Teenagers! Aaughh!!

Scientists tell us that the brain of an adolescent child is actually being "rewired" though the difficult and awkward years of puberty.

I need to remind myself of that when dealing with Samantha. I mean on the surface, what an awesome kid; honor student, athlete, musician, good looking. However, half an inch under that skull - maybe its thicker than that - all hell is breaking loose.

For example; while Samantha is at Camp she spends a lot of time on the water sailing. In order to get to the water she needs to wade into the Neuse River. Now, last year she cut the bottom of her foot because she did not wear river shoes, so this year we offered to get her a pair of crocs. She confidently declined stating that she would wear her Sperrys. Except she didn't. Guess what happened last week? She cut her foot in the river. Why? She didn't learn her lesson from last year. Guess what she did the very next day - the VERY NEXT DAY?! She cut her other foot in the river. Teenagers!


That's a less-than-complicated example. The more complicated example has to do with telling whoppers of lies for the edification of others. Did you know that my daughter has told her FaceBook friends that she jumps outs out of airplanes with me and my paratroopers?! And it turns out that she is putting together a jump for all of her friends to come to Ft. Bragg and jump with me too! Ugh, teenagers!


I am not going to try to rewind my tape thirty years and try to remember what I was like at 14. I am sure that I was goofy too. More so, probably. The frustrating part about - well, okay, there are several frustrating parts - is that Samantha is very cool without the fabrication. She sails, she shoots, she goes on trips, she has opportunities and two successful parents, and she is loved by everyone; so why invent more than that? The other frustrating piece is that I don't know if she will listen to good, solid parental advice. We see so much looking back over our life's experiences that we implore our children to do the right thing and avoid the mistakes we made.

However, live is experiential and has to be lived as opposed to taught and learned. And if that means getting your feet cut a couple of times, well, that's what it might take. Ugh, teenagers - love 'em.