Domestic Psychology

Teens are funnier than toddlers

// August 1st, 2011 // 1 Comment » // kid quotes, parenting

“I’m at the auto repair shop and they won’t accept my AAA card as payment.”
“Triple A is not a credit card and why are you at the shop?”
“I got a flat tire last night.”
“Was that the first time you’ve changed a flat?”
“I didn’t have to change it. The highway assistance truck changed my tire for me.”
“What?!”
“Well, my brakes failed so I popped the tire swerving to keep from hitting the car in front of me.”
“You had an accident! Why didn’t you call?”
“Why would I call home for a flat tire?”

too old to Trick or Treat

// October 26th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // holidays, teenagers

“What grade is your child’s class?”
“Which child?”
“What grade is the class you are making treat bags for with this candy?”
“Oh. Actually, I’m making treat bags for my children.”
<- begin disapproving tone -> “Well … aren’t your children lucky.”

Our family has a lot of fun with Halloween. So much fun that I can see how being told you are too old to trick or treat is more than a little bit of a letdown. I find the teens with no costume and a pillowcase funny, but I have seen and heard the way they are treated by others. The years between trick or treating and going to parties where all the females have costumes that include the word “sexy” are less than fun. Parents hover excessively and lecture endlessly in efforts to avoid dangerous teen behaviors on Halloween. Teens don’t want to take their younger siblings trick or treating. Teens want candy.

To make the transition easier, I have a standing offer to my children. If you don’t trick or treat, you get a treat bag from mom. I always make sure that each child’s favorite candy is included in the treat bag. I know that by the time they are 21, adult relationships and parties will be more important than a bag of candy. Kisses ARE sweeter than sugar. Until then, I make treat bags and store clerks frown at me for giving my teens candy instead of making the teens beg for candy from strangers. I don’t mind that kind of disapproval. I’m pro happiness and fun. And Halloween.

Boy doctors

// August 28th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // medical, parenting

Many years ago, I took my oldest daughter for her yearly checkup at the pediatrician. Harmless questions about diet, exercise and television were followed by a question about puberty. In response to the answer, the pediatrician glibly told my pre-adolescent daughter that “periods are nasty, messy things.” I spent the rest of the appointment mentally asking myself why a doctor would plant such a terrible seed in my child’s brain. I am not a ‘gather the women for a ceremony under the full moon’ kind of mom, but the comment was so hale pe’a that I found it completely inappropriate.

Last week, I took my youngest daughter to the pediatrician for her checkup. After the doctor looked in Amy’s eyes with his tiny flashlight and she was putting her glasses on again, the doctor announced that if we get my 8-y-o daughter contacts, her father will be chasing the boys away in droves. I was instantly transported back in time and recognized that this was the same doctor who spoke so insensitively to my oldest daughter. This time, he was worried about a very young child’s love life. Not only is she much too young for this to be a concern, her first innocent crushes had better be on her amazing personality and not her physical appearance. An appearance that is adorable with tiny, little, purple glasses.

While Don Draper might love this particular pediatrician, I do not. I will be requesting anyone EXCEPT him at all future appointments.

need more Calgon

// July 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // parenting, teenagers

We have a pile of old, rusty paint cans that have too much leftover paint to waste. After seeing it day after day for several years, I decided to find a purpose for the paint. This week, the leftover paint from 2002′s staircase railing project became the new color of some kitchen shelves that have stored my food since before Tommy was born. That’s a long way of saying that I painted some shelves.

Covered in splatters of paint and with hands aching from gripping a paint roller for hours, I indulged in a hot bath. I leaned back to relax in the steamy water as the dogs curled up against each other for a nap on the cool bathroom floor. The heartsick teen walked in and sat down between the dogs. Then, the middle child and the two littles squeezed into the crowded room.

“<- sob -> Well, I don’t have anything to lose, so I’m just going to do what I want. I’m not a child any more. I’m seventeen! <- sniffle, sob ->
“You just got yourself grounded. Noah! Please come get this spider.”
“What? What spider?”
“There’s a spider above the bathtub. Please get it before it falls in the water.”
“<- sniffle -> I’ll never give up. You can’t hold me back any more.”
“I hold you back? You hold yourself back by eliminating every single college in the state of Tennessee. Noah, please don’t just grab it. You know it will jump and fall and then there will be spider legs floating in my bath, so put your other hand under the spider.”
“You want me stuck in Tennessee forever!”
<- badeep, badoop ... badeep, badoop ->
“No. You can leave the state once you are 18. It’s in the water! Get it out! Get it out!”
<- badeep, badoop ... badeep, badoop ->
“I hear a phone ringing! Can I answer it?”
“Get what out? What’s in the water?”
<- badeep, badoop ... badeep, badoop ->
“I dropped a spider in the bathtub.”
“A spider? I wanna hold it!”
“Eeeeeverybody thinks you are being completely irrational. <-sob ->”
<- badeep, badoop ... badeep, badoop ->
“The spider is dead. You can’t hold it.”
“Everybody is not your parent. I am. Ew, yuck! There’s a spider leg in here! Everybody needs to clear out of this room so I can get dressed.”

<- badeep, badoop ... badeep, badoop ->
“Hello.”
“D and W have been trying to call you. Why didn’t you answer the phone?”

