The Teenager Attitude

Sometimes I am frustrated with the behavior of preteens and teenagers and I chalk it up to that “teenager attitude” everyone seems to label them as having. Well, I was thinking about that this weekend. I had to handle some bickering and fighting between some children that age and I found myself acting almost as disrespectful as they were!

I was thinking, wow, my true colors really show through when I am under stress. Is this who I really am? Well, no, who I really am depends on all my choices and actions, most of which I hope are pretty good. And yes, I do have room for improvement.

Someone at church today said, though, that we must use righteous judgment as we choose to place ourselves in any situation. We should try our best to avoid situations in which we know we may become tempted to act inappropriately. Hmmm, I thought. Does that mean I should just avoid the situation where I will have to handle arguing teenagers? Maybe. It does tempt me sorely to act in a way that is not Christlike.

So I was thinking about this disrespectful behavior (mine and theirs). Then it occurred to me that there is no such thing as a teenager attitude. It is all one big continuum over a lifetime.
There are simply attitudes and behaviors that we observe as children and adopt as we grow up, whether we realize we are doing so or not. (Mostly not.) We either keep them for a lifetime or work for a lifetime to overcome them.

They manifest differently at different ages. I am now wondering what the strong-willed nature of my four-year-old will turn into later. I hope I can overcome my own disrespectful tendencies enough to live a good example for her to observe and imitate.

What a gift it is to our children if we teach them the basics of respecting others and themselves! Basic manners and kindness such as not interrupting, cleaning up after yourself, saying please and thank you, actually caring about your family members and trying to understand them, and other family habits like sitting down together to eat a meal...these used to be taught in homes and schools but seem to have gotten lost somewhere in our culture over the past several decades.

The scriptures say in James 3 that, “In many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body,” and “Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing (of God) and cursing (of man)....these things ought not so to be.”

What a gift that lasts a lifetime if we can teach our children to speak softly and guard their speech carefully. If we can teach them to be calm and have the attitude of a peacemaker. I'm going to have to pray for a lot of help and patience to teach this one. Does anyone else struggle with this?