It's not your imagination: your high school senior is a jerk. A weekly reflection from Emily Rutledge

Each year during the spring my job takes on a seasonal ministry.  It’s for a very select and elite group of students and their parents… I call it ‘your-kid-doesn’t-hate-you-they-are-just-an-irrational-high-school-senior-trying-to-make-leaving-easier’. Some of you have lived through this very special (read: frustrating and exhausting) time and others may still believe… never my child.

Guess what?  Your child.

Eight years of ministry.  What feels like a million seniors (it’s probably around 55 but once they are seniors the energy the need from me is 100 fold) and each one.  Each stinking one of them: total and complete jerks to their parents during the spring of their graduating year.  The levels have varied and correlate to their normal demeanor.  The sweetest most non-confrontational child will fall a little lower on the spectrum of being an utter handful while the most spirited may go ahead and get a tattoo, drive their car into a ditch, or just stop doing all school work because they are ‘already accepted to college’ (all real life events). 

Without fail emails, texts, and phone calls start coming around March with questions like,

• Have you noticed a change?
• What have I done wrong?
• Will you talk to them?
• Please go ahead and adopt my child because I can no longer be in charge of their well-being --I cannot have one conversations with them.  Every time we talk it escalates into an argument.
• Does the priest do exorcisms because this feels like an appropriate situation for one?

The pain, the fights, the tears, the smart-aleck comments, they are REAL.  The root of them doesn’t really matter when it is your child talking to YOU because it hurts.  While you are mourning the baby you put your entire heart into raising leaving your nest your child is an adult size toddler with poor reasoning skills informing you that you’ve done it all wrong. 

And all of it… every last comment and rolled eye… it’s because they love you.  It’s because they are so dang sad to leave you and so scared of what is to come the safest thing to do is to hurt, alienate, and infuriate the people who loves them most so it’s easier to walk away in late August.  So basically, they are being total jerks because you did a great job. 

My kindergartner will tell me, “mommy, I can’t wait for us to go to college together” and while that makes me tear up a little bit now I am one hundred percent sure that when she is 17 I will need a reminder that she is a good person and that I am not a failure parent and that we will survive this season of life. 

As people of faith letting our children grow more fully into the gifted and independent souls they are ends up meaning that we are asked to do the hard work of staying steady when they begin to shake.  We are tasked with keeping our arms open to our children even when they lash out in fear and anxiety.  We are tasked to be a reflection of God to the nastiest most unappealing side of our own children.  In the rest of our lives there is usually some trophy for staying the course on a task this hard: you are recognized at work, your friend sends you a thank-you note for your unwavering support, you finish a marathon, you launch an amazing project.  In this instance… the trophy will most likely come MUCH later in the form of a child who recognizes the ways that your love and support carried them even when they were not asking for it.  *do not expect this anytime in the next three years, I don’t want you to set yourself up for disappointment

So, sweet parents, you are doing a really good job.  Your kid is not going to tell you that.  They may be telling you the opposite, or nothing, or just crying a lot… but stay the course.  This is normal. THEY are normal(ish... as normal as any of us can be).  They are still all the awesome things you know them to be it's just a little blurry right now.  They are still gifted and kind and smart.  They are still a kid to be proud of.  They are just really really hard to parent for this season. When you mirror the love of Christ to your children, a love that can withstand all the complaining and yelling and raging, they will know God even more fully through you. Don't feel even a little bit bad about venting to your friends, partner, or anyone with an ear to listen... you deserve a break and to be heard by someone (since your senior will definitely not be that person)!  I promise, come September... they will miss you and you may even like them again.