'We were all there once too': one mum on why we should all be cutting teenagers a break
As your little ones grow over the years, it can be easy to dread the impending teenage years. One day they're your little boy or girl sitting colouring at the kitchen table and the the next they're tall, moody and obsessed with their iPhone.
Between the hormones, the hang-ups, school, sex, drinking and drugs, it's an entirely new territory to every parent.
So one mum, Michelle Zunter, believes we need to be kinder to our teenagers, we all went through the same thing after all.
Writing for The Huffington Post, Zunter asks us to cast our minds back to how we were when we were teenagers:
"But what about these creatures who are so feared among us? Have we all forgotten what it was like to be a teenager? Have we forgotten what it’s like to get up two hours before school to desperately try and cover up pimples with concealer or wear the latest trend in outfits so we don’t get teased? Have we forgotten what it’s like to have our heart broken for the first time, or to feel so overwhelmed by emotions that it feels as though you might burst?"
As a step-mother to a teenage son, Zunter admits to being the parent that "makes sarcastic comments" about teenagers being "hormonal monsters who will inevitably hate us until they’re 30."
But, she continues, teenagers are not out-of-control demons:
"They’re young people who are growing up in a confusing world filled with chaos and uncertainty. They’re watching the adults in their own lives as well as on the nightly news behave in a multitude of distasteful ways…Maybe if we stopped demonizing teenagers so much they might be more willing to open up or hear us out."
She says that expecting your teenager to be troublesome is a self-fulfilling prophecy, making it okay for them to act out as it's "what we expected from them all along."
Zunter suggests that instead of dreading children hitting puberty we should instead celebrate it. Instead of holding them at an arms length, we should be encouraging them to be better than the generation that went before:
"I, for one, have a bittersweet hope for the next generation of young adults growing up in our current climate. I’ve met some incredibly bright, compassionate, and undeniably sharp teens who give me that sense of hope for the future. I admire them and we should be proud that they’re on the planet."
"I’m committed to making more of an effort as far as how I view my teenage neighbours and fellow citizens," she continues.
"Every time I see a teenager doing or saying something worthy of an eye roll I think back to my past. I remember how self-absorbed I was, how insecure I was, and how I said and did things that annoyed the adults around me. And I also recall those adults in my life who treated me like a person — not a freak."
Empathy, Zunter believes, is the key to raising a teenager:
"If it’s empathy many of us may feel teenagers are lacking, perhaps we as adults who made it through the teenage years should step up and give them a good example of what empathy looks like."
Because, at the end of the day, under all those spots and crazy hair styles, they're still your baby.