Saturday, January 12, 2008
Bad hair days!
Today (well, yesterday in fact) I have learnt (again!) that teenage girls are very sensitive and that the best thing to do when they are having a bad hair day, is not to offer helpful suggestions, or even sincere compliments ... but to simply vacate the room (possibly even the house!) :o)
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I only had one teenage girl (now 27 and quite a normal, nice member of society, much to my amazement.)
The years from 13-19 were a nightmare. My two boys have been much easier to cope with as teenagers, but the worries are quite different ones.
Actually, the one bit of advice I'd pass on would be to trust your girls. I didn't trust Emily at all, and didn't give her credit for having any common sense. I can see now that I should have took a deep breath and let her learn from her own mistakes and not interfered so much.
Thank you Annieye, I've often wondered if things were different with teenage boys!
I have two girls, aged 16 and very nearly 14.
My own personal advice is: Grit your teeth, and hang on for dear life!
My eldest daughter went completely off the rails as she hit 14 (she was arrested 17 times the month she turned 14, for a huge variety of offences. I was horrified.)
You're so right about trusting them, Annieye, the more i tried to hold onto her and stop her making rotten decisions, the more she threw herself in the opposite direction. I admit I almost lost faith (more than once), but friends and family were wonderful and kept reminding me that everything I had taught her was in there somewhere, and that she would be fine in the end.
We have all come through it unscathed but much wiser. I now have what I consider an excellent relationship with a young woman I respect and really like (she is amazingly mature now and happy in her own skin, so much calmer about everything too) ... plus I have learnt a lot about myself in the process.
(I don't expect the next few years will be without any further blips, but hopefully they won't involve any court appearances!)
Am hoping things with her younger sister will be a little less traumatic though. She is a very different character and her teenage-ness seems to be thankfully limited to hormonal reactions, which is frustrating and often noisy, but doesn't carry a criminal record. (She has also shown no interest in body art, alchohol or staying out all night!)
Someone once told me that when children become adolescents, we have to change from managers to consultants, that's all about trusting them too ... thank you for the excellent advice, Annieye, I will keep it in mind for the next few years! (And pass it on to my two, if they have girls of their own.)
This is very long for a comment ... perhaps i should write a little more about it on my blog. Perhaps I need to write about it! I certainly didn't have time to think about it much at the time, never mind write about it.
Although awful at the time, it actually makes me laugh now to look back on it ... :o)
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