Teenage Tricks

Having teenage children in your house is confusing and frightening for all involved. They are pendulums of flesh swinging between adulthood and childhood rapidly and without any notice. One moment they might say, "I worked ahead and finished all my homework for the week," and thirty seconds later they might say, "There was no toilet paper so I just didn't wipe." It is hard to know what to expect.

Let's face it - parents really should have one practice child. We've never done this before. We don't always know if we are overreacting, being unrealistic, or just plain blowing it. We should have a practice go around so we have at least a little bit of a clue what we are doing. When is the right time to dig in and get your point across, and when is it right to take your hands off and let the child make their own mistakes? Poor Makenna. Being the oldest, she has involuntarily sacrificed herself to be the stone upon which we grind our parental teeth. Sometimes I just want to look at her and say, "Sorry kid. Can I have a do-over?"

But, last week I had a breakthrough. Or so I thought. Makenna's room has always been a point of tension for us. I like it clean. She doesn't care what I like. Oh the tension. Then my motherly wisdom kicked in and I decided that her room is a small battle in the big picture and I took my hands off of it. I let her throw her stuff on the floor; I didn't say anything when the sink in her bathroom looked like a science experiment, and I kept silent when her shower became a storage unit. Then I heard a ghastly scream.

"What's wrong?" I asked after sprinting into her room.
"A spider! Under all those dirty clothes!" Makenna screamed pointing at a mountain of t-shirts and jeans.
"Oh, that makes sense," I said, relieved.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, spiders like cool, dark places. You've provided them with what they would consider a Marriott Vacation Resort."
"NO! I've got to get this all cleaned up. Will you help me?"
"No."
"Please!"
"No." I'm caring like that.
"I can't do this alone. It's a huge mess."
"That is why I won't help you. I've cleaned it so many times before and you always mess it up immediately afterward. I'm done with it."
"Mom! Please. I don't want to do it alone. I get bored. And lonely." I felt a crack in my grinch heart, and Makenna seized the opportunity. "It could be a project we do together and afterward we could watch a movie and have a day together."
"Makenna, if I spend my Saturday afternoon helping you clean this room and it gets dirty again I will be very upset and disappointed. I will feel like I wasted my time."
"I understand and promise that I will keep it clean."

So, by the end of Saturday her room looked like the lovely space I knew it could be. And, amazingly a week later it was still clean. Even her bathroom was spotless.

"I need to take a shower," Emery complained to me, "but Makenna is showering in my bathroom."
"Why is she using your shower?" I asked.
"I don't know, but she has used it all week. It is annoying me. She gets it all crowded with tons of shampoo bottles. I can barely stand in there anymore."
"Yeah," Josiah added, "and her clothes are all over my bathroom floor."
"Why are her clothes in your bathroom?" I asked.
"I guess she changes her clothes in there, but she just leaves her dirty clothes and never picks them up."
"Also," Mike said, "she has been brushing her teeth in my bathroom. She gets toothpaste everywhere."

Well played, Makenna. Well played.