You didn’t realize this, but you signed a contract when you decided to have your teen all those years ago. Just in case you missed it because you were so blissfully happy they were born healthy and smelled of baby smell, I have cut and paste it here for you to read carefully now that there isn’t a watermelon coming through your vagina. And so you dont have to get your glasses, I enlarged the print.

“All births are final with no ability to submit request for extended warrantee on baby that grows up to be a defiant teen. Offer may be subject to terms and conditions of the genetic background and environment the baby is exposed to. There is limited time to expose the baby to new and outstanding things before they will no longer seem to be listening to most of what you say. Developing teen will find you annoying at times and irritating at others. You are not to become distracted by this given your parent wrote this into your baby contract when you were acting out much to their dismay at nine years old! (What goes around comes around) Teen may intermittently want you to treat them like a grown up with a fully developed brain while asking you to tuck them in at night or let them sleep with you because they saw a scary movie. Your teen at some point will be in a room with people who are drunk or stoned and understand that it does not mean your teen is drunk or stoned. Someone will want to put their hand up their shirt or down their pants and although you will be morally opposed to this you will sanction it along with poking holes in condoms and diaphragms when YOU are ready to be a grandparent. By accepting this child you accept the terms and conditions of this fine print not to truly understand its terms or conditions until your baby ah-hem teen has left the house and is on their own and you know that despite all the ups and downs they made it to adulthood. There is no expiration date on this fine print as you will find that no matter how old your teen becomes when they’re with you they’re almost always still your baby and seem to fall into that role whether they come visit you with their family or for a short visit from college. Whew!”

Enjoy your teen!

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Few teens know exactly what they want at this stage in the game called life, but that’s no reason to shirk their responsibilities as a “Decider.”

Making decisions and owning them is what sets the people who let life happen to them apart from those who actually decide to dodge the bullets and survive. Sometimes these decisions are as simple as what your teen wants for dessert and other times they can be more weighted as in this life partner doesn’t make me happy, I’m going to have to make a decision. No one is saying that your teen can dodge all the bullets because they have decided after all, the best plans seem doomed to the influence of real life complications, but what deciding does is have your teen own their desire and then seize opportunity that reflects that desire.

Without a sense of what they want their life to look like, without a decision about what their life might look like, they end up with something that was an undecsion, something that was left over. Hmmm, I guess that can be a happy place, but only if you decide to make it so.

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“I want to be a musician. I’ve been thinking about my passion and I think I want to be the next Missy Misdemeanor Elliot.” Well, we thought you were going to college. What about school?

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Sometimes High School is just one big lesson on social relationships, friends. Your teen spends the first half of the teen years pulling from you; actually, getting as far away from you as possible and running to their friends then one day…

Their friends know more, are cooler than you and they have their back. One day they are betrayed. It hurts like all get out and they’re crushed, but this is when they realize their friends aren’t as strong as you are. They don’t have their back they way you do. The criteria for friend changes as your teen’s brain gets bigger and all of a sudden they realize that people who say they’re your friends can wish you ill. Why, because they’re jealous. They know this makes for great fodder in a High School Musical movie, but they didn’t realize someone could hate them. I thought we were friends. Worse, instead of taking that jealousy and cruelty as something being wrong with the other person your teen personalizes it to mean there’s something wrong with them. What did I do? I tried to be the best friend? I was always there for her wasn’t I? Yes, yes and yes and did you ever think, you tell your teen, they became your friend because you’re doing something right? Your teen helped them feel better about themselves in other words, your teen was so on the ball someone noticed. Someone noticed your teen had the “it” factor.

The betrayal is a complement in a very backhanded way and it may take a while for your teen to figure that out, but in the end the way to spin it is, love the haters. It means your teen’s doing something right.

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“I’m not doing that! I’ll look like an idiot. I ain’t lookin’ like an idiot.” Have you heard that before? Maybe it came in the way of, “I want to hang out. My friends’ll think I’m a dork if I’m the only one that doesn’t show up because I’m doing my project so early.”

Lou Brock who played outfield for the St Louis Cardinals and was accepted into the Hall of Fame, once said:

“Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat.”

Mr Brock is talking about sports and playing baseball, but if you think about life the same is true. If your son is more concerned with how he looks to his friends and won’t look silly, then he loses because it is quite possible that the rest of his gang hangin’ out has completed their project already. If your daughter absolutely has to go to this party and will rush to complete her studying for her S.A.T. (Standard Achievement Test) this weekend then she shouldn’t be surprised with a less than average score. If you can look bad to learn the lesson, to practice the move, to understand the science then you win because you get it well enough to do well when it comes time to perform. This is what life asks of your teen in one of the  most complicated ways possible and that is through huge mistakes they make when they chose to do something they hope to get away with or chose to take a risk that makes them fall flat on their face.

