Make Puberty History!
Teenagers. Once you have experienced parenting a teen, you totally get the phrase ‘troubled youth’. What is it about becoming a teen that suddenly makes life suck big time? Is it that your hormones are raging and you don’t know what’s going to pop next: your face, your voice, or your temper? Is it that you suddenly see the attraction of consumerism on a Biblical scale, but don’t have an income to support your burning need for the latest footwear/hand held device/CD? Or maybe it’s that you have learned about all the stuff adults get to do, but are still a couple of years away from actually being able to do any of it legally. Ah, the lure of the ‘forbidden’!
Maybe you wake up one day with all the answers, all the opinions. But no-one will listen because you have none of the experience to validate them. It’s all pressure.
As parents, you want to reach out, to comfort and reassure the way you could when they were pre-pubescent. But somehow, you have lost your credibility; the sheer invulnerability that made you seem bigger than all the challenges that life could muster is rinsed away in a tidal wave of caffeine-laden soda and sarcasm. There may be a temptation to regain stature by sharing stories from your own youth. My advice is, don’t. If you really need to share, then perhaps now is the time to be the kind of parent you wanted in your youth.
Eventually, you will be able to relax again, and your teen will have shucked off the ugly, constricting chrysalis of youth to emerge as a vibrant young adult, ready to take their place in society. Just like you did.
So, please join me in sparing a sympathetic thought for all the troubled teens out there. And spare one for the even-more-troubled parents. I wish them well.
Tune In to You: Help Yourself
What I seem to be tuned into right now is related to language in a slightly odd way. I have been reading an awful lot of blogs, so maybe that’s behind it. But I am inspired to write about this because I am wondering if there is anyone else out there experiencing anything similar? Here’s my attempt at an explanation, please read on and send me your comments, especially if it strikes a chord with you.
I am always drawn to read stories where someone is dealing with any kind of problem. As you might expect. This current pattern of events is a simple one: While reading, I seem to pick up ‘clues’ that make me feel compelled to contact the subject of the story, and share some insight with them which I have gleaned by reading ‘between the lines’ as it were.
To give one example: I recently read* a story about a young woman – a wife and mother – who is gaining weight because she sleepwalks into the kitchen each evening and eats pretty much anything she can get her hands on. She is not getting much support for her problem either at home or from the doctors, although they do recognise this behaviour as a complicated combination of eating and sleeping disorder, which has been labelled Nocturnal Sleep Related Eating Disorder (NSRED). All the way through her story, I was aware of her use of phrases like: ‘When my Dad died, no-one offered to help.’ or ‘I wish I could wake up and think, “I’m going to the kitchen to help myself”. ‘ and, saddest of all, perhaps: ‘I don’t think there’s any real help out there.’
I immediately saw a pattern in her words: ‘I need help. No-one can help me. I have to help myself.’ And I think this maps in a very direct way to her behaviour: going downstairs each night and ‘helping herself’ to whatever is in the kitchen. Now, this is just a viewpoint, and it certainly isn’t a ‘cure’ for her problem, but I can’t deny this very powerful feeling that, if we could just tune in to that internal voice, it might provide an insight that could help us to help ourselves in times of trouble.
At this point, I haven’t actually contacted this woman. Now, there’s no room in the Truth Fairy’s existence for performance anxiety! I resolve to have the courage of my convictions and email her straight away. In the meantime, if you are experiencing any kind of personal problem, I hope you will try listening to your inner converation as a means of tackling it head-on, and I Wish You Well.
* In the July 2005 edition of essentials magazine.
Father’s Day
It’s usually very pink here, I know, and that’s quite deliberate, to tell the truth. But I can’t be all about the girlies, not when there are so many needy blokes out there!
Here’s a lovely article for you chaps, then, by Hugo Elfinstone: Parenting. It’s all great advice for becoming a father, which for some reason (the water? the war? who knows?) is particularly appropriate this year, as so many of the men I know are about to become Fathers. And, what with Father’s Day coming up on 20th June, I thought I’d make this small offering. This is really a journey into the unknown for so many men, and my heart goes out to them with both joy for their new arrival, and with sympathy for all those sleepless nights to come.
My Dad passed away just last year, and so this will be my first Fatherless Father’s Day. Miss you, Dad! Love you! If you are missing your Dad, then I wish you well.
