For the first several weeks after Max arrived, we thought to ourselves, this "raising a teenager" thing is a breeze! He wanted to eat healthy, go to bed early, didn't want to get into texting, preferred to spend time with the family, and was up early on the weekends.
Fast forward a couple of months, and the typical teenager has finally arrived! :) Now instead of fruit for breakfast, he eats the boxed toaster pastries that our youngest son favors (waffles, pancakes, french toast sticks, etc.) and "muffins" (which are really cupcakes). We can easily go through a 2-liter of coke in less than 2 days (although I made a comment recently about how I think he's drinking too much pop, so he's decided to go cold-turkey for a week to prove that there are no side effects - um, yeah).
Bedtime has gotten a bit later. I claim it's the caffeine from the 3 glasses of Coke consumed after school. He disagrees. Wake-up time has gotten later and later as he's been able to negotiate a ride with a neighbor to school, rather than ride the bus (although he does have an early-morning soccer practice once a week before school).
We've been encouraging him to do things with his friends outside of school. He finally went out this past weekend and had a great time. So great that he tried to negotiate a later curfew on Friday and Saturday night. We allowed Friday night since it was a late-night movie, but didn't allow the Saturday spur-of-the-moment sleepover at someone's house we didn't know.
And last week he said that he thinks he needs to get a texting plan on his phone. We even got text messages when he was out this weekend, letting us know when he changed locations and what he was doing.
He still struggles with some of the rules at school. Our school is quite a bit more strict that his school in Germany. Last week he was written up for socializing in class. He was annoyed by it, but now knows the limits. However, it was a good lesson for our youngest son, who in 4th grade struggles with talking in class. He was shocked that Max got written up for that.
Overall, he's still the respectful teen that joined our family, and is still such a joy to have with us. Yes, I think he is integrating nicely into an Americanized teenager! Although I'm still dreading when he starts dating - yikes!
Fast forward a couple of months, and the typical teenager has finally arrived! :) Now instead of fruit for breakfast, he eats the boxed toaster pastries that our youngest son favors (waffles, pancakes, french toast sticks, etc.) and "muffins" (which are really cupcakes). We can easily go through a 2-liter of coke in less than 2 days (although I made a comment recently about how I think he's drinking too much pop, so he's decided to go cold-turkey for a week to prove that there are no side effects - um, yeah).
Bedtime has gotten a bit later. I claim it's the caffeine from the 3 glasses of Coke consumed after school. He disagrees. Wake-up time has gotten later and later as he's been able to negotiate a ride with a neighbor to school, rather than ride the bus (although he does have an early-morning soccer practice once a week before school).
We've been encouraging him to do things with his friends outside of school. He finally went out this past weekend and had a great time. So great that he tried to negotiate a later curfew on Friday and Saturday night. We allowed Friday night since it was a late-night movie, but didn't allow the Saturday spur-of-the-moment sleepover at someone's house we didn't know.
And last week he said that he thinks he needs to get a texting plan on his phone. We even got text messages when he was out this weekend, letting us know when he changed locations and what he was doing.
He still struggles with some of the rules at school. Our school is quite a bit more strict that his school in Germany. Last week he was written up for socializing in class. He was annoyed by it, but now knows the limits. However, it was a good lesson for our youngest son, who in 4th grade struggles with talking in class. He was shocked that Max got written up for that.
Overall, he's still the respectful teen that joined our family, and is still such a joy to have with us. Yes, I think he is integrating nicely into an Americanized teenager! Although I'm still dreading when he starts dating - yikes!
