Parenting is a whole new world today as I was reminded of yesterday while dealing with a slightly rebellious teenager under protest. Let’s face it, they’re all like this sometimes. I’s a necessary ingredient to the growing up recipe that from time to time inevitably boils over. I found myself in an apparent rerun of my own adolescence.
Locked in her room, music on, my disgruntled teen began her protest to …oh so many rules does it really matter which one we focus on? Her plan? Refuse to come out, join the family for dinner and ….. I’m sure she felt that the drama alone would be enough to sustain her until her demands were met and the laws changed in her favor.
I can empathize. I remember being that teen and those fleeting moments of intense belief that the world (mostly my parents really) were completely unjust. I had to stand up for my beliefs and as my parents had so successfully drilled into my head, make things right in my world. And so, I stood there face to face with the white, six panel door and pondered.
In my days of teen angst my parents would have gone one of two directions. If my mother had her way, the door would simply have been knocked down. It was amazing the amount of furious power that little 5 foot tall woman could muster up. My father, on the other hand was more industrious. He would have simply proceeded, tools in hand to remove the door from the hinges, disconnect the electricity (silence alas) and store the door in the garage for a few days until I valued the difference between my right to privacy and his right to be my father. Dramatic? Yes. Effective? Well, kind of.
Of course at the moment that my own teen locked herself in I replayed the possibilities. Breaking it down seemed painful. I don’t own a tool belt and I’m not sure I can carry a door down to the garage anyway. I just paid a contractor to put this door in, maybe I should have left it the loft it originally was, hmmm. Talking seems logical but that would require her to hear me which she now can’t. I could flip the circuit breaker but in all honesty I have dinner reservations in less than an hour and I still need to dry my hair and I’m pretty sure both our bedrooms are on the same line. Moving on to a new and more modern approach….I don’t have one. Luckily though, my daughter does. Seems that texting is the new tool of choice for negotiations in the world of the newly double digitized anguished youth. And so the texting began. At first I though “oh, come on! This is ridiculous!” But then I began to recognize her wisdom as a controlled and non confrontational conversation began to unfold with every glip and beep and vibration coming from my phone -kind of like talking to CP3O from star wars which made me laugh. Luckily she didn’t see that as it would only have contributed to her agitation and make us later than we already were. After a short and empathetic review of the rules and expectations of our relationship she was in the car and we were off. Yes, there were still some consequences to the dramatic behavior and yes, I would still prefer to speak with her face to face, which we did after the door finally opened. But all in all, this was a reasonably effective resolution. And so, my teen solved the problem herself, wisely and calmly and with the resolve of an older and wiser soul…of course this is because while texting I can only evaluate the communication based on grammar and capitalization rather than on eye rolling and head wagging and….well, if you have ever had a teenager or been one yourself, you already know.
