Book Report: Blessing of a B-

As my adoring blog readers know, I'm straight killing it at parenting. Jokes. That's why we're adding one more kid to the mix this fall. Robin, whose self portrait is featured prominently on our dining room "art wall", will come stay with us for September and October.

We're doing some of the usual prep to get our house ready for another person. Thankfully the Dodim significantly upped our living/dining room Feng Shui:

Wait wait, I meant to post this: 

Yes, yes our living-room always looks like this.

I also just happened to finish this book on parenting teens. 

Wendy Mogel's Blessing of a Skinned Knee is helpful for the preschool/gradeschool years and the Blessing of a B- is a great guide for what follows. She touches on the big topics - sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. The one thing I am currently implementing is accepting "kicking the dog".

Most kids generally hold it together for a whole day of following directions at school, dealing with annoying quotidian stressors, being polite with authority figures, etc. They come home and their energy is spent. They are grumpy and want to "kick the dog". The dog, in this case, is me. 

Why would I allow this rude behavior? Isn't that just allowing teens to be disrespectful? Mogel says that if a kid is respectful in other public spheres then parents shouldn't be worried. If I constantly do the "don't talk to me in that tone" routine, then said kid just stops talking. Being the "dog" is another part of parenting where I am asked to be a bigger and better person than I would like to be.

Mogel also writes that parents should model dressing appropriately and enjoying life. Here I am doing both:

Appropriate karaoke outfit. Check. Winning a bet to wear my wetsuit all day long at the church retreat. Check.

Mercifully Blessing of a B- (or 3- in the German grading system) doesn't mention anything about toning down adult embarrassing behavior. That, dear readers, would be much more of a style cramper.