Sunday, May 23, 2010

Temporary teenager

In our desires to be prepared for the future, we entertained the thoughts of temporarily parenting a teenager. One brave family took us up on the offer! They lent us their 13yr old daughter for five weeks. A learning experience for all.I am sure we bored our house guest to death at times, she was schooled on government, choices, and shooting by J. He lectured, discussed and taught many nights. J loves to mold young minds!Between her night owl tenancies, soccer, church and church callings we never made it to half of the things I had intended to take her. But I hope she felt like she got some of the OK experience.As temporary parents we learned the importance of just talking to teenagers. They want to be involved and understand our adult decisions. We also learned the importance of schedule, boundaries, and rules. As parents we can set our home up the way we want but it may not work for everyone and we need to be flexible in our approach to accomplishing our goals without giving up on our goals.We had fun picking our house guests brain for ideas on how to raise our children. We got a lot of ideas to incorporate into our summer homeschooling lessons. Thru her interaction with the kids we saw how her family strengthens their bonds as a whole unit and have encouraged our kids to draw more on one another. She also taught the kids toys aren't always necessary! They are blessed with imaginations and she helped them start to explore them more.When we asked the kids what their favorite parts of Seri's visit was this is their reply
Eliza " I like to play the Wii with her. She always let me be the princess! I also liked sharing my room with someone"
Daniel "We played Star Wars on the trampoline. She let me win lightsaber wars. She also liked to shoot. She hit the bottles of water and helped water the plants. I liked her gameboy! and her new hair"
Rainey "Playing house! I got to be the brother or the puppy. She liked me."
Seri made some good impressions and was a welcome addition! Hopefully we can learn from our experience and apply our new knowledge to raising our own children. Thanks Matt and Jen for being so brave as to lend us your daughter and trust us with her for so long.

3 comments:

Aunt Suzi Quilts said...

This is such a good idea. I wish that we had that practice before our girls became teenagers. I think we would have been more prepared for some things.
I love that you mentioned that you need to TALK to teenagers. I think that is so very important.
Can I post a link to this on my blog?

Roeckers said...

Use whatever you want!
I don't know there is much insightful here but you are welcome to it.

Olson Clan said...

Thanks to you both for taking her! she had a great time! she also gained so many new skills. She has been reading up on her govt., history and scriptures so that next time she can hold her own with Jake :)
Just today soemthing happened and I told her not to worry, her dad and I had her back, then I mentioned some other friends that had her back also and she replied "yep, and I know that Jake and Chrissy have my back too so I will be fine". She thinks the world of you both. I am so glad that she had this oppurtunity.
Thanks again!!! Love your family!!!!