Yesterday I told you about the trip to the Spy Museum.  Now, let’s backtrack.  When I originally bought tickets, I asked my daughter if she wanted to join in on the excursion.  She said no, because she had a very long to do list and limited time.  No worries.

When Husband and I got home from the museum, we went into her room where she was seated at her desk doing homework, and we told her all about the place, the questions, the simulations.  We told her it was fun.

We are horrible parents.  We told our kid we had fun.  Without her.  And she got all sad and mad and teenagery.

Why?

Because she wished she had gone.  She felt she didn’t accomplish anything she set out to do, and it would have been a better use of her time, and more fun, to have gone off with us.  (for the record- she got more done in the three hours we were gone than I get done in a week- but I do lean towards the slacker side)

I feel for daughter.  She lives in a stress induced bubble, where every task before her appears to be life altering and tantamount to her having a future.  She also is a teenage girl dealing with issues that social media present and dramatic school mates.  She has moments of insecurity where she’s not smart enough, or pretty enough or talented enough.  Teenagers try to  appear to be super confident, but we all know that is a façade.  They are unsure if the face they present to the world is the one that the world wants to see.  Sometimes they overthink to a point where they are paralyzed and can’t do anything: sometimes they act without thinking.  To put it simply, being a teenager sucks.

I talked to her and told her it was OK- it wasn’t a lifetime opportunity to have gone to the spy museum that day, but, you know how it goes when you talk logically to a teen…

So she moped.

Later that day she used the dreaded B word.  She told me she was bored. (There are words that we never say in my house, I’ll probably blog about that now that it’s come to mind, and bored is one of those words)

I stormed into her room of a thousand and one objects and I looked for something to occupy her mind.  I pulled out her Nintendo DS which had probably not seen the light of day in awhile, and handed it to her.  She looked at me as I plugged it in to charge and handed it to her, along with her pink box of games.  She was skeptical as she opened the case and browsed titles she hadn’t thought about in awhile.  And out came Cooking Mama.

Now, parents don’t often say this, but thank goodness for video games.  This was the exact break my kid needed.  It reminded her of being a kid.  It got her brain working in different ways.  It made her laugh.  It tool her out of her funk.

She came out later laughing, telling is that she didn’t know how the game developers expected an eight year old to figure out the “Kit: An American Girl Game”.  She had to google stuff.  I didn’t care.  I was thankful to the developers.  They made my teenager laugh and be happy.

So what’s the moral of the story.  I don’t know.  Just remind your teenagers that nothing is the end of the world, it’s OK to mope, and life has its ups and downs.

 

30 thoughts on “Bored…”

  2. I don’t envy you having to deal with teenagers! Mine are 30, 32, and 36 and the oldest two still mope and act like teenagers (but that’s when they don’t get their way, lol)
    BTW- I noticed no one is finding my blog anymore, so here is my new domain: http://www.kimmy1563.com thanks!

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  5. I’m smiling, because you are a great and loving mother. The key with ourselves and teaching our children is that when melancholy sets it that we “quickly” turn those somber feelings around and don’t give in to being sad, bored, etc. Instead, we keep trying different things until we hit the jackpot and our mood is once again HAPPY and CAREFREE. Like you and your husband having fun at the Spy Museum and your daughter having fun with the video game. There is always a way to smile again, we just have to be determined to want it and find it! You can do a victory march – BRAVO!

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  7. Bored was never a word in my vocabulary. I could always find something to do. I have a 21 year old just finishing her last year in college and I can see the stress on her too. Good for you for knowing how to de-stress her if only for a while. All three of our adult kids give the pouty reaction when we tell them we’ve done something fun. We laugh and tell them they need to work for a while before they can have fun.

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  9. We learned to pick up a book, take a walk, call a friend on the rotary phone. New lessons which include the computer games can be great. My stepson in his 30’s now and an avid gamer is very successful heading up a car company at the port when they are delivered. He has very few bosses above him: I think 2. Anyway, I don’t know all the details but he is an avid gamer and these skills served him well along with a very strong work ethic.

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  11. We learned never to use that word around my mother she would ” introduce us to the business end of a vacuum!” Seriously teens get so tight they can’t see past the nose on their face, you were great, she needed a break!

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  14. The teenage years can be so hard, even for the kids that seem to have it all together. (Because “seem” is the operative word in that sentence.) I think you are a very good mom indeed to see beyond the facade and to help pull her out of her funks. The nicest thing we can do for teens is to help them put things into perspective, I think. “This too shall pass” is very good advice!

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