Our middle school son, Riece, has officially hit adolescence.
This is the end of his 7th grade year and despite a couple little run-in's here and there, I was beginning to think that middle school years would be a breeze. We had this one in the bag. Then again, we thought this same thing when he, our firstborn, adapted so easily to a sleeping schedule. We thought we were parenting ninjas. We must have read the right books and went to the right classes. We couldn't understand why other parents struggled to get sleep. Then we had our second son and I haven't slept since.
The past couple months have ushered in a new parenting season where boundaries are tested and attitudes smell like old shoes. Due to consistent bad choices, we grounded him from friends, video games, television, his phone, and computer time. Yet we allowed him to find things to entertain himself after completing his schoolwork. This didn't work out so well. He kept finding trouble.
We came to the conclusion that we had made his life too comfortable, even while being grounded and it was time to get his attention.