How to dance like a 14-year-old

// May 24th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // flickr, play, teenagers

Step one: Girls dance while boys hide at the snack table.
Step two: Girls physically drag boys to dance floor (and photographer).
Step three: Boys lump together on one side of the dance floor while girls lump together on the other side.
Step four: Brilliant DJ gets everyone to line dance.
Step five: Boys and girls mash together until there is no way to step in any direction.
Step six: Everyone jumps like a pogo stick to the beat of the music.
Step seven: Fall asleep on the car ride home.

Psst! Happy 14th Birthday Noah!

Is there a Facebook quiz for that?

// July 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // social media, teenagers

Other parent: “Our children are going to be embarrassed that their school is Title 1.”
Principal: “I understand. They’re probably talking about this on Facebook.”
Me: “Unless there’s a Title 1 quiz, I don’t think ANY middle schooler is discussing this on Facebook.”
Other parent: blink-blink

she never eats (when I’m looking)

// July 8th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // food, teenagers

The first time Sarah ate a meal BEFORE her date, I shrugged it off as teenage weirdness. Since then, I’ve noticed it is routine behavior for her to eat food before or after, but never while actually out on a date. I imagine her telling the waiter, “I’m not really hungry. I’ll just have a Dr.Pepper.” Her motivation might be a noble attempt not to spend money. It’s more likely that this is about food issues. Maybe she thinks it is gluttonous to eat a plate full of food. Perhaps she is self conscious about how she looks when chewing food. Could it be that she wants her date to think she never eats? Whatever the reason, this is one of those “choose your battles” scenarios. Risk making things worse by saying something or wait to see if this is a harmless phase? As long as she is eating, she isn’t doing physical harm, so I’m going to let this one slide. For now. I seriously have to ask if anyone has ever been fooled into thinking that their date never eats?

no guilt allowed

// May 21st, 2009 // 2 Comments » // parenting, school, teenagers

Dear Katie,
You have given your children love and support since before they were born. You have done NOTHING to warrant any kind of guilt inflicted upon yourself. Stomp that feeling into the dirt and keep doing what you were already doing.
Love, Cathy

When we first become parents, we have prepared by reading 5 dozen books on parenting that over-analyze and obsess about every detail of infancy and toddler-hood. The instructions for preschool and beyond are simply, “send them to school.” Instincts tell us to help with homework, volunteer to run the copy machine for the teacher twice a year and say yes to whatever the PTA tells you to do. Everything else is on-the-job learning. Nobody warns you that your child might learn differently. You have probably unconsciously adapted your parenting style to accommodate your child’s needs all along. It can still be a complete shock to the system when you suddenly have a light bulb click over your head as you realize that there is actually something going on that’s not “he just needs to apply himself.” Parents are not taught to know about learning differences. You know who is? Teachers. I promise you without a shadow of a doubt that there were some teachers who just knew that your child needed to be taught differently. You know what they can do with that knowledge? Nothing. Teachers are trapped in a bureaucracy that weighs on their talents like a ton of bricks. They can’t identify anything for fear that the school will be made accountable for some new expense. They can’t change the curriculum that they planned without someone questioning their decision to do so. They are so over-scheduled that the school year is over before they can sneak in adaptations that could help. School administration needs to change. NCLB and IDEA need to be rewritten to stop asking schools to pay for things that should be billed as medical expenses. An uninsured child in the hospital can be fast tracked onto TennCare. Schools need that kind of power to get help for students. More than anything, teachers need to be given more freedom to help their students. Parents and teachers have too much work to do to get mired in unwarranted guilt. Politicians need to stop wasting time and focus on making a difference. Our children can’t wait.

Is it summer yet?

// May 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // parenting, school, teenagers

Me: “Studying for your finals on Wednesday and Thursday?”
Sarah: “I have tests EVERY day this week!”
as she said it, flames shot out of her eyes and my face melted off. I skulked off to lick my wounds.

A few hours later, Sarah emerged from her room with a very wet painting. “I wasn’t happy with the painting I was working on, so I changed it. The “change” was taking a peaceful, pastel colored painting and covering it with a thick finger-painting of what can only be described as Cookie Monster with rabies. I didn’t know that Cookie Monster has giant fangs. He looked like he wanted a lot more than cookies.

I think we’ll spend the rest of this week sliding cookies under Sarah’s door and protecting the younger children from the wrath of finals week.

new OS for Noah

// March 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // parenting, scouts, teenagers

As I drove Noah to his middle school band concert, he talked about the songs he was going to be playing. No. That’s not an accurate description of our conversation. It would be more accurate to say that Noah spoke sheet music slang and I nodded my head while saying “mmhmm.”

“So then, during the spy song, I get to use all the fun stuff. Like, I use the whack thing and go clack-clack when the band goes boom-boom-boom and then I shake the things that are like maracas but aren’t and I go sha-shoo-sha-shoo while the band goes mwa-mwa and then . . . ”

After three song descriptions, I asked Noah if he was nervous about the concert. “Well, no, I mean, uh, not really, but maybe I guess I am.” I told him he would do just fine and to relax and enjoy the music.

“You just jinxed me! I’ll mess up now and everyone will hear me miss my note! Why did you do that?!?”

Sigh. Noah will not be 13 until May and I did not see the paperwork requesting early entry to teenage melodrama. This development was not pre-approved. I think I’ll just ship Mr. Adolescent off to camp with the Boy Scouts for Spring Break. They’ll love having an extra personality or three.