Communication Breakdown

Yelling: This term no longer applies to the volume of your voice.  From here on out, you can expect to be accused of yelling whenever you are saying something which your tween does not wish to hear.  You can whisper your reasons for wanting your child to clean her room and still be met with a red-faced kid, hands on ears, screaming “Stop yelling at me!  All you ever do is yell!  GAH!!!”

Mirroring: This is the art of turning every single thing you say back onto you – just one of many reasons to avoid actually discussing anything.

“Honey, please stop being so disrespectful.”

“YOU stop being so disrespectful!!”

“This behavior is unacceptable.”

“YOUR behavior is unacceptable!” ( is she KIDDING???)

There is no way to win this – the only thing to do is to stop talking, which is exactly what she wanted you to do in the first place.

Evasion:  Apparently, this is a time during which they really hone the evasion techniques.  My daughter’s got a few good ones.

1. The Old Man and the Bathroom:  I’ve known a few women to complain about how their husbands disappear into the bathroom for hours at a time at strategic moments, and my daughter  has taken to doing this too.  Let’s say I just asked her to clean her room.  She will walk towards the hallway, head down, mumbling, with a book in her hand.  The next thing I hear is the bathroom fan turning on and the door closing, and I won’t see her again for a very long time.

2. Danger, Everywhere!: Actually, this is an old one my girl’s been using for a few years now, but she still pulls it out every now and then.  Here’s how this one works:  I tell her I need to talk to her about something/need her to do me a favor.  Suddenly she falls, or I hear a thud in the hallway, and she comes out – clutching her wrist/ankle/knee/arm/hand/head…her face all twisted up in pain. Some days I feign sympathy…other days I can’t  help but laugh.  Her reaction varies from indignant and hurt to laughing with me.

3. Mumbling: This one is way overused in our house.  My daughter mumbles to avoid a straight answer to anything, and refuses to repeat herself when I ask her to.  This is generally paired, some time later, with “I told you FIVE times already!!”  Huh?  Oh.  I’m confused.

None of my friend’s parents…

Apparently, my daughter’s friends’ parents are like this:  they allow their kids to watch tv/facebook/listen to their ipods all day-every day…eat nothing but cheetos and desserts all day/let them stay up as late as they want and sleep in every day/never tell them what to do/never enter their rooms, etc. etc.

Yeah, right.

I’ve always tried to instill healthy eating habits in my daughter, and in a lot of ways I’ve been successful.  Although she tends to beg for sweets and treats lots of the time, I can still hand her a bowl of steamed broccoli as a snack after school and she’ll eat it gladly.  That’s pretty cool.  I don’t mind a little junk as long as she’s got a healthy base – ya know?

Lately, however – my healthy ways have become a source for contention.  She has started to complain – to anyone who’ll listen (throwing mom under the bus has become routine) about the food we have in our house.

“Oh my god – there is NO good food at our house!  I mean, all my friends have good stuff for lunch, and mine stands out – everyone makes fun of me.  NO ONE eats like this!  She buys the grossest peanut butter – I  hate it! At dad’s house we have white bread and Jiff, but mom makes us eat whole wheat and it’s awful!”  “Mom, do you have ANY idea what normal people eat??? GOSH, you are SO annoying!!”   and on and on and on…

(Her typical packed lunch is a peanut butter sandwich and some fruit – this week it’s been strawberries – her favorite, and other times it might be mandarin oranges and applesauce – also favorites of hers.  Is this such an odd thing to have for lunch?)

While she is going on about this, it’s her facial expression, the grunts of frustration, the eye-rolling and intensity of her voice that really express her disgust with me.  Her hands are moving around wildly in the air as she explains how horrible it is for  her – how mean her mom is to make her eat this crap.  She honestly acts like I am ruining her life because I won’t buy white bread.

Who knew that having healthy food in the house would make her life so difficult?  It’s not like I never buy cheetos/chips/______, and this week we even have whipped cream for her strawberries.  And there’s all that Easter candy still… Good grief.  I guess it could be much worse, though.  She’s going to find something, right?

So, for now, I’m going to be happy that her biggest complaint is the food we have in the house.  We should all be so lucky.

right?

It’s Not about Common Sense – You are an overprotective mother

A friend was joking on facebook today about writing a book about what to expect in the teen years, and this inspired me to start blogging about my own experience with a budding tween.  Hopefully, this will help relieve stress and bring laughter and joy rather than tears and angst.  (For myself, at least)

My daughter turns eleven in about a month, but she’s always been precocious.  She sensed the TWEEN train coming miles and miles back, and made a mad dash to hop on while it ran by, full-speed. CHOOOO-CHOOOOOOOOOOO!

I could start with a few months back, but I’m going to hit the ground running, myself, and start with yesterday.  :0)

I’m in the kitchen, making “breakfast cookies”, which everyone in the house loves, (except for my girl!) when this dark blur passes by.  When the door slams, I realize it’s her, and I notice she’s grabbed her scooter and is on her way towards the street – ipod in back pocket / earphones in.

Any reasonable person knows that it’s not wise to play in the street with music blaring in your ears.  If a car comes up behind you, it’s good to be able to hear it and get out of the way.  Most toddlers get this, right?

“Hey, hon – if you’re going to ride, you need to put the iphone away so you can hear any cars coming, okay?”

Wow. HUGE eye-roll paired with a head-roll that sends waves of disgust in my direction.

“You are SO overprotective! None of my friends’ parents are like this!”

My daughter, with whom I have shared an incredibly close relationship  over the past 10 years, is looking at me like I’m a smudge of dog poop she can’t scrape off her shoe.

“Sorry hon…it’s just common sense…self-preservation.  Hand it over.”

With a smug sigh, she hands me the ipod, saying “I wasn’t going into the street anyway!”  And that’s that.  We’ve come a long way, actually…just a few weeks ago this might have turned into a screaming match.  I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself for remaining so calm and consistent!  (big pat on the back)

The door slams again about 10 minutes later, and she’s back in the house.  I remind her that she still needs to clean her room, and she nods, walking away and mumbling something.  Then I hear the bathroom door close and the fan turn on.   Another 20 minutes goes by when the shower turns on, and it’s an hour later before she reappears.  Now it’s dinnertime and there’s no time left for cleaning her room today.  Funny  how that works out.

I could swear that when I told her a couple hours ago that she should take a shower, she said she didn’t need one…