Understanding Teens

A few weeks ago I was at my water aerobics class at the Y when a friend of mine said she was looking for a book to help her understand her teenage granddaughter. It just struck me funny, teenagers being one of the great enigmas of all time. I thought to myself, "Is there such a book?" and before I knew it I had clicked on Amazon.com and was looking for books on understanding teens.

There are thousands of books in print on the topic. Of course there are, they're so damn difficult to understand. I ran across one web site entitled "50 best parenting books for families with teens." Wow, that's a lot of "best" books. Many books have titles similar to "A parents guide to surviving the teen year." The word "survive" appears in a lot of the titles. That indicates to me that getting through the teen age years is considered survival of the fittest. It's like a battle, and parents are trying to win the war.

With hormones raging, emotions out of balance, depression, addiction, peer pressure and bullying it's no wonder the shelves are filled with self help books. I remember both my own teenage years (yes, it was a very long time ago but I still remember) and the teen years of my three sons. I was an easy teenager. I was always a pleaser, so challenging parental authority was not something I did. The worst thing I did was smoke. That's pretty tame by today's standards. The teenage years of my sons, now that's another story. None of them were ever arrested, addicted to drugs or alcohol or kicked out of school. All of them finished college and became productive members of society. From what I see and hear today, that's quite an accomplishment.

I have always thought the key to keeping peace in a home with teenagers is to make sure communication is open and honest. Also, rules and structure, although kids say they don't like it, really do. They need boundaries. I always wanted my kids to bring their kids to our house. That way I would know who they were hanging out with. I also thought it was important to have dinner together as much as possible, and make sure the kids didn't spend too much alone time in their room. Any change in friends or grades is always a red flag. You've got to be involved and a little bit nosey.

Teenagers have been a mystery forever, and I don't see anything that will change this fact. We'll just have to use our common sense, keep our antenna up for any major changes in behavior, and pray to get through the teen years with everyone alive and talking to each other. Difficult, but not impossible.