3 Ways Teenage Girls May Surprise You

This week was spring break. My daughters obviously look forward to this time of year as they love any time there is a break from school and extracurricular activities. It gives them an opportunity to breathe easy and just relax before hitting the home stretch at school.

My youngest daughter headed to a beach house with a friend and my oldest stayed home. This doesn’t mean the oldest didn’t have a great time. She invited a group of her friends from her high school track team to spend the night…for two nights. I’m not sure how this plan was hatched but next thing I know I have a house full of teenage girls. My wife was on official duty as I had to head to work at least one of those days. In the amount of time I did spent with my daughter and her friends, there are 3 things I was surprised to find out about teenage girls.

1. They are LOUD – I remember the days when my daughters would have friends over to the house when they were 9 or 10 years old. I used to think, “wow, that’s a lot of noise coming from such a small body. I can’t wait until they get older and will just come over and watch a movie together and chill.” Well, her friends are now 16-18 years old and I can tell you, it didn’t get much better. They still make A LOT of noise.
2. They can eat A LOT – You often hear about how teenage boys can eat you out of house and home. Well, girls are right there with them. I think they are on the Michael Phelps diet because they can put away an insane amount of food, yet they are all in great shape and outstanding athletes. If you have teen girls coming over any time soon, just prepare yourself and hit the grocery store..a few times.
3. They are still just kids – I guess I expected a level of maturity that would settle in and they’d be ‘too cool’ to act silly. They would come over and sit on the couch and all look at their phones while the TV ran in the background. I thought they wouldn’t really say anything to my wife and me since we were the old people in the room. Mannnn, was I wrong. At the end of the day, these girls, even though they are older, are still just kids. They were just as crazy as little kids running around the house. Whether it was impromptu slap boxing sessions, chasing each other around the house trying to get ‘the last hit’, jumping on the trampoline, or riding bikes to the local Starbucks, at the end of the day, they were just fun-loving kids being kids. To be honest, it was refreshing to see kids not taking themselves too seriously, not being overly dramatic, not trying to be too grown, and not being mischievous. There was no rolling of the eyes, talking back, dismissing parents, getting into mini-fights with each other, or trying to do anything with boys (at least not that I know of). These were just good kids having fun spending time with each other and enjoying their youth.

As a parent, your job is to do everything you can in order to foster this environment. We were running to the store non-stop retrieving food, ordering movies online, gathering materials to do tie-dye shirts, and running to the store again to get more food. I had to pull all the bikes out of winter storage so they could go on a bike ride. I’m pretty sure I nearly ruptured a spleen taking them down from the rafters. I pumped up the dead tires as my wife knocked the spider webs from the frames. Basically, our job was to make it the best couple of days we could for our daughter.

I have to say, even though those couple of days were a whirlwind for my wife and me, it was great seeing the constant glowing smiles on their faces and the true friendship that was on display.