What is it with teenagers? One minute they’re cheerful family members, volunteering to help with meal preparation or offering to organize the art supplies. And then the next minute they’re sullen, withdrawn curmudgeons, treating everyone else like idiots or their enemies. In the morning they can be talkative and treat their parents and siblings like buddies, sharing all sorts of personal joys and worries. By that evening, however, they are so closemouthed about their life that even asking what they had for lunch is a major invasion of their privacy.

They bounce from one extreme to the other. At any moment they can act like they’re either an adult or a toddler, governed by mature wisdom or youthful irresponsibility. They are obsessed with being &uot;fair,&uot; at least according to their own standards of fairness. And even if the seething brew of hormones and unstable emotions is more noticeable in individuals who are loud and dramatic, quiet ones suffer in the same way. This I know through personal experience; we may look like we have it all together on the outside, but in reality we’ve just managed to learn how to mask all the turmoil from an unfriendly world.

It’s so confusing. I wish I had a script, so I could see what’s coming next.

I’m guessing the teens in question probably also wouldn’t mind knowing in advance what kind of &uot;mood&uot; they’re going to be in each day, since I don’t think they know themselves. They’re riding on a narrow path, with steep cliffs on either side: Fall one way, they act like an adult, fall the other, they’re back in childhood. It’s nearly impossible to know in which direction they’ll go.

Each of them is unique, of course, and they have their own idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies. Ours will do anything to avoid eating breakfast; I’ve got to keep my eye on her in the kitchen each morning &045; something she greatly resents. She’ll spend a whole day meticulously organizing her rock collection, but leaves her freshly laundered clothes in a heap on the floor (until they aren’t so fresh anymore). She lavishes affection on the family dog but makes each request to brush or walk her sound like the most extreme kind of imposition.

Like others in the past, I find myself wondering if we and they are the same species. I’ve read all the books, and I know the science of it (hormonal imbalance) and I can remember what life as a teenager was like for me (honestly, I can). But I’m new to the &uot;parent-of-an-adolescent&uot; job, and it’s still confusing. And the observations of parents who are &uot;experienced&uot; teen managers don’t bring much relief. They seem to struggle as much as I do.

But adolescence requires active parenting, and I find it takes as much energy as supervising a toddler &045; we just need it for different things. Teenagers are living through one of the most dangerous periods of their life. They act as if they’re immortal, and they’re old enough to do more of the kinds of things that put them at risk of relying on that belief: driving recklessly, experimenting with drugs and sex, jumping off bridges, and any number of other activities that I can’t even imagine or want to know about.

So they need parents who stay involved, who work on maintaining a relationship that encourages open communication. They need &045; and usually want &045; us to keep track of what they are doing and where they are going. Deep down inside they really do love us; they just aren’t able to always show it in a way we understand. We are their role models, after all, and they really do take lessons from the way they see us live our lives (which makes hypocrisy on the part of parents very dangerous when teens are in the household).

The trick, I guess, is knowing where the balance or cutoff lies. How much of our management of their lives is interference and how much is guidance? When is our intervention required and when do we just need to step back and let them make their own mistakes, get messy and learn something about growing up?

David Rask Behling is a rural Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.