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As a family with three kids all close in age, the opportunity for individual 1-1, parent - child time is like GOLD. All of my kids, but especially my middle schooler craves this kind of individual attention away from his siblings. Its not about what we do together, its about him know we prioritized our time to spend it individually with him.

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Parenting is so challenging and it has been a surprise how often I really don't feel like I have the answers. Like, how do I teach you to exist in this complicated place with all of my imperfections and all of the things you need to know? As our kids have gotten older, the joys of offering a glass of milk and bandaging a scraped knee have faded in to the background as needs have shifted to car rides and phone time. Loving an older child is more complex and requires holding this loving space for an unfinished and sometimes combustable person. Not that we are ever finished. But I love the simplicity of just "I love you." I can't solve all your problems and I don't even know if I can understand them all. But, I love you with them and through them. And I care. This gives so much meaning to me as a parent and I hope, produces meaning and hope in our children.

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We delayed giving our kids phones. We resisted the temptation, the judgment, the peer pressure because we knew how hard it would be to set boundaries. But we couldn't resist forever. They grew older, more observant and we grew tired. The pandemic, work, life, everything intervened. We started slow -- a single, shared "home" phone for use only at home, only for necessity. That expanded as they demonstrated some control and the ability to follow our rules. Now, our oldest has graduated to his own and our daughter uses the home phone. We require phones to go in a basket after school until homework is complete and phones must be put away by 9pm on weeknights. Despite the gradual buildup, it's a constant struggle. We're constantly reminding like a voice recording on a loop. They just can't control themselves. They don't see their own deleterious habits. So, we continue to fight, to remind, to teach, and to tow the line in hopes that they will grow up with some semblance of self awareness to be able to form a healthy, and balanced, relationship with technology.

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Should we share this article with our kids? 

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Should we share this article with our kids? 

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I sometimes worry that our teens believe they are alone in their struggles: with school, with their parents, with their friends, with themselves-both the public version and the private version. Because kids navigate these issues differently; some with over-compensating confidence, some through over-achieving, some by establishing self fulfilling prophecies, some withdrawing, some "fake it to make it" etc... doesn't mean they aren't still sharing a similar experience. Could sharing an article such as this help them understand their struggles are universal even if their coping mechanisms aren't. Does a shared set of facts or more transparency between parent and child surrounding these tough transition years help?

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"And, yes, I know that my room is a mess. I like it that way: It looks how I feel inside. And please don’t ask me what’s wrong, because I don’t know. I don’t know where these feelings came from."

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"And, yes, I know that my room is a mess. I like it that way: It looks how I feel inside. And please don’t ask me what’s wrong, because I don’t know. I don’t know where these feelings came from."

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I am thankful for this clear, unapologetic explanation for 1) messy bedrooms and 2) the answer "I don't know."

I'm not mad that my two teenage boys' rooms are a mess;  I'm mystified.  I don't get it.  Why would you want clothes on every surface, not sure what's actually clean and what needs to be laundered?  Why would you make it hard to find the pair of pants or that shirt you want to wear?  They tell me that they like the mess, and this article helps me understand why: it's an external manifestation of some of what they're experiencing internally.

Ditto for the frequent answer "I don't know."  Rather than hear that as a dodge or denial or shutting me out, I can hear that as their truth: they really don't know why or how ... and they may not be able to pinpoint or describe their emotions.  So much swirling around inside!

Thanks for sharing a terrific (and succinct) article. After reading it, I love my boys even more!

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I have a young middle schooler. I have been reminding myself for the last few years to give him more space because I have a tendency to overmanage.

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Tonight, in the quiet of the room, chatting with the kids, after the neurodiversity presentation, it made me realize how precious these young lives are.

I was telling them, when I was our eldests' age (11), that I was already away at full time boarding school, and my brother had been since age 7, with no-one to remind them of how loved they were (mail from our parents was with held!), or how, as I tell my kids most nights, I would give them one of my kidneys if they needed it (yes, now there is a fight going on, since the youngest has realized we have 2 kidneys, and I really should keep one!)  When my 11 year old comes home, has a grump, throws a death stare at me, and then a minute later asks for a big old hug, and I tell him how much he is loved.  He looks at me with his big old eyes and questions me, even when he is behaving like that, and I say yes, I love him any way and am right here for him, always.

This article was reassuringly real - a really good contributor to making me think about the years to come, and how to do things differently to my upbringing.  I have begun to learn how to be kind to oneself, to encourage oneself, to be gentle on oneself, after 48 years (!) and trying to encourage my children to be kind, encouraging, gentler on themselves, when there is so much chaos around them at times, this is where we are at right now and more, for them to know how totally loved they are by so many, and how much their contributions count......

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I have an 18 year old and 11 year old. The 11 year old is sweet, cuddly, loving and still enjoys hanging out with me. The 18 year old…well, is 18. It has been a trying few years, especially with the pandemic. But I feel hopeful. I tell him I love him every day, and he says I love you back (but it sort of feels like an auto response).

But this week - he said it first!  He sent a text in the middle of the day to my husband and me and said that he loved and appreciated us and he wanted us to know because he didn’t feel like he said it enough. A second text came through moments later saying “Nothing is wrong by the way” which made me smile.

So, I will continue to tell him I love him every day…and I will cherish the moments when he says it first.

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Can anyone really ever hear this too much? Even if the only response I get is "You, too" or "I know", I tell Alex and Keith I love them more times than I can count...because I never, ever want them to feel that I don't and because I always want them to know that they are LOVEABLE - even when I don't like them very much. :) Seriously...sometimes it even annoys them, but I tell them as much as I can.