Year of the bad hair day
August 23, 2012 2 Comments
A friend of mine and I have commented repeatedly that it seems there is something about the age 13 and girls that just don’t go well together. I realize this is a generalization but they seem to be moody and difficult and stressed out and highly reactive to everything. My oldest became a lunatic at that age ( no really, she did). Middle girl-child was always crazy so, you know, not much changed. Step-daughter became dark and scary and cut off her long beautiful hair into a mohawk and I think that’s the year she started screaming at her mom everyday.
My buddy had two girls and they became door-slammers and stompers and “I hate you’s” at about that age. Well, this same friend took her grandkids on an extended camping trip, the oldest being a 13 year old girl. They have the absolutely best relationship with this girl. She visits the grandparents all the time, has sleepovers, texts them everyday, they hang out and do cool stuff together. But you know, she just turned 13 recently and wouldn’t you know, she magically turned into this psycho-crazy, hormonal lunatic overnight, while on their trip.
2 other younger grandkids came on this trip so this girl was often the helper, which she likes to do. She helped set up things, tear down things, was the co-pilot – some of the jobs were big jobs too. All’s fine and they’re traveling along fine and her poppa asks her to look out the window and see if he has enough room to get past the post. She snaps her head around and starts;
“I don’t know why you have to ask me to do everything! I hate this stupid trip. I don’t want to be here! I didn’t want to come along! I’m sick of this! Take me home NOW poppa!!” Screaming every word.
The other two grandkids are frozen, eyes wide open. To them, their beloved sister / cousin has suddenly turned into a frothing, raving, alien. Her poppa, having dealt with this many times before simply smiled and said very sweetly, “Now E, it would take us over 20 hours to get home if we left right now and there just isn’t enough hours in the day left”.
You could hear her brain snapping from across the trailer by that point.
Needless to say, grandma (who has way less patience than poppa and way less tolerance) shut things down really quickly.
Granddaughter threw herself on her bed area in a huff, had a nap and awoke a normal, smiling, sunshiney child once again. Good luck to her momma, her year has just begun!
My aunt, who just retired from teaching middle school, is of the opinion that eighth graders should be locked into a closet for the year and let out again when they hit the ninth grade. I have to admit, i remember that year as involving a lot of unacknowledged drama with friends not being able to get along despite their closeness in the sixth grade and again in the ninth grade. None of those issues were ever resolved, they just dematerialized when we hit high school. Don’t know what it is, but…
There is a lot of changes to brain activity on top of a lot of physical changes. Nothing really seems to make much sense for most kids at about that time. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder that most kids make it through that stage in one piece!