Sandra Tayler

The Developmental Stages of Teens

By / January 24, 2013 / 9 Comments

On my One Cobble communities on Facebook and Google+ I’ve begun running a weekly feature where I post a Re-Cobble. It is a link to one of my earlier blog entries with commentary. As I was noodling around looking for what to post, I came across this entry called Future Parenting it is from 2004 when my kids ranged in age from one to nine years old. At the time I was contemplating the teenage years and spinning my theories about how that would go for my family. I can tell you now that I was right to not be afraid. I’ve loved Kiki and Link as teenagers. Yes there have been some struggles, but understanding those struggles has meant that Howard and I can sometimes be allies to our kids as they face those struggles instead of always being the enemy. (There is no avoiding being the bad guy sometimes. It’s inherent to good parenting.) What I did not have back in 2004 was a list of what the developmental changes are and how they play out for kids. So here is my list, based on a sample size of two, so your mileage may vary.

Age 11-12: kids tend to get a bit existential and sometimes fear the future. They can see bigger responsibilities and privileges coming, sometimes they want to run toward them, other times they want to flee back into childhood. This is also when kids start to push away from parents, seeking more space for individuality. If a parent is not expecting this shift it can cause the parent to hover and cling, which means the child has to push harder. My solution was to let them try more independence and they came running back to me when that got scary. However I was ready for a hard redirect if their independence looked like it was heading them onto dangerous ground.

Age 12-13: This is heavy-growth-spurt territory. Kiki hit this age and spent a month sleeping for fourteen hours per day. Link and all his same-age friends began to sound like adults and they clomped everywhere they went. During this developmental span some of the higher brain functions and social functions shut down while the brain is renovated into a more adult landscape. Both of my kids regressed in responsibility and emotional management techniques. I particularly noticed the social things with the boys. Link and his friends said the most appalling things to each other and had no clue that they had been hurtful. I had to start supervising Kiki’s homework much more closely because she had a tendency to try to ignore it out of existence.

Age 13-14: Kids begin to need a focus, something around which they can form a teenage identity. This teenage identity will inform their eventual adult identity, but the adult identity will be different, so don’t worry if the teenage identity at 14 doesn’t seem like a good career path. It probably isn’t. Kiki spent her 13th summer drifting, bored. In the fall Art manifested as her focus. Link drifted for longer and is still working to form his identity. But this was the age when he began to feel the need for one. The hard part for parents is that you can’t give an identity to kids. They have to pick it and go for it. All I could do for Link was offer up options–programming, racketball, etc. In the end I had to trust in him and let him find his own way. Though I was ready to head both kids off if it looked like they were likely to pick a focus which would cause them long-term life problems.

Age 14-15: Halleluiah, some of that higher brain function comes back online. As it does, kids tend to re-examine their lives. They may have to re-frame or re-address any childhood dramas or traumas that they have experienced. Link had to learn abou–and come to terms with–his Central Auditory Processing Disorder and his ADHD. He wrestled with how to include them in his self image without feeling like he was doomed to fail. We’re still working on this. Kiki had an exceptionally difficult Sophomore year at 15. It was made of me helping her because life felt too overwhelming.

Age 16-17: I only have a sample size of one here, but this was when Kiki really started to come into her own. She learned to drive and she once again began handling all her own homework without much supervision. She started to feel grown up and thus started to act like she was. Most of the drama from this year was Kiki dealing with peer relationships.

Age:17-18: Again, only sample size of one. Kiki hit the summer before her senior year and everything just clicked. She started applying all the lessons we’ve been trying so hard to teach her for years. She started addressing her own moods and stresses in adult ways instead of childish ways. She is a joy and we’re going to miss her lots when she heads off to college in the fall.

These are only general observations. The specifics will be different for each child, particularly if there are neurological differences. Link hit a lot of the emotional milestones about six months to a year later than typical for boys.

Notably absent from this listing is the impact of teenage attraction and interest in forming romantic relationships with others. I didn’t include attraction milestones because I’m fairly certain that my kids are atypical in this regard. Kiki was un-self-awarely interested in boys starting at age 14. By 16 she was self-aware but scared by the whole idea, so she elected to avoid it. Link hasn’t talked to me much about girls except to state that he’s not interested in girls yet. He hits high school next fall, which was when the whole thing became real to Kiki. (Locally the kids don’t go to the high school until their sophomore year.) I’m curious to see how that will change things for Link.

This has been my experience so far. In another nine years I’ll have to re-visit this post to report whether Gleek and Patch followed the same patterns.

