High school behavior isn’t relegated just to teens. I have seen some of the same behavior that our teens struggle with, be just as much an issue with adults.
I’m talking about when adults start to interfere in teen issues that should probably be left on their own. Parents who get overly involved in their teens lives not only prevent them from learning how to handle relational issues but they can quickly find themselves getting sucked into the same behavior we see in our teens.
What I have learned is that I need to be very careful about what I say to other moms. A recent comment that I made, which in all honesty was said with no ill intent and I didn’t really think it was a big issue, suddenly became one.
The details don’t really matter but it involved that mom then going to another mom and suddenly a situation that didn’t need to be there evolved. It was a frustrating and preventable mess.
Sure, it perhaps could have started with me. I could have just not said anything. But when in your heart of hearts you don’t think anything of it, how would you know not to say anything?
Believe me…I know when I have put my foot in my mouth and I take full responsibility for when I do. But in this case, it wasn’t really an issue…yet it got turned into one.
So now instead of seeing teens going off into corners and whispering behind each other’s backs, its happening with adults…good grief.
I know it can sometimes be easy to get sucked into the issues our teens are going through. But for the most part we need to let them work things out. We also need to be careful about what we say and consider that maybe our words will potentially cause conflict.
Parents of teens can be a little sensitive to certain issues, so perhaps we need to do what we teach our children. Take a step back, breathe, evaluate the situation, determine if it is worth pursuing and then either do what is necessary or choose to let it go.
We all want to protect our children but there really does come a point in which we have to be willing to let our teens work their own issues out. We are supposed to be the example, not acting like we are in high school.
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We Can’t Always Rescue Our Children