With love, from a teenager to her parents

Lessons from a daughter 

Our teenagers can teach us valuable parenting lessons. Don't believe. Read this true story to find out.
Time really sprints with
 kids. It feels like yesterday, when my daughter was a toddler, just taking her first few steps, speaking out words, that had no sense at all. With some effort, I could  somehow  make out whole gist of her babbling. Still I thought, only if she could speak, it would be so much easier. Time changed my thoughts. She is thirteen now and a complete motor mouth, I must admit but I fail to understand her needs that well now.
As a teenager, she has her mood swings. Some moment, she is chirping and humming like a bird and the next moment, she withdraws herself.
 I can't restrain myself from asking, " what's the matter dear? "
"Forget it mom, you won't understand ", comes her quaint reply. I am like, 'I won't understand, I who could understand all of your gibberish babbles? ' But I give up. I know it is of no use prodding further.
Honestly, parenting a teen is much more difficult than parenting an infant.
A few months ago, they had a fest at school. The authorities had come out with a themed T-shirt. Since the fest was towards the end of the month, my daughter had exerted all her pocket money. I was aware of this. So, I loaned her the amount from my side, that is without her asking.( This was a mistake.) This was three days prior to the fest.

That day as she came back from the school, I asked her to show me the T-shirt. She replied, she hadn't find time to fetch the T-shirt and she will get it tomorrow. The next day she had the same answer. I smelled something foul and asked her to return me the money back. Her head still buried in a novel, she replied , "what's the hurry. I will give it after dinner. " Most of the times, I am forgetful and she was trying to use my forgetfulness to her advantage. But she couldn't judge a mother's sixth sense. It  had warned me about something awry.
Nevertheless, I took her to task post dinner. She again tried to play with me saying since she needed money to spend at her fest, I let her keep it. Next month I could then deduct it from her pocket money. I thought, 'fair enough ', and turned away. It's amazing how easily kids take their parents for a ride!
My heart, however didn't buy this excuse. After cleaning up, I again turned to my daughter's room and asked her to show me the money. She turned pale. A small nudging  let the cat out of the bag. Apparently, her class had been given a stall to manage and she had spent the money on decking it up. I was aghast! My first reaction was anger. I wanted to shout at her crazy. It took a lot of effort, literally lot of effort to stay mum. She had been lying to me since two days!  It was like, all the time I was in the midst of a sweet dream and someone had thrown cold water on my face. I felt hurt, angry, frustrated, fragile, all at the same time.
A few deep breaths later, I calmly confronted her. I assumed that she might have understood that she had hurt me. I was wrong again.
She replied back, "I knew you wouldn't understand, that's why I didn't want to tell you." Again a feeling of exasperation enveloped me. I tried speaking to her, conveying that I was upset because she had been lying to me since last two days and that lying was akin to cheating. To grasp her thought process, I told her to write a letter to me explaining, what she thought was her mistake and how could that be avoided. Plus I took the charger of her smartphone away till she finished her task. (This works as a charm to get the work done  quickly)
 An excerpt from the letter - "I don't think I did anything wrong by spending the money. It was for a right purpose. Though I may have erred when I lied to you. I was frightened. Everyone does the same. Don't you do the same when you are frightened? I have seen you lying to Papa umpteen times, when you think he might get crossed. Lying is natural, cheating isn't. We lie to protect ourselves and we cheat to cause harm to others. So I haven't cheated you mom. "
That instant I understood that if I have to deliver the lessons of life to my kids, I better practice them myself. I wanted my kids to confide in me but I was setting up a wrong example by not confiding in to my partner. I want them to be able to overcome their fears but I myself couldn't muster the courage to accept my mistakes. So before I could teach them the difference between ethical and non ethical lies, I need to practice the lesson myself.
Her letter is my Bible of parenting. It still lies in my locker.