Lucky 13

This summer our oldest son turned 13. To be honest, I've been looking forward to the official teenage years because I foolishly thought that I was somewhat of an expert with that age group.  After all, I've taught 14-18 year old's for the last 18 years. If that doesn't make me an expert, nothing will, right?

Wrong.  Those of you with experience raising teenagers are laughing at me right now.  Kids act differently in the classroom than they do at home.  Well, most of them. Most kids see teachers differently than they see their lame mom or dad.  Again, most.  Now don't get me wrong, Gabe is a great kid as kids go, but raising him has not been as easy as we would have thought.

In the moments of pain, frustration, and uncertainty, I have lamented that fact.  But as I've thought about it over the last few days in preparation for this 31 Days of Digging Deeper, I can't help but think that the things that are easy are not the things I value.  Sure, it'd be great if everything was handed to me on a platter and my children never ever talked back to me.  Or got in trouble.  Or challenged me in ways I could never even imagine.  It'd also be great if they never struggled, or got called names, or were treated unfairly.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that's not exactly how life is supposed to work. 

We have made so many mistakes as parents with both Gabe and Zane, his little brother.  So. Many.  Being the parent of a teenager has already brought a whole host of new issues, but with those, we get to experience a whole set of new joys we get from watching our son mature, become more responsible, and make great decisions without us.  When people talked about the terrible two's of toddlerhood,we laughed.  Two wasn't so bad.  And then he was three. Nobody had a name for that, but yikes.   When people used to talk about the terrible teenage years, we laughed then too.  Well, we're not laughing, but we're still smiling.  So far, 13 has been all it's cracked up to be and much, much more.