Does Your Teen Appreciate you?
I do so much for my teen. She doesn’t appreciate it. She gets anything she wants and still she speaks to me like this, like I am no one. I am so tired of hearing her complain about everything I do wrong. She doesn’t even know how lucky she is.
It is hard to know if your teen appreciates anything you do, and it is really hard to know when they seem grumpy around you a lot of the time. It makes it hard to continue giving when you feel so unappreciated and depleted. Of course this is not particular to your teen, it is hard to give to anyone when you feel unappreciated. You muster up the courage to take another day of, “What have you done for me lately?” Meanwhile you’re thinking, “Well just 10 minutes ago, I paid for your school trip to Disneyland.”
For the most part your teen is your heart. They walk around making important decisions regarding their lives and their role to their peers and community. You are proud of who they are becoming, but you are the one who gets the growl after waking them up to be on time for work. Their girlfriend who calls a moment later, on the other hand, gets the angelic voice in response to her wake-up call, “Awww, thank you for waking me up” you hear your son say. It could make you crazy if it weren’t for the fact that you love them to death.
Being a teen parent is definitely about the long haul. This is an investment. You aren’t going to see a return until years from now, and it doesn’t have to be when they have their own teen. One day, much later they will have a glimpse of who they were in some other teen. They will have a reaction to that person and they will immediately wonder if they were, “that bad?” And you will think to yourself, “Yes,” but you will say, “Naah, you were my angel.” In that moment you will have had all the validation you need that they truly appreciate what you were able to endure, and you will understand there is no reason to rub it in any further.
Let me know if your teen appreciates you by answering the poll or leaving a comment.
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