Do you love 12-year olds?

My boy Carson is great. He has a sly, subtle sense of humor. He has a mischevious little smile that gives him away immediately. He is, for the most part, caring and considerate. Carson adores his cousins (well, he adores the girls, but I think he would object to me using the word "adore" when talking about Travis and the other boy cousins). But make no mistake, he is also a 12 year old boy! 12 year old boys do not always fully engage their prefrontal cortex when making decisions. Because of this it causes them to leave messages like this on the home answering machine: "Hey mom, I'm going to the gym with Chambo and some of the other guys. Shopping at about 5 tonight will work best for me. See you later." See if he would have fully engaged the executive functioning area of his brain he would have realized that in no way, shape, or form would it be okay to call and leave a message informing his mom that was changing the carefully-made afternoon plans. Hopefully he also would have thought through the consequences of not talking to an actual person--meaning NO ONE knew where he was because NO ONE was home to hear the message. This caused generally low-key dad to place a somewhat panicked (maybe just irritated because remember so mentioned dad is in the car with 5 teen-age girls on the way to Twilight) phone call to working mom, "Have you heard from Carson? Is he with you? I waited at the school and then I drove home. He is not at either place." Fortunately for the 12-year old boy, his mom was once a 12-year old and in middle school. She remembered herself pulling much the same stunt, although because mom was 12 in ancient days before cell phones, she didn't even call to inform parents that she was changing plans. So, so-mentioned working mom chuckled to herself about the situation and called grandma because working mom knew that grandma would appreciate the coming full circle. By the way, as soon as working mom heard the message you can bet she got right back in the car and retrieved so-said 12 year old boy from the gym AND took him on the previously planned shopping trip. Remembering that you were 12 once, and you also did not always fully engage your brain when making decisions, can help you love 12 year olds and even find the humor in their actions. Just remember to act very, very disappointed at first otherwise they might believe that their lack of good judgment is OK.