Parenting

My daughter is 15. That sentence alone should say it all. She is a wonderful girl in many ways, but she is 15. Fifteen has to be the scariest number in the universe. Next year she will be old enough to drive. She will not be allowed to drive, but she will be old enough to do so. This conversation alone, has been like WWIII. She attends a performing arts school downtown and has a bus pass, a cell phone and a collection of artsy teenage friends. Today she called me at lunch from school and said she would be going home with some friends to help them study for a science final. I have allowed her to do this sort of thing before, but for some reason today my heart lurched when she called. I think that periodically we remember what little ability we have to actually protect our children, and it causes momentary panic. Last night I clipped a magazine article which details how to "crash proof" your teen. It basically lists all the frightening statistics about teen drivers and then urges parents to wait as long as possible before giving them free rein with the car. After reading those statistics, I may make her wait until she's thirty. My husband the neuropsychologist has not helped in this regard. He informed me that the parts of the brain which govern self control do not fully develop until the early to mid twenties. Yep, thirty sounds good.