Things I wish I knew before my daughter became a Teenager

Parenting is a hard job. Everyone cracks once in a while but the beauty of it all is that its so easy to get back up and face the curve ball all over again. After all, they are your kids, and they are not just crude responsibility but also a very integral part of your heart.

Our kids are our shining star, our day spinners, our mood swingers and our bring-me-up 'ers

until they hit the teen age......

Being a high school teacher I had often heard dreadful tales from parents of the hard times they have had to endure due to their teenagers, but I often referred to it as exaggerations. Maybe they were just bad parents, maybe they did not have the right kind of knowledge, exposure or experience, maybe they were not handling it right. I had all kinds of excuses to deter the inevitable.

I handled my teenage students with the utmost care and finesse. I was showered with praises as I maneuvered many cases into understanding and emotional calmness. I began to feel invincible. surely my teenager will be the most blessed teenager in the whole world who would have the most understanding mother ever who has literally been their and done that!

oh what wishful thinking that was....

 Just like the entire chemical balance within a mother changes after the birth of a child, so does it revamp itself after that little infant grows up into a young adult. You cannot fathom the overly inflating circumstances that seem to surround you slowly and gradually until you start suffocating in its presence. Similarly, just like the first look at your just born child brings in a gush of never before experienced emotions. So does it happen when you stare at your little bundle of joy transform into a beautiful/handsome young woman/man.

I was no different. My daughters teenage hood plunged me into an uncharted territory of mixed feelings and confused decisions. Everything became one huge game of trial and error.

So here I am, amid the still unfolding saga of teenage parenthood with some very wise insights into what I wish I had known before she turned a teenager. I do know that these are things we all probably already know. Its just a reminder folks! just a warning call from a flustered mother who wants to enlighten the importance of these commonly ignored facts ....before its too late!

1. YOU ARE NOT THE FRIEND OF YOUR CHILD.
Remember the olden times when we or most probably our mothers could never have even imagined their mothers ever playing a game with them or sitting and chatting with them all night? Remember how you labelled it as ancient and conventional. Well you were wrong! and sadly, they were right.....
I think it takes full two generations to circle back to the basics and this is the most basic rule of parenting.
There has to be a distinction between friends and parents. they cannot be synonymous, they were not meant to be. If parents become friends then who will assume the role of a parent ? social media? the internet ? or even worse...other best friends! (NOOOOO!)

so how do we go about creating that distinction ? what i gather from my humble experience is that when your babies were little, it was fun to be their friend and actually be close to them in that manner, but when time came to deliver orders they were relentlessly defiant, after all, who takes orders from their friends?! so we muscled them into obedience , hence crushing their hearts and our authority along the way.

Authority builds from a little bit of intimidation and respect. In case of mothers who are constantly their with the kids 24/7 its easy to loose respect a little here and there, but unfortunately the intimidation goes as well.

I think it is important to sometimes toe the line very regularly between what was acceptable behavior and what was not. Even though you might not get the response that you desire from your child at that moment, communicating that a certain behavior is unacceptable to you will definitely make your child more cautious in the future. But the crucial element of this rule is how early it is implemented. The younger your child, the more he wants to please you and the more likely he is to comply to your borderlines.

So the sooner you realize that you are a friend to your child but have a very specific outline towards behavior that is acceptable while being friends, the better it would be.


2. YOUR TEENAGER WILL LOOSE HIS/HER WAY
It is natural for us to take pride in the achievements, personalities and character traits of our children. after all they are ours. But sometimes we tend to get so deluded that we forget that they too can loose their way and become different.
Its like you spend a hefty amount of your time carving a beautiful statue out of moldable clay, you made sure every curve and proportion was perfect. you spend years detailing it and were completely happy with the result. until the statue takes on a life of its own and starts to ruin its own appearance. sounds scary? well that's exactly how it feels!

But the fact is, we are pretty different from a statue made of clay. Mistakes can be corrected, errors can be erased, things can be forgiven and forgotten. This journey of trial and error that we as parents might still be in, also actually began from our teenage years. You may still remember very solid life lessons that you might have learned when you were a teenager. We make some very substantial life long lessons when we are of that age. So giving your child that room of experience ( in a reasonable safe space off course) is what a child needs. For this purpose it might seem like they are going off the route that you have planned for them but everything that is different does not always mean its wrong. Giving thought to this might give our judgements an entirely new light

3.IT IS OK TO LET GO
Despite all the drama, the screamings and the slamming doors, there needs to come a point where you just have to let it go. It is OK to forgive and move on. It is wise to keep a hawk eye but at the same time it is absolutely necessary to have a soft heart because while disciplining our children we do not want to crush their hearts. we do not want to ruin our relationships with them which in the longer run is the much more important thing to consider.

Some parents are just in a habit of reminding their children of the mistakes they made in the past to somehow guilty them into doing things they want. This keeps the memory of their mistakes alive, making the children think that my parents will always hate me because of that one mistake no matter how many other good things I might accomplish after that. Don't let your child feel so miserable. It is a very scary, dark and lonely place. Sometimes your teen might end up feeling lonely despite having a house filled with loving and caring family members. Unrequited resentments is one of the leading reason for such depressive feelings and thoughts. so learn to let go, it will be good not just for your teen but also for your mental health.

4. YOUR TEENAGER WILL SOME DAY NOT LIKE YOU (GULP!)
While you bask in the glory that your children provide you as they gawk at you with admiring twinkling eyes. remember this glory will not last forever. that little tiny angel of yours that tries to imitate you in every way and would love to pretend play as you,  will some day grow out of it. there will come a time, like it or not, when she will compare you to others, openly voice her opinion regarding how bad you are, how other moms are so much better. 

at tough times like these it is natural to feel hurt and disheartened but it is better to build our selves up more confidently and be the better person. You are the adult here who knows and can see further ahead compared to your teen. what you need to focus on right now is the immaturity of your teen (despite their growing size) that leads them to utter such opinions. they are not at all true but only come out as one of those emotional surges often common at this age. this is just a side effect of their growing pains. so bear with it and be patient.

5. THIS TOO SHALL PASS......
each level of parenting has its own challenges but while you make your way through all of those ups and downs, one thing remains constant - they all eventually pass and a lot of times we look back and cannot help but smile at those cherished moments when you were so naive that you felt that time was just limping so slowly. So you see, time passes fast, every second, every minute. how many times have we felt like it was only few days ago the month started and it has already come to an end? so think of your child's teenage phase also like a season, it will come and it will go and if you have more than one child, it will come again. so be prepared, gather your gear and don't let the snow catch you off guard because at the end of it all we will always look back and smile.