I am the mother of two perfect teenagers.
That's short and sweet.
If only it were true.
But that would be the makings of dull blog posts, wouldn't it?
I consider myself to be a very lenient, very tolerant mother. But my younger daughter Becca, age 17, has truly tested my patience these last few days. Every attempt at conversation is met with hostility and disrespect. Her school grades, her plans for the evening, how she's getting to school in the morning, are "none of [my] business", I am a "terrible mother" who "doesn't care about [her] at all." And so on.
I let most of it slide. Becca is very stressed right now. She's taking a heavy academic program at school, she's active in extracurricular activities -- she's president of the Spanish club -- and she has a part time job. And if that wasn't enough....It's college application season. Becca applied to one college "early decision", that's where the school promised to let her know their decision by December 15 and she promised to withdraw all of her other college applications if she were accepted. Unfortunately for Becca, the school did not grant her admission, but deferred her application until their regular decision deadline. Despite my urgings that she apply to a number of other schools, she didn't complete applications to any other schools in October or November. And now she's scrambling to complete applications to other schools.So she's worried about where she will be this time next year.
That doesn't justify using your mother as a verbal punching bag...but...yeah, I turned a blind eye to bad behavior. Bit my tongue so often it started to bleed.
Well, tonight it erupted...screaming, door slamming, general mayhem.
At some point you cannot ignore the behavior.
I erupted as well.
She is without a cell phone, has lost driving privileges and she is grounded. Right before Christmas vacation.
That's short and sweet.
If only it were true.
But that would be the makings of dull blog posts, wouldn't it?
I consider myself to be a very lenient, very tolerant mother. But my younger daughter Becca, age 17, has truly tested my patience these last few days. Every attempt at conversation is met with hostility and disrespect. Her school grades, her plans for the evening, how she's getting to school in the morning, are "none of [my] business", I am a "terrible mother" who "doesn't care about [her] at all." And so on.
I let most of it slide. Becca is very stressed right now. She's taking a heavy academic program at school, she's active in extracurricular activities -- she's president of the Spanish club -- and she has a part time job. And if that wasn't enough....It's college application season. Becca applied to one college "early decision", that's where the school promised to let her know their decision by December 15 and she promised to withdraw all of her other college applications if she were accepted. Unfortunately for Becca, the school did not grant her admission, but deferred her application until their regular decision deadline. Despite my urgings that she apply to a number of other schools, she didn't complete applications to any other schools in October or November. And now she's scrambling to complete applications to other schools.So she's worried about where she will be this time next year.
That doesn't justify using your mother as a verbal punching bag...but...yeah, I turned a blind eye to bad behavior. Bit my tongue so often it started to bleed.
Well, tonight it erupted...screaming, door slamming, general mayhem.
At some point you cannot ignore the behavior.
I erupted as well.
She is without a cell phone, has lost driving privileges and she is grounded. Right before Christmas vacation.
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