by Judy Keech
How many times have you wished you could melt into the floorboards and disappear as the server approaches your table with that look of apprehension, horror really, because your child has just reenacted a familiar scene from THE EXORCIST in public, ranting, writhing, and spewing applesauce and french fries across the table and onto a nearby diner? Often playing the role of the “nearby diner” in more recent years I understand how frustrating the simple act of eating out with adolescent children, (and even teens!) can be. Well, to borrow a Biblical cliche, do not fear, and be of good courage. There is a solution! And it’s not that difficult…
Post Written by Judy Keech
If you are the parent of an adolescent, and especially if you have more than one, chances are you are stressed out. Right now. Right now you are totally stressed out. STRESSED OUT!!! Or you are in denial--a whole other issue I promise to discuss later.
Face it. Balancing work, home, church, sports, theater, dance, speech therapy, tutoring, girl scouts, boy scouts, field day, testing days, parent/teacher conferences, grocery shopping, birthday parties, pool parties, play dates….You are STRESSED OUT!!!
PART 2: A Mama is a Mama, no Matter How Long
Understanding Your Role as the Parent of a Teen
Teenagers in the house? I am so tempted right now to say, "Good luck with that!" and be done with this blog. Most parents of teens, given the option, would simply click the heels of their ruby slippers together while chanting "there's no place like Rome, there's no place like Rome." But lets be honest and square off, toe to toe, with this challenge. YOU can parent successfully throughout your child's teenage years. YES, it can be done. It may not feel like successful parenting while you are doing it, but mark God's words: "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 NKJV
There really isn't a formula, but there is an invisible force field.
Remember the rules you set in place through the 'TWEEN' stage? (Didn't know about the rules? You can read about it here.) Well, you still need some rules in place, but in the state of TEEN-dom the rules become somewhat fluid...organic, even. Although the rules still exist, they now morph and bend to wrap themselves around the complex nuances of the teen brain. Much like those stretchy elastic bands that used to be your apron strings.
HOW YOUR ROLE AS A PARENT CHANGES AS YOUR CHILD GROWS
Confession time:
I once dreaded the thought of being the one responsible for the entertainment, training, and general parenting of a preschooler. I was never the baby-sitting type. As a teen every time I was forced to babysit, and yes, I said "forced", let's just say my soul was more than somewhat disquieted within me.
“I put my infant on a schedule.”
How many times have I heard young mothers make this statement. And my response is usually filled with deep compassion as I chuckle under my breath, “Good luck with that!” So, what’s wrong with a schedule?… you may ask, (please ask or I will be writing this blog just to hear my fingers click against the keys.
Firstly, let’s look at what SCHEDULE means: To put one’s day to day activities on a time table. Or, arrange or plan an event to take place at a particular time…according to the clock!
Ladies, our babies were not born with an embedded timer.
Juju. It's a name given to me by toddlers who couldn't pronounce "Judy". It's a name. Not a belief, not a practice of witchcraft, or voodoo. It's a name...that stuck. I am Juju. I am a grandma. And when I became a grandma I didn't feel worthy of grandma status. Grandmas have gray hair. Grandmas have facial hair. Grandmas wear corsets, and braziers, and have false teeth. Grandmas are awesome! So all my grandkids, and many others who love me, now refer to me as Juju. I am Juju, and there's nothing that warms my soul quite like hearing that.
When my eldest grandchild, Reese, was 4 years old I remember the day we were attempting to explain to him the family structure. "I am your Mommy's mommy", I said. "That makes me your grandma".
"No!" he rebutted, "I don't have a grandma, I have a Juju!" He is 9 now, and I recently heard him explaining the family structure to the youngest members of our clan, "she's Juju, but she really is our grandma."
As quaint as this may be, to me it brings up the dilemma of aging. Aging when you aren't really ready for it. Aging into "grandma". Aging into a body that surely must belong to someone else... unfamiliar, awkward, baggy, saggy, uncooperative, with weird hair and spotted skin, other-worldly moans and groans, and strange noises from the digestive tract. Just-yesterday-I was-30 kind of madness, and now 5 not so little offspring of my offspring call me Their Juju! Yikes! How did this happen so fast?! Why does it feel like I skipped ahead, spacing out an entire eon of my life? What happened to my dreams? My bucket list? The things God promised me? (I have a dream book, you know.)
