Raising teenagers "It gets worse"

I have 3 daughters, ages 9, 14 & 17.

When my oldest daughter, A, was 11 we were really having a hard time dealing with her attitude.  It was frustrating and I had no idea what I was doing.  A fellow Girl Scout leader who had older girls looked at me and said "it gets worse".  I looked at her and said "how is that possible???" and she just shrugged her shoulders and laughed.  Six years later, I can honestly tell you that I've done the same thing to my friends who have kids younger than my oldest.  "It gets worse."  Wise yet terrifying words to the parent of a future teenage girl.

When A turned 13, the DAY she turned 13, I looked at her and said "I don't know what the h*ll happened to you today but you are not the same person as yesterday."  Teenage attitude hit like a big ton of bricks.  Wow was my friend right.  It had gotten worse.  We discovered over the next two years that A had severe anxiety and OCD, which was contributing to her struggles as a teenage girl.  She was socially awkward and just generally freaked out, all on top of the teenage girl stuff.  I wasn't sure we were going to survive her teenage years.

Someone told me that ages 11 to 14 are the worse.  When they get to age 16 they start to become somewhat normal again and it continues to get better.  A is now 17 and we still have our days but she's much easier to talk to and she's much more respectful.  We still don't agree on many things but when I put my foot down, she knows that's it and we move on.  She's also learning to drive and will graduate high school in a year.

Now we have our 2nd daughter, C, who is 14.  She's generally been a much easier teenager than her sister, mostly because she doesn't have the severe anxiety and OCD.  But we are still drowning in teenage girl attitude.  Last night she blasted me for paying too much attention to her social media accounts, of being too "stalkerish".  I called her a snotty brat and walked out of the room because you know what, YOU are a child and you live in my house and I'll parent you as long as those two things are true.

That memory of "It gets worse" haunted me this morning as I was getting ready.  Crap.  I really hate this stage.  I've long said that 3 was the worse age for my kids because they were all so sassy and temperamental.  But now I have to change my tune.  Ages 13 & 14 are worse than age 3.  Far worse.  When they're 3 you can pick them up, you could give them a popsicle, turn on the tv and generally whatever 3 year old problem was instantly gone.  When they're 13 or 14 and bigger than you, you can't pick them up and they're so mean to you that you want to go find a popsicle and watch tv with a 3 year old to remember when parenting was easier.

I wish I had sage advice for my fellow parents dealing with their teenagers.  But those of you who haven't entered the world of teenage parenting, I tell you this:  No matter how snarky and sassy you think your pre-teen child is now, trust me when I say "It Gets Worse."

Girl Scout Award Ideas

I am compiling ideas to help girls brainstorm what they want to do for future Bronze, Silver & Gold Award projects.

T-shirt wreaths for Habitat houses
http://hotgluegunhelpers.blogspot.com/2010/11/hot-glue-it-t-shirt-wreath-for-holidays.html

Cookbooks with recipes for commonly donated foods for local food banks

Buddy Benches - Colleen is doing this one for Aiken El and possibly some other schools

New year, New school

2014 is going to be an adventure for the Miller family.

My youngest is 9 years old and is in 3rd grade.  Since the age of 3 we've known she was a little different.  She learned to read on her own when she was 3 and she's been excelling ever since.  For the last 3 years, she would say that she was bored in school but that it was okay because her teachers made it fun.  That changed this year.  Third grade is when school becomes more serious, they start getting grades in all classes, instead of just Language Arts & Math.  Now school was just boring, no longer fun.

I contacted the school soon after school started because I was concerned about how bored she was.  She said she was reading almost all day every day.  It took a month to get the administration to actually respond to my requests for a meeting and after several meetings, tears, and lots of promises that turned out to be lies, I was still frustrated.  She wound up with a new teacher, who was better than what she had but after 2 weeks with her new teacher she was still frustrated & bored.

So starting next week, we begin virtual school.  It's been really interesting to see how people react to it.  The biggest questions we've gotten are "what about the social aspect of school?" and "how will that work?"

Both valid questions but after you get asked the same question 900 million times, it gets a little old.  Socially, she's in competitive dance and she's at the studio at least 4 days a week and she's in Girl Scouts and goes to church.  I'm not worried about her social life.  We've worked out how it will work for now.  As she gets older, she can spend time at home alone but we aren't quite there yet so for now she'll spend time with friends of mine in the mornings while Dad is in class.

I really hope this is the answer she's looking for.  It's a little scary to a mom to think of her kid trying to get through school faster because it means she will be leaving us that much sooner but I have tried very hard to let my kids find their own path in life, to let them make their own choices.

Wish us luck!!