Teenagers and words

Dear everybody living with, in one way or another, teenagers, and every now and then ending up getting frustrated by their behaviour,

may I offer one tiny piece of advice? It comes from once being a teenager, not really remembering anything of the things that must have happened, school and stuff, but remembering every single emotion, feeling, fear and frustration of it. It also comes from working with teenagers and young adults for more than *mumblemumblemumble* years, and also having the privilege to live with such people for, so far, almost ten years.

I may? Thank you. So, here it is:

Give them a few kind words.

Even if their behaviour drives you nuts, say a few kind words before sending them off to school. When they do kind things (which they do, all the time), mention it casually and kindly to show them you've noticed. You do mention when you've noticed them doing the other stuff, don't you? Balance is important, mention the kind things too. If they look nice, let them know. If they give you nice words, smile and be happy.

You'll never regret kind words, and they will carry them with them and the words will act like a shield towards teenage life's general awkardness.

Ok, that's all.

Kind words.

Overcutifying

When a woman gets to be about my age there are certain things she'll gain a lot from realising. One is that things that were cute when she was a teenager, and are cute in teenage girls today, are not as cute in her any longer.

Ending a message with an expression like *huggzies* is cute when a 14 year old girl does it. Turn the numbers around, suddenly it's more annoying than cute, and brings any kind of credability in the sender tumbling down. If a 41 year old woman peppers her workrelated messages with overcutifications (it's a word in desperate need of being coined, so here you go, world! It means trying to create an impression of being younger than you actually are by doing pathetic imitations of the ones who are the age you are trying to imitate) like *giggles* and *perty* and *thinkelinkling* I will have to struggle so hard to take in what she actually has to say, regardless of the lvl of wisdome in it, that I most likely will not do it.

Yes, I am an old cranky woman, and yes of course people are allowed to write how ever they please. At least as long as THEY are willing to take the consequenses of it and do not try to make ME do that.