“Are all teens like this or just mine?” Amanda questioned as she met her friends Heather and Samantha for lunch in the neighborhood park.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific.” Heather responded.

Samantha nodded in agreement as they all sat down. “That covers a lot of territory.”

“Cathy is very self centered. Like, for instance, there is this party coming up on Saturday. Cathy expects to be able to go even though she is grounded for taking the car last week. Firmly believes that I’m ruining her life by upholding the grounding. Cathy just ignores what she did to warrant the grounding and expects it to be overlooked when it interferes with her plans. Has she even apologized for taking the car? No. Doesn’t see that she did anything that bad.” Amanda seethed.

Heather, mother of fourteen-year-old Nancy, shook her head. “No, you are not alone. They all turn into pod people for about eight years before rejoining the human race as helpful, loving and productive adults.” She said with a straight face.

Samantha leaned in to air her thoughts on the subject. She had a thirteen-year-old son herself and shared the frustrations of her friends. “Kurt is no better. When he wants something he expects to get it right then. On the other hand, when I, or another adult ask him to do something like clean his room or pick up after himself?” She shook her head in disgust. “It would take an act of congress to get it done this century!”

“Let’s see then, by my calculations I have four more years of being ignored and generally disliked by my daughter, Cathy, before she rejoins the rest of us.” Amanda grinned ruefully at the other mothers. “Her mood swings kicked into high gear right after she turned twelve.”

“There’s hope. You just have to wade through all the muck of the teen years to get there.” Heather laughed. “I’ve been through this once already, with Nancy’s older sister, Krissy and I survived to tell about it,” she grinned.

“Well, how do we survive. That’s what I want to know. One minute Kurt is happy and being helpful. Next minute, he is angry and belligerent when he doesn’t get his way. He’s a roller coaster of emotions right now.” Samantha declared.

Just then Heather’s cell phone rang and she stepped away from the picnic area to answer it.