All about a 14.5 year old teenage boy. Teen life for a boy and a typical daily schedule and life who was raised on Babywise.
This is a summary for Brayden from 14.25-14.5 years old.
I am continuing to love the teenage years so far. It really can be a time you step to the side and really let your child govern himself. You are there for guidance, advice, and correction when needed, but you often are simply watching your child respond to how you have raised him so far.
In saying that, Brayden is a very even person. He does not have strong, raging emotions and can control himself quite well. That is not always true for teenagers and their hormones. He has moments where he snaps at a sister or loses patience, but most of the time he is pretty steady in his emotions.
EAT
Eating is great. I think something you likely won’t ever worry about with a teenage boy is if he is eating enough food or not. Brayden has always been a health-conscious eater and focuses on eating healthy foods and a varied diet, so that is really nice, also. He reads labels carefully and I would say he is the most careful eater in our home so far as eating healthy foods and not over-doing meals. It is pretty interesting because he very rarely over-eats. He eats enough to be satisfied.
SLEEPING
Sleeping is good. An interesting thing about teenagers is they tend to want to stay up later as they get older–at least some nights–but as parents, we still need our time in the evening without kids around.
Because of this, in general we have a lot less kid-free time after bedtime. When they were all little, kids were in bed sometime between 7-8 PM. Now it tends to be 9 PM.
We did make the rule for Brayden that he can choose what time he goes to sleep, but he has to be in his room by 9 PM on school nights. We need time to be with each other each day without kids around.
SCHOOL
Brayden started high school as a freshman during this time period. He is LOVING high school. He loves being in an environment where for the first time ever, most kids care about their grades. This makes class enjoyable. He also is in classes with a variety of ages–from freshman on up through seniors. He enjoys that, also.
At Brayden’s first parent teacher conference, I found it funny that as we visited with each teacher, every teacher commented that he/she wanted Brayden to be a part of their team/club/audition group, etc. He had one teacher who ran the debate team and she really wanted him to join. Another wanted him to take an advanced version of her class. Another was the coach of a sport wanted him to join his team. His guitar teacher wanted him to work up to being able to join the audition guitar group.
I love that he is the type of student the teachers want around more.
SWIM TEAM
Brayden has joined the swim team in high school, which is probably no surprise. He is really enjoying that. It has been so different from club swimming because they just go as a team…they travel together on a bus and stay in hotel rooms together. Families are just spectators. The timing of high school practice is either right before or right after school, so the driving him to and from practice is super easy, also. It is also significantly less expensive.
REFFING
Brayden continued to ref soccer through fall season. He is getting really good at it and very confident. He knows the rules well and handles angry parents and coaches well. He is a ref people love to see because they know he will be fair.
Reffing is hard. They lose 30% of their refs every season. People get a little crazy and forget refs are real humans. But Brayden handles it all well. He can hold his own in a conversation with an adult and he is very black and white. Right is right and he doesn’t care who you are if you are telling him otherwise.
I do not watch him ref longer than a few minutes. I honestly do not trust myself to not confront parents and coaches if they start yelling at him. I know he can handle it and let him be a “big boy” and just drop him off. This mama bear would just make it worse! The few times I have witness things, I have given mighty “mama glares” to adults who do not handle themselves well.
It seems crazy to just let him handle it, but it is part of the job and he has to be able to control the situation if he is going to do it. He does a great job from what I have heard from him and other parents.
One example. He had a game where the coach was mad about a call he thought should have happened. Brayden did not agree with the mad coach, but the coach wouldn’t drop it.
Brayden finally apologized to the coach, said he didn’t see that call, so he didn’t make it.
The coach was quiet after that.
I asked Brayden why he apologized when he was sure he was right. He said it was the only way to get the coach to back down. Once you apologize, it is hard for the person to continue to be upset and badger.
I was really impressed with the maturity he showed and the humility he had to do that.
VOICE CHANGE
Brayden’s voice does not crack as often as it used to. I don’t think his voice is done changing, but it isn’t as crazy as it has been.
ORGAN PLAYING
Brayden is quite good at playing the piano. At church, they needed help with having someone play the organ in our sacrament meeting and asked Brayden to do it. He agreed. He had a mentor help him learn the ropes in a crash course. Brayden’s second week, he was adding in foot pedals here and there.
Brayden plays two Sundays a week. It is so fun to see him contributing in this way. Brayden still takes piano lessons and is loving that.