Recently my son (who is no longer a teen) came to realize how he started to get into trouble when he was in high school. This became apparent after he faced one test after another just recently.
We are not talking the academic tests. No these tests are the life given tests that everyone goes through. It is all part of growing up and learning to become a responsible adult.
His dilemma was – he has had two different vehicles in the past six months and he has had serious maintenance issues with both of these vehicles. He was beginning to believe that he had a dark cloud hanging over his head and he was finding it harder and harder to stay above the drowning waters of his 
financial obligations.
Hence – this became a life test.
He slipped – but this could be looked at in a different way. He learned something from it. He saw what was happening to himself and said aha – why is this happening to me?
He also knew that if he didn’t act fast he was going to slip even more and wind up doing something bad, something that could get him back in trouble with the law.
We talked about his problem from a reasonable point of view.
We looked at the why and what happened. Then we talked about what his problem was that kept surfacing around the incidents.
It was lack of funds to do as he wanted.
This was when we concluded that maybe Mick Jagger was onto something when he sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you might find that you get what you need.”
Now his goal in the coming months is to focus on only what he needs and if he wants something he has to determine if it is a want or a need. He will be allowed to buy what he needs but if it is a want then it will have to wait until another time when he has appropriate funds to buy that want.
Who would have thought that a compulsion to buy what we want could lead us into serious trouble or even worse.
Kids, if you are having financial troubles, don’t expect your parents to fix them for you but they will help you learn how you can fix them for yourself by doing it the right way. We are not always the enemy that you think we are. We might be your parents but we do care about you and love you. Give us a chance to help teach you how to help yourself.
If you’re having problems don’t wait any longer, talk to your parents right away.
Related articles
- The Teen Brain is Under Construction: 5 Tips to Help Parents Get Their Teens Through Adolescence (prweb.com)
- Why Messages Got Teen in Trouble (huffingtonpost.com)
- What’s The Goal Of Learning? (howtolearn.com)
Linda Nelson 