You are a worthless teenager. Stop acting like one!

That was what I heard a grown woman tell her 14-year-old daughter in Highland, Utah. It tops anything else I've heard a parent tell their kid.

My first thought was, "What?!?"
My second thought was, "This is going in the book."
And my third thought was, "What?!?"

This is the kinda of thing that disturbs me deeply about teen/parent relationships. So classic. The perfect example to illustrate how teens become what they are told they are. That girl is now in a position where she can do nothing BUT be a worthless teenager. And every time she "acts" like one, she'll be reminded of what she IS. That makes me want to cry. I wish I could find her. I have a pretty good idea of what her face looks like, so if I see her around I'll probably know. She was pretty and you could just see the potential. And she probably just was in a bad mood and her mom in an even worse one, and that triggered the worthless comment. But NOW, that comment, if repeated, will trigger actual worthless behavior from the girl, and the mom will feel like a failure mom and wonder where she messed up. She'll think, "All I ever did was tell you to be good!" And she won't see that that is exactly the problem. I'm not saying that the girl is an angel. I'm just saying that she'll be less and less of an angel with that kind of wall to bounce off of.

Over and out.