Thursday, August 9, 2012

Teenagers, Trees, and Jello

Here are the turkey vegetable meatloaf cups and sides that my daughters made for dinner last night. They also made chocolate chip cookies, which may have been a more persuasive photo to go with this story: I saw a post on facebook the other day that said, "Raising teenagers is like nailing jello to a tree." Immediately, I defended teens by saying that these are the good years when everything parents had been teaching finally started to stick. As usual, this was followed by other moms posting fatalistic remarks about the teen years. My teens share my facebook page, and they brought up that post in conversation later. Both daughters said that when they saw what our friend posted, they quickly searched to see what I had said. (I felt proud that they suspected me of speaking up on behalf of their age group.) Then Becky said that if she'd had an account, she'd have told them that their low expectations and statements like this were one of the reasons they weren't getting the results they wanted. It was rewarding to hear from the horse's mouth that our high expectations and trust in our teens do help them thrive. But the most rewarding aspect of our parenting is the turkey vegetable meatloaf cups and delicious homemade cookies!

3 comments:

  1. Becky is right! And your girls are awesome.

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  2. That looks yummy!

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  3. I would stand up for your three young ladies any day of the week. The teen years are part of a process that begins at birth. What did we do for our children in their developmental years to cement bonds of trust and responsibility and love? We bear the fruit of whatever that may have been in the teen years. Your girls have lovely qualities and can cook besides! You've done well, all of you.

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