I'm telling you

growing up IS hard!  Raising kids who are trying to grow up is REALLY hard.

We've had a couple things slam us this week with kids.  One was just something that is fairly common with teens, but I promised I wouldn't share with anyone, so I have to keep my promise.  The the kid asked to go to a cousin's house for a bonfire.  All sounds fine, but I know this cousin is 21+ and likes his alcohol.  This is not something, whether you trust your teenager or not, your teenager needs to be around with no responsible adults there.  We talked to a cop friend about MIPs and know as long as he does nothing all is well, but the longer we can keep him unexposed the better.  We asked where all his friends were and he said some were over at another friend's hanging out.  We had to switch gears because we've always taught the kids not to invite themselves over.  We told him at this age you have to speak up or you can get left behind and if you want to hangout it's okay.  He's never really gone out, so he has to let them know he's allowed to.  He texted them and then went over.  By 10pm I had a phone call that they were playing pool and wanted to spend the night.  Deal was he had to be home by 8am to do chores and he had to work tonight.

He said they stayed up to 3am (typical) and was really tired.  We told him just to take a shower, do his chores and take a nap.  I think he was feeling better after that. Some kids do really well at this point, but other have a harder time finding their  place.  I can see a lot of me in him too.  I'm always afraid of  overstepping and asking to hangout thinking someone will feel the need to say yes when they really want to say no.  I'm almost 40 and still feel that way.  The friend thing doesn't exactly get easier as you get older with this sort of personality complex.  I guess we're both just too unsure of ourselves.  I wish we were more confident people.  It would  do both of us a lot of good.

For now, I'm just happy that though he wasn't happy with me for not letting him go to the bonfire, I explained why and came up with the solution of him going with his friends, he talked calmly with me about it.  It's nice to see these moments when he can sit to find the way through or around something instead of just assuming it's a barricade and nothing can be done but get angry.  He seems to do well if you can just get him to talk.  I don't think that's always or often that easy with teenager boys.

I think the one thing for parents of teenagers to keep in mind, now remember there's  always the exception, is  to keep the line of communication open.  Tell them exactly what you expect and what the consequences are and follow through on them.  Sort of like a younger child. Then, with each day, week, month and year that you get through, count your blessings and consider the accomplishments.

And deep down when I see the behavior of other kids I realize I have some pretty good kids.