NUMBER ONE RULE FOR THIS GENDER AND AGE-- Feed the beast, feed the beast, feed the beast. Hardi and I each had one and then blended them. (Plus a younger girl, her own kind of handful.) We lived, because we fed them-- and sometimes that is all they know!

They were actually listening to us too, despite this assurance from one: "I pray for your death on a nightly basis!"

What they all said, as soon as they had survived their own puberty in this insane society, was that what mattered the most was that we were always ourselves with them, no matter what the subject, the feelings, the opinions, the behavior. What they counted on us for, it turned out, was that we be SOLIDLY REAL as everything else within and around them careened madly in and out if the surreal.

For your own sense of reality, to know what kids really believe and will commit themselves to, look to the way they treat their friends. If you see good things there, relax. It all will come out fine. If you don't, then you need to intervene while they still have your roof as protection from the harsher aspects of life. And do that definitively-- time is short.

See me for more if you like. We really, REALLY been there.

Hugs--

~Susan