Soon after Miss B turned 13 she started to change.  Her attitude became a major problem.  Crazy (her mom) said it was typical teenage behavior.  And while I know that some attitude and some eye rolling is normal for teenagers, Miss B became down right disrespectful.  She started not wanting to spend as much time with us, I think mostly due to the fact that we have rules at our house.  Crazy doesn’t have a whole lot of rules and lets Miss B do pretty much whatever she wants.  At our house there were limits on TV and Internet use, rules about what kind of movies could be watched and rules about being respectful and rules about going to church every Sunday.  So, given the choice- Miss B would rather be at Crazy’s house where she can do whatever she wants.  Of course, this did not all happen over night, it was a gradual change. 

It hasn’t been all that long since I was a teenager, so I remember how important friends are at that age.  So, we told Miss B that she could bring a friend with her whenever she wanted to, so that it would be more fun for her.  We got rid of the limits on TV and Internet- and pretty much let her do those things as much as she wanted.  Although, honestly- rather than telling her she could have X amount of time to watch TV or play on the PlayStation, we just started telling her when she’d been using it enough and encourage her to do something else instead.  We just wanted to be able to spend time with her.  It did help for a little while.  But as time went by, she started making excuses for why she couldn’t come see us.  And since Crazy lets her make all of her own choices, if Miss B doesn’t want to see us, she doesn’t have to.