TEENAGERS!!!!

Life with a teenager is always exciting, I would know because I actually have 2.9 teenagers.  A 16 year old, 13 year old and a 12 year old (hence the .9).

A few months go I was pretty sure that I was the worst mother in the world, or at least that's what my kids were telling me.  I would bounce my ideas off of other adults and they seemed to think that I was rational and that my 16 year old was the irrational one, but the reaction I got from him after speaking my rational thoughts was completely out of left field and I had never seen him react like that so I was pretty sure it was me...until recently.

Mr. B is convinced that his life is terrible.  I want to laugh at him when he says that but my answer is always, "Yes, you go to a fancy private school, you have a phone and a computer, you eat all you want whenever you want.  You poor, poor thing."  He then goes on to say, "I never get to see my friends, I'm always studying or at school.  If you wouldn't have put me at CBHS, I would have so much more time to hang out with people."  I answer back with, "Well I would venture to guess if you spent less time on Facebook and your phone that you would half the amount of time it takes for homework.  You are the master of your time, if you want time you make time."  "Whatever mom, you don't know what you are talking about."

I have a faint recollection of my teenage years and although I didn't have Facebook or a cell phone, there were plenty of other things that kept me from what I really wanted to do.  Heck, once I started driving I started working.  Mr. B has these visions of grandeur about what car he is going to buy or the new phone that he needs yet he doesn't work and I haven't pressed the issue because he is so busy with school and scouts and XC. I've told him that if wants to drop out of scouts or XC that was totally fine, but I think he would find that he would be spending much less time with friends if he did that because then he would need to start working.

I agree that it bites that he's up doing homework until 10pm most nights, but if he went to my neighborhood school he might not be learning anything at all.    He's started complaining about church but I don't think he's realized that he does more hanging out with friends on Sunday than he does anything else.  He's already started talking about getting a Letterman's Jacket yet he wants to drop out of XC. He wants to be a Boy Scout Camp counselor this summer but he's thinking of dropping scouts as well. 

Thinking things through can be difficult for most of us because we only see where we are at now and not what the struggles will do for us in the future, but it's especially hard for teenagers because teenagers are me and now centered.

This weekend he spent some time with some less privileged kids so maybe his perspective has changed.  Who knows what goes on in the head of a 16 year old, I certainly don't.