I am a mother of two boys with a age gap of 7 years apart. One is 9 and the other is 16 years old. I am trying to learn and understand every day their behavior. It is not as easy as written on the books. I personally think that we are individuals, not a mass of people who can be directly with simple rules.

The best way is to treat your children as individuals with different personalities, interests and show them your love as much as you can, because it is all about attention. Try not to show any kind of difference of your affection between them because the rivalry can make them enemies forever.

I have to admit that the most difficult stage of their lives to cope with is as a teenagers. But lets not forget we were teenagers once too, and we all know too well that rebellious sensation inside us trying to find ourselves and our position in life. The hormonal changes play a big role too.

My own experience is that what make matters worst is when our children reach the teenager stage, we are around 40s trying to deal with our own hormonal changes too. So the house can turn into a war zone at any time. I can see now that before I was pushing too much, to make my teenager to understand and make him the perfect son, but it was a lost battle, sometimes he just listen to his ipod and he wouldn't even hear a word that I said, and I made myself more angry and frustrated, with no solutions.

One day trying to think in a solution for this constant disagreements, I decided to go shopping and buy my own mp3 player, I just talk when necessary, and I try to show them that I am a person too, and when he start looking at all my imperfections, I do the same as him, I listen my mp3 player and go to my room lock the door and dance, and I feel like a teenager too. They laugh at me and they say that I am going crazy, but since then, he is the one who is looking for me when he wants to talk, and I am always ready to listen.

Once I met a psychologist and she had three children, when I enter the house it was nice and beautiful but the children bedrooms were very messy and I will never forget when she said to me," the children bedrooms is their own world" the mess they make it is their imagination working if you interfere too much, they will stop using it, and then you will make them unhappy.

Don't worry too much about the perfect tidy house, because with children that it is impossible, if the house is clean and safe that is good enough. I see many mothers fighting everyday with their children about the mess, so much time wasted because the next day they forget and do exactly the same mess again.

The truth is that we see them taller and we think they are already mature and expect too much of them when the reality is that their brain is not even completely develop yet.

Sometimes I just sit down and talk to my boys about cars, music, life, philosophy or any subject that they seem interested at that moment, I think they like us more as a friend than a controlling person, but it is not easy because we have to teach them responsibilities too. Well, lets continue trying our best everyday to maintain the balance between freedom and discipline. It is like walking on the hard, stony and long road of Patience.

Learn more about this author, Clare Rios.
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