Read Online I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers by Melinda Rainey Thompson - Free Book Online

kick her thirty-year-old pot-head son out of her guest room and make him get a job?” That’s a real common scenario.
    â€œIf she didn’t always bail that girl out, she’d learn a lesson!” We all know helicopter parents.
    â€œI can’t believe she lets her child talk to her like that!” I’m guilty of self-righteousness on this one. I’ve been tempted to jerk up a child I didn’t give birth to after hearing him talk to his mother, my friend, like she is an idiot. It’s one of my pet peeves. I have a very low threshold for this particular sin.
    When someone shines a spotlight on our own issues, we always have reasons why our situation is “different.” We are quick to explain why a suggestion won’t work for us. Sometimes, it really does help to get another perspective from a friend who knows you and your teenager. You have to feel comfortable baring your soul or venting your spleen to that person. This confidante must be able to resist the urge to share the story of your teenager’s mistakes all over town. You must have faith in your friend’s counsel. Otherwise, there is no chance you will take her advice. If you choose to confide in a friend whose children are high-school dropouts, the problem may not be your teenager. It may be you. You may not have good sense yourself. It happens.
    Bottom line: when my kids idolize friends or relatives who make bad choices, it makes my job so much harder. Isn’t parenting challenging enough without people deliberately trying to sabotageyou? I bet you have some friends or relatives like this in your own life. It’s as common as shower curtain mildew. With friends and relatives mucking things up, who has time to worry about interference from famous people you don’t even know? And have you seen some of the reality shows on television, by the way? Whose reality would that be? I am proud to say that I don’t know anyone like those people on TV.
    Before my kids were teenagers, other people’s opinions didn’t matter much. Their words were just white noise in the background of our lives. No way could they rock our little world. To toddlers, Mama knows everything. She’s always right. If she needs backup, there’s always Dad. If I said, “Try this—it’s delicious,” my children’s mouths would open like baby birds’.
    My three children had absolute faith in me. I had all the answers. If I said, “You’re okay—you’re not hurt!” they would nod even if blood was trickling down their legs. Mama knew when the water was too shallow to dive, when the drink was about to spill, how to build the perfect fort, and how to make an A on a book report. Life was simple then. I was a goddess on the home front, revered by my children for my mind-reading abilities, my talent for fixing broken toys, and my gift for reading aloud with different characters’ voices. Those kids rushed the front door when they heard my key in the lock like I was Justin Bieber at a middle-school dance. My children were eager to share their thoughts and experiences with me, and they were anxious for my endorsement of every new endeavor. Those were good times.
    Even back then, well-meaning relatives often dipped their oars into my parenting waters, but it wasn’t hard to bring my kids into line. I’d say to them, “I know your grandparents let you do that, but who is the boss of you?”
    â€œYou are,” they’d admit, reluctantly.
    We called it “deprogramming” when my kids returned from an anything-goes grandparent outing. One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to stand up to one’s own parents and tell them they can’t do something with your kids because it is unsafe or unwise or simply because you have chosen to go another way. No matter how old the grandchildren, parents, and grandparents are when that happens, it’s tough to do.