I don’t know about you, but some days my preteen comes bouncing down the stairs like he’s ready to soar to the skies. Other days it’s like nobody is at home, with the barely attainable, less-than-interested grunts, mistaken by me to be a “Top-O-The-Morning To You” greeting.  Something about waking up on the wrong side of the bed, perhaps?  Nah, his bed adjoins the wall.  Not enough of that precious shut-eye?  Let’s count.  Ten hours.   I’ll chalk that up to a good  night’s sleep.

Perhaps I should just stop trying to make rational sense of these irrational equations of behavior and just blame it on the hormones.  Yep, now let me think.  That’s gotta be it.  Those darn hormones.  They’ll get us every time.  One time he’s up; the next time he’s down, faster than you can type Space Mountain.

What’s that you’re thinking?  Kinda makes you feel like you’re on a roller coaster too?  Yeah, not to mention the rest of the family . . . like . . . the sib-lings.

Just think about that roller coaster.  The roller coaster starts.  And the roller coaster stops.  We’ll get through it — and better yet — they’ll get through it.  Let’s just hope we’re not menopausal and preteen-al at the same time.  Now that makes for some family harmony.

Remember those parenting tips when our toddlers were in the midst of a tantrum?  Breathe deeply and count to ten?  It still works.  Breathe.  Breathe in and Breathe out.  Count to ten if you can stand it.  And model the adult behavior.  He’ll get there.  He really will.  He’s just grabbing on to that roller coaster of hormones (by no choice of his own, I might add).

What else has you up — or down — in the preteen hormonal life?