in my experience Marney, it goes full circle.
5 year olds contradict themselves, like power struggles, like to push the envelope sometimes a little too much and will make you grimace by putting odd combinations of clothes together.
Tweens are most times manageable. Until 12 hits, then it all goes wonky.
Teens basically revert back to being 5 again. Contradictions, power struggles, pushing the envelope and still put weird clothes together, but this time they want piercings to go along with their new fabulous selves.
--Their brains go through a ton of expansion (prefrontal cortex) in the teen years and will until about age 20---that's when you tell them to go away
They don't make sense at the best of times, reasoning skills go on hiatus, predicting a consequence is damn near impossible and the pressures on them to; be someone, have things, have better things, look cool, be the extra-curricular wonderkid, save the planet, live the life of video stars, to figure out if reality show peeps really exist, run from creeps offering candy but befriend strangers on websites, to volunteer, to be thin, to be smart and to be yourself, all the while saying no to sex drugs and rock and roll even though that's shoved in their faces tenfold by media, peers and rock stars.
So in closing, it's great fun Marney.
No two days are quite the same.
:O
