After being on his feet for the last three hours, all Gordon wanted to do was find a nice, quiet bench and sit down. Of course, that wasn’t an option. Under other circumstances, this simple request would seem logical, but they were on vacation, and Peggy had made it abundantly clear they were going to take full advantage of every second. But it was the Smithsonian, for heaven’s sake! You could literally walk around for days and not see all of it. That hadn’t deterred Peggy in the least, nor did it appear to deter Rachel, who was going strong, practically jumping up and down with excitement, chatting nonstop with her mother. They were supercharged after three hours; it was Gordon who lagged.
Watching the two of them, walking and talking without a break, Gordon felt more than a little left behind. In some ways, he mused, they were like joined twins, Peggy and Rachel, joined in their femaleness. Taking a closer look, he could even see the physical similarities in their figures. Rachel was wearing a blue T-shirt, one that actually showed her shape, instead of the baggy hand-me-downs she generally favored. Startled, Gordon realized he could see a definable waist and hips. Wait a minute, he thought to himself. When did that happen? How old was she? All of a sudden his fatigue was overcome by something akin to panic. With a start, he realized he was watching two females walking ahead of him – on e a woman and one about to be.
Girls hit puberty about two years, on average, before boys. We’re all pretty familiar with the physical changes happening to girls during this time so I won’t rehash those. If you’re the parent of a teenage girl, you’re already fully aware of how and how fast she’s changing physically. You wish she’d slow down because you’re not sure she’s ready for it, and you’re absolutely sure you’re not. But if you thought the only things you needed to factor into your daughter’s adolescence were finding the right bra or figuring out what kind of feminine hygiene product to buy, you’re going to need to expand your horizons. There’s a lot more going on inside even than there is on the outside.
Girls are able to connect to their emotions more quickly than boys. In fact, they often discuss how they are feeling while they are feeling it. In adolescence, this allows girls to be fully present in the moment, but they can also get caught up in that moment. This is real-time emotional impact without the benefit of hindsight, which sets the stage for the sort of all-or-nothing drama so indicative of a teenage girl. It’s a crisis because it feels, right now, like a crisis, and she’s overwhelmed by the power of that right-now emotional force. It’s why she can go from the delight of having you come at the end of school to pick her up to the disaster of having that hot guy from English actually see her getting into a car with a parental unit all within a matter of seconds, before you’ve even gotten the transmission out of park.
As a parent, you need to keep a calm head and refuse to respond emotionally in kind. This isn’t a personal repudiation of you as a parent; it’s a normal reaction to being embarrassed because her carefully crafted persona of adultness and independence has been shot down by the harsh reminder that she doesn’t have her driver’s license yet, let alone a car, and your presence is proof she’s not really as grown up as she’d like to appear. Allow the crisis to pass without reacting to it and stocking the fires. After all, it’s not really about you.
The above is excerpted from Chapter 4 of my new book, The Stranger in Your House. I’ll be posting more excerpts from it here in the weeks to come, but you can receive a FREE copy of the book itself between now and December 15, 2011. To participate in this book giveaway, simply share some of your own thoughts or experiences about raising teenagers – in the comments section of this or future blog posts about the book.