There is hardly anything as exasperating as your teen child rolling her eyes and saying, "whatever" as she slouches off to her room. Grrrrr! You just want to tell her to wait until she has children of her own!!

I reference girls because I had three of them and only one son. He was uncomplicated and fairly transparent, but those girls were just like me - hormonal, dramatic, and despite it all, lovely young women who would finally grow up and be just wonderful. But the years between adorable toddlers and wonderful compassionate women were often trying to say the least.

To explain the odiousness of teens, go back to the three-year-old whose favorite word was NO screeched at 10 decibels. Add ten years and an assortment of hormones and you have a gawky, pimply, greasy haired child who thinks you are most likely the anti-Christ. Sure, it's hormones, but it's also the way a child thinks. During the years of about 11 through 15, youngsters are far more interested in the opinion of their peers than they are of their parents.

While we suspect that, just consider whom they choose to spend time with - their friends. They deliberately dress alike, while thinking they are being quite individualistic, they use the same lingo, must have the same accoutrements right down the same types of Pee-Chees. They are actually scared spitless that they might be "different" and so cling to one another because they feel safer in the center of the herd.

Parents, on the other hand, are wishing for cleaner rooms, better grades, less mouth and more responsibility. None of those qualities appeals to the teen of the day and there is an instant head-butting scenario over every last thing. If mom says the sky is blue, the child will insist that the rain is ruining their day. Everything is a crisis, usually laid at the feet of the hopelessly out-of-touch parents and their perverse desire to crush the teen spirit.

As the mother of many, and having spent years and years with middle-school students, I often consoled moms who wept over the changelings left to their care. They spoke of a loving and tidy fifth-grader who suddenly turned snotty and unpredictable somewhere in sixth grade. Parents of seventh-graders were completely at a loss to deal with their children whose grades were slipping; their children who spent every moment on the phone and were just plain mean to their peers. Fathers of eighth grade boys were angry and frustrated at the burgeoning and overt sexuality they saw coming from boys who had been fairly respectful in the presence of adults.

They acknowledged that they understood their children when they were toddlers and were going through growing pains and searching for larger worlds in which to learn and explore, but somehow the teen animal was incomprehensible.

I did offer a solution that worked pretty well. It was called "Yes", "No", and "Ask Me Next Tuesday". Here's how it works. Instead of getting into the endless round robin of arguments with your teen over the same old stuff, you are only allowed to answer with any of these three answers when confrontation becomes immanent. Here's an example - you have promised to take your teen to the skating rink on Friday night if she has made her bed and cleaned her room during the week. You may have to actually put that statement and her agreeable signature on a sheet of paper to hang on the refrigerator.

Now it is Friday night. Your child has not made her bed and the room looks fairly trashed and you simply cannot take her to the skating rink because she clearly violated the contract you had.

"Hurry up Mom, you have to take me skating."

"No."

"You promised. How come you always break your promises"?

"Ask me next Tuesday."

"I always do everything you want me to do, but you're such a witch."

"No."

"Didn't you say you'd take me to the skating rink?"

"Yes." - at this point you may point to the contract on the refrigerator.

"I hate you."

"No."

"Why are you ruining my life?"

"Ask me next Tuesday."

You get the point. You haven't bought into the endlessly frustrating and frequent cycle of arguments. Your child will stomp off to the room and slam the door. Don't be tempted to run after and start in about taking the door of its hinges if it is slammed one more time. What if it breaks the door...guess that would be the consequence for violent slamming - no door for privacy. Oh well. Later when things simmer down, you can quietly discuss reciprocity.

Reciprocity, in this case, is of the you-do-what-you-promised, and I-will-follow-suit category. You have an emotional bank account as does your child. You each make kind and thoughtful deposits into each other's accounts. When one of you turns mean and snappish, there are no more deposits and suddenly the account is over drawn. This is the frustration of teen interaction.

Why must all of this happen? Consider this child, quickly turning into an adult. If both of you were the loving unit you wish you were, how could you possibly release this precious one to go out into the world and become the man or woman you wish them to be. Neither of you could bear the walk out that door, possibly never to return except to do laundry. Children would never go off to college to make their own surreptitious mistakes without our watchful eye upon them. It is not necessarily a good idea for a 45-year-old off spring to still be living with Mommy and Daddy.

God in His wisdom, made teen-agers rageful and unlovely at just the point when they need to leave the nest. You become the harridan and the nagging parental unit for the same reason. It's nature's way to insure that children will go forth, find mates and make grandchildren for you.

Of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel. These hideous offspring turn human somewhere around 19-years-old or so. Parents appear to get a lot smarter and actually have some modern ideas after all about the same time. In short, this, too, shall pass. Gently disengage from dreadful behavior and remember that you really do love this child and he loves you too. It would just be way too uncool to say it out loud.