10 Things Every Teenager Needs to Know About Their Parents
Face it -- you are stuck with us, at least for the next few years! And avoiding spending time with us, rejecting our hugs, and refusing to talk is not going to change that. So in the interest of peace and harmony, I am going to share a few things with you that you probably don't know in the hopes that they may help you to better tolerate us.
1. We are not perfect. We don't have all the answers. We don't even know all of the questions! But we do know some of the answers, we know how to find the ones that we don't know, and believe it or not — just like you know more now that you did just a few short years ago, so do we.
It is often said that children don't come with an instruction manual and there is no "one-size-fits-all" parenting model. Each child is different and so is each parent. Together we have to figure out how to navigate a journey that has no roadmap and no pre-determined destination.
If you are looking for a "perfect" parent, you are going to spend your life in eternal frustration. And you will make this relationship much more difficult than it has to be. So when we make a mistake (and we will), please try to forgive us just as we forgive you when you make mistakes. We are both, after all, only human with flaws, limitations and weaknesses. But thankfully, we both also have individual strengths and characteristics that make us interesting and likable if we would take the time to get to know one another.
2. We are not cool... but we used to be! I know it seems that we are so out of touch with your world. And truthfully, many of us probably are. You may even see us as boring with no capacity for humor or amusement. But we were once the rulers of our own universe.
We were artistic geniuses, star athletes, musical virtuosos, popular cheerleaders, brainiacs, techno-geeks, gifted leaders and opinion-shapers. People actually liked to be around us, sought our advice and hung on every brilliant word that came out of our mouths. We were you, your friends, the people you admire and the people that you now ridicule.
In short, "cool" is a relative term whose definition changes with every generation. And as hard as it is for you to believe right now, one day you too will be "un-cool". So go easy on us; we are still trying to figure out how we w...