Missing: Teenage Brains

While we were in Oregon, I was having a conversation with my friend Emily about kids. She was telling me that she saw on some report that studies have been done to show that teens act the way they do because they are unable to think thru things and remember things. I don't know if this sudden "mental warp" is real or if it's just an excuse we've created so our kids don't seem so...DUH...but ever since she told me about this, I've wondered if that's why our little pre-teen does some of the things she does.

Suddenly the things we say seem to make their way into, what I'd like to call, the "brain blender." This blender does a great job of keeping the key ingredients and purees all of it to create a mixed up version of what you had before. For example: A teen is asked to clean up her dirty bedroom, and while the actual bedroom looks GREAT, here's what you get.

Or your teen is outside playing with a lawn chair, a working umbrealla, and a stroller - it's time to come in so you ask your teen to put everything back away where they got it, and here's what you get.

Or you notice that your teen has the bar of body soap stuck to the mirror in her bathroom instead of in the shower where she can use it and get clean, so you ask her to put it back into the shower, and she thinks this is a much better place for it.

Now, to those of you that have a teen, pre-teen, or ever will have a teen, all I can say is: GOOD LUCK! Possibly try to remember back to your own "brain blender" days and see if you can make sense of any of it. (I have been unsuccessful at it thus far) :)