Archives for October 2014

On Saturday night I was granted brief access back into the hideous world of the teenager. Thrust back into my own years of teenage angst but with my husband by my side (thank god), a drink in my hand that I hadn’t stolen and the knowledge that those horrible teenage years come to an end.

I’m not saying for a minute that being a teenager is always horrid (although it was for me) but those very beginning years when you’re just desperately trying to fit in and discover who you are, are not pretty for anyone. Not even the pretty ones.

So back to Saturday night.
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I am navigating parenting a teen in much the same way a party goer navigates a breathaliser test on the way home from a big night, dodgily swerving about and praying for the best while trying to keep everyone safe. And alive

I recently read a line from a book that I am dying to read when it is published in 2015 . The book, Love in the Time of Contempt written by the immensely talented Joanne Fedler, sums up pretty much how I am feeling with the line “Childbirth is never over. We are always birthing them, letting go of them, giving them to the world”

And so it is for me that every age and stage of Little Pencil’s life is a brand new (and frankly sometimes terrifying) experience. Now I have never been one to read baby and child rearing books because god knows I hate being to what to do and I positively loathe being told how to parent, but I like the sound of Joanne’s book because it’s about her experience more than it is an instruction manual and I do like to know how other parents are handling this stage they call the teenage years.

Further to knowing more about these bumpy years, I recently went to the most valuable and affirming talk on parenting teenagers. The talk was given by my beautiful friend and over-the-top brilliant psychologist Dani Klein and it wasn’t just because I love her that I found her talk so inspiring. What I loved is that she gave us, between many, many, many laughs, an insight into how the teenage brain works and thinks. She helped us understand that our teen’s sometimes confounding and hideous behavior is normal and, although she didn’t say this in her own words, if nobody dies in the process, we will get through it.

So I’m lucky, I’m surrounded by knowledge and experience and I have some insight into my son’s developing pre-frontal cortex. But I’m still trying to navigate my way in between the peer pressure, my own needs as a helicopter parent and the safety of my child. Oh and of course I am factoring in Little Pencil’s needs and happiness of course and it aint easy.

I’m pretty confident in the decisions we make as parents and I think our son is turning out to be a fan-bloody-tastic human being with compassion, kindness, humour and smarts but I am bloody stumped by the beach.

We have recently moved house and are closer to the beach. When I say closer I mean walking distance closer. And it’s been hot. And Little Pencil thinks he should be wiling away his days in the surf. Without his mother of course.

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He thinks he should be allowed to go to alone to the beach with his mates and by alone I mean without a parent. It feels wrong to me. When he asks me why he’s not allowed to go I actually can’t explain it.

I am not worried about the people at the beach – stranger danger is not a theory I subscribe to and I believe that he is perfectly safe from predators and men in white vans (or speedos). But I worry about the hugeness of the ocean and the strength of the waves.

In my rational mind I know that my being at the beach would not make even the smallest difference because I am a worse swimmer than he is and, if he was in the water and God forbid, something happened to him I would probably not even be aware let alone be able to help him.

He tells me that all his friends are allowed to go to the beach by themselves but most of their parents tell me otherwise. He is only 13. He has a long life at the beach (and away from it) ahead of him.

He is very much still a child albeit a teenage child. He still needs a parent and guidance and lifts and to be loved and to be shown wrong from right. He still needs boundaries and parental involvement in his life. I refuse to believe that 13 is old enough to be left to just make your way – of course he has independence and he’s better with a bus timetable than people twice his age but does he need to go to the beach by himself?

Tell me, beach-city dwellers, when did you go to the beach by yourself ? What age would you allow your kids to go swimming at the beach completely unattended?