Its sometimes about lookin’ real bad as your teen makes the decisions that get them through the teen years and then realize later that those opportunities allowed them to make a really smart decision later.

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Your teen was born into this world by themselves. The balance you will create for them is that they are here by themselves as an independent force, but with the support of others. Support, but they still have to do it on their own.

This is about holding your teen accountable for things they must learn to do for themselves. This isn’t as simple as getting dressed in the morning or learning how to project manage their school workload. This is about realizing that when life is difficult that sometimes you have someone you can go through it with, but sometimes you do it somewhat by yourself. Certainly you can ask for help from your social community or a counselor, but ultimately you have to get yourself through. It is the belief that they are capable that will get them through and that even though it can feel lonely that some of life’s complications are just like that. They have support, but the ability to get through comes from inside. It comes from what kind of person you are: victim or survivor.

Your teen is a born survivor. Don’t treat them like a victim because they’re facing what seem like insurmountable odds. The lessons learned are priceless in terms of setting them up for future challenges. This is what helps them even in moments of being alone with their challenges and helps them feel like someone who has a community of support, but the maturity to get through alone.

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Teens can be reckless sometimes. They can be inconsiderate, selfish and downright frustrating. They think they know, but they don’t. They want to tell you how to do your job, but they don’t know enough to do theirs. They have doubt all the time, but they can’t tell you that so they act like they know everything.

Rethink your teen. Remember they don’t ask for help, because they don’t want you to think they’re helpless. They don’t show vulnerability because they’re afraid you won’t allow them to do anything because they made that mistake a couple of months ago. They don’t tell you things, because even though everyone makes mistakes you seem to penalize them for being human. They’ve seen some of your mistakes, your dates, your financial whoop-di-doos and they know you aren’t perfect. It’s just that you act like you are. Rethink your teen and consider, next time definitely hold them accountable. Absolutely! But, then you have to let it go for the next time they ask for the privilege. Don’t remind them. Assume they have learned something that will allow them to do it better than before.

Growing pains are painful. No one likes looking like an idiot at sixteen or thirty-six. It sucks either way. What helps is when someone gives you a chance to show what you got and you do it better the next time. Rethink your teen and let them rethink the mistake as a missed take and allow them to retake the opportunity.

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In your relationship with your teen something will become very apparent at some point. Their chronological age and the maturity age of your teen.

These are two different ages. They’re important because they help you put your teen’s responses and needs in context. This is great information because you can modify your expectations depending on the maturity age of your teen. Some teens are tall enough to look sixteen, may be smart enough to have a great conversation on quantum physics with a group of forty year olds, but in a relationship act more like a six year old. This is HUGE. If you know this, you can save yourself tons of grief.

Your teen’s maturity age should be something you use to save yourself frustration and change not lower your expectations. This allows you to be in a relationship with them that is much less stressful and it’s a great skill to teach them later when they mature to say, a ten year old and marry someone that acts like a two year old.

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If you were the co-driver in the car while your teen was driving when you heard that crash, it would be difficult to stop yourself from grabbing the wheel to avoid the crash. You would never sit there with your hands folded in your lap with feet firmly on the floor. You would start pressing the imaginary brake on the passenger side of the car. This is the same reaction parents have when they’re the passenger in the car of their teen’s life. Watching your teen be seemingly nonchalant about their grades, their social or family responsibility can be painful to watch. You want to complete the turn, anticipate the swerve or slam on the brakes. The disappointment of knowing you have little influence from where you sit in their life can be overwhelming with feelings of helplessness.

As painful as this is to be part of like this, you sometimes have to sit as though your hands were folded neatly in your lap, feet firmly on the floor while you brace yourself for the impact. You do this not because you don’t care, but because you care so much that this lesson your teen is about to learn you want to be learned well so they don’t make the mistake again.

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If you ask a tween what they do in their spare time they’ll say things like play outside or play video games. If you ask them how much, they’ll answer, “A lot!” If you ask this same tween when they’re a middle teen, they might look at you funny and ask, “I have too much to do. Who has time to play video games?” I like this answer. I have to admit I always wonder a bit when someone says, “A lot” when they’re a middle teen. Because sophomore and junior year especially have so much work I wonder how they get it done if they have time to play “a lot” of video games. I am concerned because “a lot” of video games can mean you might not want to deal with the challenges of the day. You may be a bit more immature and take a bit longer to catch up to some of your more mature peers. No worries since all teens mature at different rates, but it is a soft gauge on the degree of maturity and the willingness to want to grow up.

This information allows me to put other decisions they make in perspective, to understand what their priorities might be and what they may be able to handle when it comes to questions about their future. This is what I want you to do with information like this. Use it to understand where your teen is developmentally rather than using it to shame or embarrass them or worse declare they will be nothing when they grow up. So certainly set rules and hold them accountable to their HW and chores, but in the end, it’s their process. They’ll eventually catch up. After all, they no longer wet the bed right?

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