Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: attitudes, insecurity, parents, talk, teenagers, teens
I just spent three hours with three wonderful teenage girls and I have a few questions:
- Why do they talk so fast? I cannot understand them half of the time because they are talking so fast that they are slurring their words and sometimes they stutter to get it out so fast….amazing.
- How come every other word out of their mouth is “like”? I think that if they would slow down that they wouldn’t need the filler word like “like” all the time. (uh oh, a double like….now I’m doing it!)
- Why do they all have to talk at the same time? Is any one girl saying something that is so important that they can’t wait their turn? Trust me the answer to that question is NO!
- Why are they so insecure? We were going door-to-door on a food drive through a neighborhood. I was driving, they were door knocking. I told them to go to separate houses each, spread out. They all gave me puppy dog eyes because they all had to go together!! It took three times as long, THREE times!!
- Why, whenever they see someone they know, must they roll down the window and scream that person’s name? This is why window locks were invented…..well maybe it wasn’t the first reason but they work……when the window is actually locked (that’s a mental note to me to lock them!)
- Why do teenagers sneakers attract dog shit like a magnet? That’s right, dog do-do was tracked into my car. I gagged the whole way home.
I couldn’t get out of that middle school fast enough! After we delivered the food to the auditorium and tallied up the cans (it was a contest) I was gone like a shot! But the entire trip home I couldn’t help but wonder: Was I just like them at that age? Is it possible that I was that annoying to my parents? Was I ever that insecure? I know that the answers are all yes and then I remember that my parents never participated in these types of events, probably for this very reason: There’s not enough aspirin in the world for the migraine that develops!
Then I think: That’s okay, God willing, someday they’ll have teenagers too. (Evil laugh!)
Late last night, after crawling into bed, MFH and I were watching the news (we were waiting for Southpark to start!). I got the best laugh out of the day with a story that came on about a new study regarding teens and parenting.
People, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t! Here are the findings from the study, in a nutshell: Positive affirmations that help boost a child’s confidence may also cause them harm upon entering “the real world”! In other words, constant ego-boosting can in fact cause unrealistic over-confidence and when teens enter “the real world” it can become problematic that they are not constantly reminded of how great they are!
Where is the fine line drawn on something like this? How do we know if we are damaging our children by too much praise OR whether or not we’re providing them enough; and isn’t a lack of ego-boosting going to mess them up for good and possibly create low self-esteem? Yikes, we’re screwed!
When I think about raising my children and all that could (and still may) go wrong, I think back to when I was a kid growing up with a single mother…..and a crazy one at that. What was I doing at the age that my FD is right now? That thought frightens the hell out of me! In an effort to hide my past so that she never reads about it, I’m not going to go into details (just in case she’s reading my blog, God forbid!). Suffice it to say, the girl scouts wouldn’t have me and I was not the honor student that FD is. I suppose if we can look at our past and realize that our children are doing better than we did then we must be doing something right! Unless of course you were a girl scout and an honor student……sorry to offend you!
I suppose that all we can do is find the humor, do our best and know that none of us is perfect. This study just reminded me that no matter what I do, my children will probably wind up in therapy! Which makes me think that the government should start a tax free savings program for our children’s future therapy needs, kind of like they have for college savings!
