As I’ve mentioned, oh, 76 or so times, I have four teenagers in the house. Which means we have very little of some things (leftovers, tranquility, time, clean laundry), and a lot of other things (drama, chips and salsa, deodorant, hormones).
And as the culture around them accelerates to 5G-speed–despite my kids’ lack of a fully-developed frontal lobe–my husband and I are working hard to keep communication open.
Last week, I brought happy-hour Sonic drinks to my friend’s empty sixth-grade classroom. She’d decked it out as only excited teachers can, with pillowed reading corners complete with fairy lights, innovative seating, and wave bottles she’d made herself, with glitter inside.
We chatted, and I laughed about her curiously-labeled drawer of Bummer Pencils. A bummer pencil, she explained, is one she’s picked up off the floor or from a desk, maybe half-chewed or with no eraser. She saves those–I’m assuming she disinfects them?–for the time when a sixth-grader raises their hand with the news they have no pencil.
It’s become legend in my family–the night I went to see Hedda Gabler at my university as a freshman.
Somewhere in Act II, I think, my friend Paul came on stage wearing a painted-on black eye. And that’s when I promptly began to feel lightheaded. I was thinking, Janel. It’s makeup.
A couple of my kids have recently joined the other two in pursuing some personal fitness goals.
So y’know, that’s cool.
In a couple of weeks, my youngest turns 13. Which means I will soon be parenting four teenagers. Which means my prayer life is thriving.
As some parents of tweens chatted with my husband and me last week, I recalled some of the best advice given to us for parenting teens: Keep them talking. Keep the relational bridge open.
It’s great advice for all of parenting, right? But at times with each of my kids, that’s required supreme effort.
When my four kids were little and life resembled a 24-hour Bounty commercial, I read a statistic in Parents magazine that something like 78% of new moms, when choosing between sex and sleep, chose sleep.
Um. Duh.
Once when my kids were younger, back in that season I was covered in toddlers and preschoolers, we met my husband at Chick-fil-A (always a win) after work one night.
When they’d slayed the nuggets and the playground and it was time to go home, I asked our four kids who’d like to ride with Dad, and who wanted to ride home with me.
I would say I have been praying for a miracle in one (or more) of my kids for a year now.
But, y’know, it’s probably one of those things where you think, spring feels like a small miracle sometimes. My kids hanging up their towels sometimes feels like a series of miracles. And hey, let’s not forget the miracles God’s doing in me (to the tune of, Wow, when that kid flipped his lid, I didn’t flip mine. Miracle.)
This is one of those posts where I’m not an expert, just a mom. (Um, most of my posts?!)
But maybe these small ideas will help. And if I’m smart, I’ll keep this short, right?
This week I had one of those shining parenting moments. I caught one of my kids deliberately subverting a punishment.
This kid didn’t lie about what he was doing, which in light of the past, felt like a win. He also seemed to sincerely apologize. I told him I would think about the consequence and get back to him, and we’d talk some more.
And two hours later, he did the same thing, people. #parentingforthewin
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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