I’m sitting here feeling quite guilty my 14 year old daughter has been ill over the past 3 days, I think it’s a virus she has had a temperature, slept loads etc. etc. I have been a good mum, taking care of her and dosing her up with medication, warm blackcurrant, lots of dippy eggs, hot water bottle etc. so why the guilt?
Well as horrible as it sounds, I have actually enjoyed her being ill; I have had my lovely child back rather than the grumpy, attitudey, ungrateful teenager that normally lives in my house!
She was always a happy child, always laughing and joking, then she hit 13 and it all changed literally overnight. It was 2 days after her 13th birthday and I had picked her up from school as usual. She made a sarcastic comment, which I laughed at as I thought she was joking but apparently, she wasn’t!! and so, my lovely daughter had been replaced with a relative stranger.
Luckily for me in my line of work I understand a bit more about what is going on with her so thought during this time of reflection I would share it with you.
When a child hits puberty a lot of changes are going on in the brain. Its known as “synaptic pruning”, this happens at other times too but is particularly prolific during adolescence. So, what is it?
It’s a process where the child brain, develops into an adult brain, neural pathways needed as a child are starting to become redundant and replaced with adult ones instead. This can be confusing for the teenager and everyone around them. One minute they are behaving quite childlike and can’t do anything for themselves the next they are challenging your authority and striving to be independent. They will swing backwards and forwards for a few years as the process goes along. They don’t understand what is happening to them and neither do you.
As frustrating as it is to be around them, what is actually happening is exactly what should be happening and you should be more concerned if it doesn’t.
You have been the voice of reason, the person to whom they look to for advice when they don’t know what to do, the one they can depend on no matter what. But as their brain develops into an adult brain, they will start to challenge your thoughts and feelings and start to have their own. This is all totally normal and means they are developing as they should do, they should be thinking for themselves and not necessarily be believing everything they understood before; they should be challenging the status quo. This means they are developing into a mature, conscientious and responsible adult, there are just a few bumpy rides before they get there!!
Does this mean I don’t get upset when they are rude and obnoxious or get angry when I can’t get into their bedroom as the floor is covered in a weeks’ worth of clothes, food, drinks or who knows what underneath?! of course not, I wish! I still have the same thoughts, feelings and frustrations but I am able to rationalise them. I can walk away and understand that this is a passing phase as frustrating as it is, it won’t last forever, even though it feels like it might at the time.
Our constant nagging does nothing except wind us all up, parent/carer and child. That doesn’t mean roll over and let them rule the roost but it does mean choosing your battles and sometimes having the maturity, a maturity they will learn from you, to know when to stand your ground and when to coin a phrase “to let it go”.
Published with the kind permission of my 14 year old Daughter.
