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Today, I had the distinct honor of speaking to a mother mid-parenting breakdown. She insisted her teenagers had reached new levels of impossibility—levels, I might add, previously only charted by toddlers. As she described the precise actions that were making her crazy, I couldn’t help but smile. I reminded her—gently, like a crowbar—that we’d had this exact conversation a decade ago, only with more diapers and fewer door slams. She had forgotten that she can use the same simple measures today that she used back then.
Toddlers and teenagers share more traits than either would care to admit: loathing alarms, unpredictable emotional whiplash, and a firm belief that if they can’t see you, you don’t exist. For example, they are in a developmental phase when they do NOT like to be awakened. They are definitely pushing the boundaries of their independence, but will, without warning, suddenly become very clingy and needy again. And they think that if they pull their hat/hoodie/hair over their eyes, YOU can’t see THEM.
Ahhh, but we do, and we know just how to address the issues they cause with their return to a “bungee cord lifestyle.” Let them choose. Let them fail. Help them mop up the mess, ideally with less eye-rolling than you managed last time. It really can be nearly as simple now as it was back then.
Just don’t blink. You’ll miss this phase—and then spend years romanticizing it, conveniently forgetting the smell of insufficient deodorant and the thunderous sound of slammed doors.