PMS
All of us out there are familiar the term PMS or Premenstrual Syndrome, whether you are male or female. Moms, wives, sisters and friends all experience it at some point in their lives. Well, I’m here to coin a new acronym for PMS: Puberty Mental Syndrome. Let me explain.
Anyone who has a preteen or teen probably noticed subtle attitude changes beginning in 7th grade that pretty much continued all through teenhood. You know, when your once sweet child becomes confrontational or rude. The little changes become big ones once puberty takes hold. My son’s old math teacher once summed it up quite easily. He said that adults have about a shot glass worth of hormones running through their bodies but teenagers have a gallon. Surprised as I was to hear this, it explained a lot about what exactly our teens physically go through and how it affects their behavior and way of thinking.
There are days in my life with my two teens that indeed seem crazy. In fact, I had one such day just last week. I was driving my son to school in the morning on Old Redwood Highway when somebody made a U-turn in front of us while we were at a traffic light. The driver happened to be wearing a giraffe costume, large head, ears and all (true story, I am not making this up). I, of course, said ‘how strange, you don’t see that everyday.’ Instead of my son chuckling along with me at the absurdity of the situation, he stuck up for the giraffe. ‘Well Mom,’ he says, ‘maybe they just like wearing costumes, ok? You really shouldn’t make fun of them.’
‘What are you talking about? I wanted to scream at him. Are you serious? Did you just hear what you just said and how you rationalized it?’ You know what folks; he was completely serious, all kidding aside. So, at that moment I had a choice to either continue the bizarre conversation with a guaranteed bad ending or I could simply tell my son that he was right. I know his hormones were talking to me, not him. And that is the golden ticket these days to avoid disagreements. Find out who is talking: the hormones or your teen.
In moving forward with our daily lives I am trying to be really cognizant of a few things so that our relationship stays positive. How much sleep have they had? Are they under pressure at school because of tests? How much physical activity have they gotten? Are they eating enough? A telltale sign in my house of growth spurts is extreme hunger, growing pains (both my teens get then in their legs as they are both very tall) and exhaustion. Instead of being frustrated by their laziness, I try to be understanding. I try to be loving and kind and sometimes I will even get a hug at the end of the day from one or both of them. Getting mad at our teens is easy. The hard part is seeing them for who they are growing into and the tough process it is to get there.
So next time your teen acts a little goofy, take a good look at them. Hug them, tell them you love them, laugh with them and even agree with them. I was tempted to go online that morning when I got home to buy a giraffe costume. I was going to wear it when I picked my son up from school just to prove my point. That’s just my stubborn personality shining through. I can proudly say that I resisted the urge. But it did get me thinking. Maybe the person wearing the giraffe costume that morning has it all figured out. Maybe we should all drive around in animal costumes. If I chose a costume to wear in my daily life it would be a big, brown, hairy momma bear, fierce and protective. That’s who I am in the inside. What costume would you choose?
