"Keep your wind out of my sails!"

I read a book a while ago that I may or may not have mentioned in a previous post.  (It is well established that I am lazy so even though I could take time to go back and check, I'm not going to.  After all, I've probably either scared everyone off or bored them to death so there are probably only about 5 people left who read this this thing anyway.  True friendship...)  What was I talking about?  Right--the book.  Anyway, it's a book by Dr. Michael Lehman titled, "How to Have a New Teenager By Friday" and I ADORE it!  Seriously--everyone with teenagers should read it.  In it he discusses the special "challenges" that teenagers come with and one of the comments he makes is that we can't "let our teenagers wind get in our sails."

Some weeks it's pretty windy around here.

Now, I would say that a majority of the time I really like having older kids.  We have some great discussions, I love seeing them mature and come into their own and they are way smarter than I was at their age.  But there are times that I want to look at them and ask, "what planet do you hail from?"

Most of the time it begins by me asking what I think is an innocent question.  That's what I get for thinking I guess.  Because it's met with incoherent mumbling, or eye rolling or the (somewhat) polite response to "get off my back."  So as I resorted to vacuum therapy today--what is it about vacuuming that seems to restore my sanity?--I repeated over and over, "Don't let their wind get in my sails.  Don't let their wind get in my sails."

Dr. Lehman explains that it's hard enough for teenagers what with all their raging hormones and what not that they don't need us parents getting all put out with their attitudes.  But man--sometimes I'm put out.

This approach of course goes against my natural helicopter mom inclinations.  I don't like it when all isn't well on the home front.  What I want to do is hash it out and get them to see that for heaven's sake their mother is right!  About everything!  Except I'm not, dang it.

And so, as we continue on this journey to helping our kids become more resilient and responsible I have to sometimes turn a blind eye to the mumbling and eye rolling.  I remind myself that most of these "windy" days are really inconsequential in the eternal scheme of things and most of the time, parenting teenagers is pretty rewarding.  Most of the time.