this year unless its your absolute favorite and then you can wear that up to three times a week but not four or five. You can't go to class unless you drive a cool car or truck and if you have to have a ride from your parent-- you can only go if you get to drive up to the school or are dropped off at a friends so you can ride the rest of the way with them.

As I contemplated how to offer wisdom to my teenager about learning not to be so hyper-sensitive about what others thought something that took me two decades to get over, I realized the hypersensitivity did not seem to carry over onto what I thought about him. Okay, so maybe if you could take a little bit of the "I don't care what you think, mom" and apply that to your peers maybe you could reach a healthy balance.

Teenagers also have a strange sense of math. You can tell them how great they are for five days in a row with little response but if one day after school you ask them to pick up their mess they equate, "You never have anything good to say. All you do is yell at me when I mess up."

You would have thought I was never a teenager. But I was and that is why I probably act like I do now. Somehow I think every parent wants to protect their adolescents from going through what they did, if only they just did what we did right without doing what we did wrong--- then maybe they would be better adults than we are or at least better quicker. My daughter once yelled at me, "You just want me to be like you were as a teenager--- well I am not you, mom." The dilemna-- do I tell her? The last thing I wanted was for her to be like I was as a teenager but unfortunately I saw so much of me in her it was scarey. Well, I think she might turn out okay afterall!!