I feel like I have been raising teenagers for 19 years. Because traumatized children are on survival mode, they seem to have teenager-like behaviors from the gitgo. Yep, I said “Gitgo.” I looked it up. It is still a word to Webster.
Today, I woke my son for school and thought the same thing I have thought every day for all these years: He needs to clean this disgusting room. That is an hysterical repetitive thought process. How can I possibly care about his room for 16+ years? HE obviously doesn’t NEED a clean room. The good news is I didn’t say anything. If I said something every time I thought it my children would hate me.
Parents don’t have to parent everything. If we did, our children would be either passively resistant or aggressively resistant 24/7. By the actual teen years, we would be totally tuned out and without influence in our children’s lives.
Relationship is everything. Clean rooms, not so much.
Love Matters,
Ce Eshelman, LMFT
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