On Raising Teenagers

There is nothing quite as humbling as being a parent to teenagers. Nothing quite like it to make you doubt your parenting skills and wonder if it is possible that you have ever done anything right. It is truly unchartered territory for most people, I think. Oh sure, I have not doubt there are some parents and teens who sail through these hormone charged years with finesse. However, this is not my experience. And wouldn't it be nice if you could just read a book and find all the answers there? This also has not been my experience. But I have had some really great mentors...

Monday was an interesting day. On this evening one of my teens (who shall remain nameless) did something exceptionally bone headed. And then, while fetching bed linens, I overheard my other teen bragging about having done something exceptionally bone headed on the week end very loudly. So loudly and proudly that what I did cannot be described as eavesdropping as it was impossible not to hear and did not require me to put my ear up to the door. I won't describe these bone headed acts for several reasons: to protect the privacy of my teenagers and to protect myself from the judgement of all those who don't yet have teenagers who read my blog and who would be certifiably certain of my complete lack of parenting skills as evident in the behaviour of my children...

So I have a theory about these kinds of things that I developed while parenting my first teenager (now 21). It seemed that anytime she was planning to pull some kind of stunt or in the midst of pulling one, I would inevitably find out by some serendipitous way (that did not involve snooping) what was up. It happened far too often to be coincidence and I grew to believe that some part of her really wanted me to know so I could rein her in when she couldn't rein in herself (my usual modus operandi) or she needed my guidance and involvement in this aspect of her life.

So, I gave these 2 current teens an option. They could choose to be grounded for a month (an outrageous consequence that I hoped they would not choose) or they could spend the next 2 days doing everything together with me. I told them I was so excited that we would be spending so much time together and their assumed grouchy stance was hard to maintain. We decided to celebrate by making apple spice waffles from the "Simply In Season" cookbook I have out of the library. (Well, maybe I was the only one openly celebrating but I think they were celebrating on the inside.) We cleaned the kitchen, I rushed off to an almost forgotten Ballet Jorgen production of Anastasia with Rhiannon. When I got back home, we decided to have a wiener roast for dinner and went out to do some yard work and gather sticks. Yesterday they came with me to a first day of spring celebration on my friend's beautiful property. Before these '2 days with mom' are over, there must be a 2 hour one-on-one chat with me which will become a biweekly connection and for one week end a month, we will do this very thing - spend the entire week end together. There they are in the background - they don't look like they are doing so bad, do they?

For me it is always a dance. I was raised on fear with so many rigid rules based on the same fear and I resented not being trusted to have good judgement or make my own decisions. I have always told my kids that they have good judgement and can make their own decisions and have respected their right to choose their own paths. However, I have discovered that sometimes they need me to be a little more involved. They need to know I care enough to have limits about their boneheaded behaviour and that I love them enough to try to do something about it and that the solution usually is spending more time with me.

And as for parenting teenagers, it seems I will be getting lots of practise. When Rhiannon turns 20, I will have been the mother of at least one teen for 20 uninterrupted years (she turns 13 two months before Drew turns 20 who turned 13 one month after Erin turned 20. It would seem I am destined to learn the finesse of these skills...