Sunday, September 04, 2005
Saturday
03.09.05
The White Water Rafting Years: a common-sense guide to parenting teenagersIf you are reading this while you are in the middle of a maelstrom - your teenager is making life hell for you at the moment, or just leaving you out of her life - be encouraged! The rapids do not last for ever! And with a change of perspective, you might even be able to see the positive side of your situation. No? Well, perhaps I was being a bit optimistic.
Parents are still vitally needed throughout adolescence. You can be deceived, though, because teenagers give the impression they do not need you. Sometimes they may even say as much. They can now wash and dress themselves (when they feel like it). They can prepare their own breakfast. Perhaps they are driving themselves places, earning money and perhaps even shaving (legs or faces). Teenagers often perfect eh knack of making their parents feel irrelevant, unwanted and possibly useful only as an in-house ATM machine. But, whether they acknowledge it or not, they desperately need us!
Everybody is astounded at the changes that happen to their children at puberty. Change happens continuously throughout childhood, but change changes at puberty. Clothes apparently shrink, because they are outgrown before they even appear on your credit card statement. Curves and bumps appear on half the teenage population, much to the fascination of the other half. Male voices crash from soprano to bass and then back again – sometimes in the same sentence. New products for hair care, skin care, breath care and personal hygiene appear on your shopping list. Hundreds of dollars vanish into a single greasy pore over the course of half a decade as their skin becomes a battle ground for a chemical conflict with acne.
Adolescent energy is erratic. Bodies seem to grow faster than nerves: you see some graceful teenagers but not many. Many of them even seem to develop the ability to run into themselves.
As the hormones kick in, it is not just their bodies that change. A whole new repertoire of emotions becomes available. Sometimes they can be so hyper-sensitive that you get your head bitten off for nothing at all. At other times, they are like unresponsive sleep-walkers mumbling around your home, at which times you are lucky to get a grunt in response to a direct question. Get two grunts, and you live off it for a week!
Everything feels bigger to a teenager. Accidentally saying something dumb in class is a national disaster, being excluded by a friend is a global catastrophe, a new romance eclipses everything else in the universe. Pimples matter, clothes matter, music matters, image matters, friends matter, parents... oh well, no matter!
They also forget that there are other people in the universe that have needs. You will discover this when you try to use the phone or computer, or when you are trying to take a hot shower before they meet their friends.
Your children are not your slaves: they are not there to prop up your ego or prove your prowess as a parent. They are human beings in their own right, deserving of dignity, honour and respect. You lift your eyes from this page to your teenage son, who is sprawled on the floor, on top of the homework he was supposed to hand in last Friday, at the other side of the lounge. He is humming tunelessly to some tuneless music he is listening to on the stereo, which, even though he is listening through headphones, is still rattling the glasses in the china cabinet. While listening he tattoos a death’s head and swastika on to his upper leg with a permanent marker. You look down at your hands, which are still shaking after that argument about the third nose-stud, and you think about how you once held that uncouth yob in those hands as a baby.
'Honour him?' you mumble incredulously. Yes, honour him. (And get a grip on yourself – you’re starting to mumble to yourself too.)
Posted by nayrakroarual at 1:12 AM
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