On December 18, 2015 a gift basket greeted our house guest! Our 13-year old cousin from Guatemala received: a teddy bear, Spiderman slippers, a national geographic kids (his reading level since his primary language is Spanish), a pair of longjohns to prepare for the Chicago cold and a journal I made him with his name on it and an American Eagle background.
In my fantasy brain he was going to write a few sentences everyday on the variety of activities we will do... Like I had done when we visited Guatemala in 2000 and 2002 and 2003. And he would of course have said "Thank You" for the considerations for his comfort and feeling at home.
Nada - zilch - zip - zero - zippo! My shock and horror to the experiences that would follow. Okay, he wasn't a little terrorist, but this teenager put my to work on my parenting skills that I thought were pretty darn good. I approached this situation with humor, creativity and occasionally, in the later weeks I showed my emotion and tears so my sweet cousin could see I was genuine, human, and not always a rock.
Who knew mild disrespect, cave like hibernation and incessant COMPLAINING could lead me to stop doing what I love. Teenagers have powers beyond there own understanding. The ability to whittle us down to core emotions, and without all their effort wear down our intellectual ability.
Its T minus 3 days to his departure and I'm feeling like me again. It took me this long to "break" some of our dear 14-year old cousins bad habits and bring him over to our side of reality. As with most kids, I think hes a hood boy, however his own alienation into PS4 games and you tube videos All.Day.Long. Created a monster! A child who uses minimal vocabulary, who is BORED without high level intense stimulation that video games provide. Going for a walk, or theatre and dinner at Medieval Times wasn't enough to squish his boredom. Even worse, movement over 20 minutes cause muscle pains in his legs and arms.
Over the course if the last few weeks I learned A LOT about teenagers, my feelings about parenting in difficult circumstances, and handling a house guest who needs to be "retrained" to respect adults. This experience of tending to our cousin during his 2 month visit here has prepared me for my own teenagers who will be here sooner then later... And I hope I can muster the strength to make the changes I SEE we MUST do NOW, to prevent frustration - for them and us parents - in the future.
What I am planning the the stories and things that happened will make their way to this blog... For now I am happy to have found my writing voice again and to get my house back. Older son keeps saying he's so happy to get his Bed back!
Make Mistakes, breathe, reflect and Laugh.Out.Loud
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