Brayden Teen Summary: 13 Years 9 Months. All about a teenage boy who used Babywise as a baby. Teen life for a boy.
This is a summary for Brayden from 13.5 years old to 13 years 9 months old. Here is a summary of how things have been for him lately.
Post Contents
EATING
Eating is normal. There are no big changes. Brayden loves food. He loves to eat. He looks forward to meals. As many teens do, he focuses on food.
Brayden is really good about not overeating. He is a very responsible person and will not eat any food with ingredients he does not approve of (like high fructose corn syrup). At his last swim meet, he realized Powerade has high fructose corn syrup and he was so dismayed! We will be Gatorade people only now…no more getting what is on sale.
VOICE CHANGE
Brayden’s voice is still in the process of changing. I read somewhere that the voice change only takes a few weeks…maybe a couple of months. This has been going for a long time now. I think it has been over six months. He is still shifting.
SLEEPING
Sleeping is great. There are no issues to report. Brayden sets his own bedtime and his own wake up time each morning.
SCHOOL
School is great. Brayden has always gotten straight A’s in middle school so far. His teachers all enjoy him. He gets his work done and enjoys learning. Brayden says a lot of kids at school take their phones around with them to class, which is not allowed. He said it is frustrating because kids will mess around on their phones rather than listen to the teacher.
They also often play on their phone through lunch rather than interacting with people around them. The world our kids are growing up in is so different from the one we grew up in.
Read: Effective Parenting In The Digital Age
Brayden registered for high school during this time period. Kind of crazy that he will be in high school next year.
PIANO
Piano is great! Brayden really is enjoying his “new” teacher he has had since last June. He is learning and progressing so quickly. His teacher is spendy, but you definitely get what you pay for. You can see his recital piece in his video below.
TEACHING PIANO
Brayden is teaching piano to Brinley. It has been really good for both of them. I am not sure how long we will continue it; it isn’t always productive to teach your own family things like piano. But it helps Brayden learn patience and Brinley loves spending time with him. It is super nice that we don’t have to drive her to lessons!
SWIM TEAM
Swim team had a big change. The pool Brayden’s team practices at started renovations and is closed. So we are having to go to a pool that is a 30 minute drive away from us. That has been busy and crazy, but we are able to carpool so that makes it much more manageable. This is only supposed to be until June, but you know how construction projects usually take more time than projected.
With this swim team change, Brayden had opted to not play upcoming spring soccer. Swimming is so time consuming anyway he has never done more than rec soccer, but it is a fun, low-key activity. He will be reffing and balancing reffing with swim team far away and playing would be too much.
One weekend during this time period, we went south for a soccer tournament for Kaitlyn and McKenna. Both of their teams were playing. Brayden was able to ref some games while we were there (not their games). He was super supportive of his sisters and was great about cheering them on.
Priesthood
Brayden was ordained to be a Teacher in the Priesthood at church during this time period. He is very excited to be gaining more responsibilities.
EXTRA CURRICULARS
Here is the list of what Brayden is participating in this last quarter.
- Piano
- Swim team
- Scouts
Photos
Here are photos from this time period.
Val — would love to see a post on how teens use phones these days and ways to set reasonable parameters to ensure digital mindfulness.
After all these years, I still continue to learn so much from your posts about raising children responsibly.
Thanks,
Amy
I LOVE this topic, Amy! Check this post: https://www.babywisemom.com/parenting-in-digital-age/
Please tell me what questions you have after reading that–maybe it will be the same ones. This is a topic that has been heavy on my mind for the last decade and I very much want to arm parents the best I can on this.
And thank you for your kind words! I sure appreciate you.
-Valerie