When something about your teenager is bothering you, stop and think for a moment before doing anything. Remember that adolescents take very unkindly to unnecessary intrusions into their business. Shooting from the hip can cause a lot of trouble.
Most of us can relate to the frustrations of a teenager who receives a gift that doesn’t fit their style. When I was 14, my aunt bought me a dictionary for Christmas. I am sure I did my best to look happy and act thankful, but it was not the gift I was hoping for. In fact, the next day, the dictionary was shoved in the bottom drawer of my desk where it remained untouched for a long time.
I recall having a mini nervous breakdown the morning my tween son sat down at the island for breakfast, and I noticed his childhood nose had disappeared. He had grown a young man new nose overnight! When he left the kitchen, I sobbed like a basket case. Like I did after dropping him off on his first day of Kindergarten.
I think many of us can relate to Deanna, mom of three girls (one a teen), when she says, “Dating? Not my babies!” My own first date happened when I was 16-and-a-half, and my parents were hard-core: if I missed curfew by one minute, I was grounded for two weeks (I was grounded quite often). For me, 13 or 14 would have been too young for dating because boys still freaked me out then, and I had no siblings to learn from.
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