Tag Archives: Tokyo Life

On Raising Teens

I have learned that raising teenagers, especially teenage boys, is the most difficult job in the world. They are the craziest, moodiest, most unpredictable, most irritable, most hormonally-imbalanced creatures of God.

One moment they are happy and sweet. Then the next minute they are sulky and angry.

When he was around 15, my son was having his tantrums, and he was going berserk. I could hear stuff being thrown in his room while groaning like Godzilla. Instead of being angry and telling him to stop (because he wouldn’t, believe me), I gave him his Iphone while he was throwing things around. He threw it without even looking at it, then stopped when he realized what he had just done. I left him gawking like an idiot. An hour later, he went out of his room. He went straight to the kitchen looking for something to eat, then sat with me on the sofa eating some chips like nothing happened.

Before, I would have yelled at him when he went crazy like that. But then, he would be yelling back, and we would end up fighting and not speaking to each other for days. So, yes, I can say that I have learned my lesson.

My daughter wasn’t like that. Well, she had her share of crazy days, but she wasn’t as insane as her brother. She would just lock herself up in her room and she would be giving us all the silent treatment…you know, talk to her and it’s like nobody’s there.

The teenage years are a phase. I learned about this when I was taking classes in Education. But at that time, my kids were still too young. I had to experience it myself. I had to cry buckets before I learned my lesson.

My daughter is an adult now and she’s passed that stage already. My son…he’s only a few months short of being an adult. He is less crazy than when he was in his mid-teen years. But he is still stubborn, hard-headed, very difficult to wake up, and doesn’t usually listen to reasons. But he now learns from his mistakes. And I realized that the less angry I get, the more he opens up to me about everything.

Do I love them less when they are crazy? Of course not, although there were days when I wished I could put them back in my tummy.

It is a phase…it is a life stage. I learned the hard way not to take it too seriously, so I won’t end up as crazy.

Working from Home

For the past week now, we have been working from home. I’m a teacher for small kids, so it is a little challenging for me and my co-teachers to be doing something like teaching from home. We’ve never done anything like this so it’s somehow difficult but manageable.

Teaching from home is not as busy as a usual school day, I admit. We have to take videos of our lessons. During video shootings, I will have to talk to the camera while imagining the kids replying to my questions. I sing songs and dance the action songs with the music playing in the background. It’s like the usual teaching that we do every school day but without the kids.

Me at work…while shooting our videos

One morning, when I was about to post one of my lessons in our teaching website, I reviewed my lesson by watching the video. Then I felt sad. I thought to myself that this lesson would have been much better with the kids.

Yes, the usual teaching days are hectic. Yes, the usual working days can be chaotic and exhausting. But their smiles, their laughter, their antics and the look of amusement on the kids’ faces while I teach them my lessons are always priceless. Maybe I’m just being sentimental or maybe it’s just a teacher thing…but for me, teaching is still better with the students around.

Hopefully soon, this COVID-19 will end and everything will be back to normal. For now, I will cherish the time I have with my own not-too-small-but-still-my-babies kids while we’re stuck at home doing a lot of eating. I’ve been baking a lot of lemon bars lately. So for my next post, I will share with you a recipe of our favorite lemon bars.

Keep safe and healthy!