If you are a parent of teens, or have been a parent of teens, I encourage you to post your observations in the comments. Have your teens followed these patterns? Were they different? Do you have any advice for parents of young children so that they can position themselves well for the teenage years? I’d love to hear from you.

Insomnia and My Almost Teen

By / January 23, 2013 / 4 Comments

It was 11pm and Gleek was awake. I’d turned out her lights at 9, right on schedule. Then there was quiet, until she called me to ask a question. Thirty minutes after that there was a snack request. Then another question. Each time it was an alert that I was still on parenting duty. It aborted my relaxation in advance of my own bedtime. I couldn’t even rely on Howard’s help because he’d desperately needed to go to bed early. That was another source of tension, the need to not wake him up. All the other kids went to bed, even seventeen year old Kiki, who is six years older than Gleek. It was just Gleek and I awake. I turned out the lights and crawled into bed, hoping that this time there would be no call, that silence finally meant sleep.

In the dark of my room, I thought of the times when I have insomnia. I remembered how my brain would race and worry about the silliest things. Fear looms large in the darkness. The day had not been all I meant for it to be. Less of my attention landed on the kids than I’d intended. Bedtime is one of the best times to find out what is going on inside your kids’ brains. They’re willing to talk because that seems better than sleep, but all I’d done was march into Gleek’s room and vent a frustrated “Just go to sleep” as if sleep was hers to command, when I know that it is not.

I sighed and climbed out of my warm bed. Then I got Gleek–who was sitting up in hers, wide awake–and we went to sit on the front room couch. We talked of insomnia–its causes and treatments. Gleek demonstrated self awareness as she described how it feels when she is tipping over into insomnia instead of sleep. She spoke of her school science fair project. We elected to feed her a snack before tucking her back in bed, hoping that this would convince her body that the correct bedtime rituals were in place to induce sleep.

Gleek is small for her age, but my days of cuddling her in my lap are over. She sat by my side in the dark with her head leaned against me, my arm around her. Next week she’ll be twelve, which marks the switch from our church’s children’s program and into the youth program. In just a couple of months we’ll be selecting her classes for junior high school. Her world is going to shift, she is going to shift. I think it is better that she have a mom willing to talk it all through at midnight than one who shouts “Go to sleep!” from the doorway. I’m not always that better mom, but I managed to do it last night and this makes me glad.

Trust Your Instincts

By / January 22, 2013

Fifteen years ago we moved into this house and I picked a family practice doctor near us. All was well. The doctor was good and his PA was fantastic. We went there for many years. Three years ago the fantastic PA died of pancreatic cancer and our family mourned for his loss, but we still continued to go to the same doctor’s office. Two years ago I called to schedule an appointment for one of my kids and was told I’d have to pay cash because they had a paperwork snafu with the insurance providers. It didn’t cost that much more, I was in a hurry, and finding another doctor for a single appointment seemed like lots of extra work. Then I arrived and was seen by the new PA. The doctor was nowhere around. When I asked, the receptionist said that he was away for a couple of months on a doctors without borders thing. Something didn’t feel right. I wondered about the legality of the PA seeing patients without a doctor in the office. I also wondered what sort of “paperwork snafu” would cause all the insurance providers to drop a doctor at once. When another appointment was necessary two months later, I called. They were still mid-snafu and the doctor was still out. I hung up and picked a different doctor. My new doctor is great. There are several doctors in the same office and I like all of them. So onward we went, though I did feel some sadness for abandoning the family doctor we’d had since my kids were babies.

Today I learned from a neighbor (who also went to that same doctor) exactly what happened. Two years ago his license was suspended because of an inappropriate relationship with a female patient. He wasn’t on a trip for doctors without borders, he was at in-patient facility to treat pornography addiction. When I google his name I can read the public record notes of his disciplinary hearings. He had another doctor checking his work, he had to have chaperons when he met with female patients, he was questioned about how he prescribed some strong pain medications. There was even discussion of how he should handle “flirty” female patients. The conclusion I’ve come to is that my family was never at risk. He really was a good doctor for many years, but then his friend and business partner died. Things changed and for awhile he was not behaving as doctors should. I was right to trust my instincts and jump ship. The disciplinary hearing notes show that he’s putting things back together and trying to learn from the experience. I wish him well. I hope he succeeds. But I’m going to keep going to the new doctors, Thanks.

In my googling I found this resource: It is a list of Utah doctors who have had disciplinary action taken against them. My former doctor is on this list.

Not All Likes are Created Equal

By / January 22, 2013 / 7 Comments

I’ve been doing a social media push these past couple of weeks to promote One Cobble and Hold on to Your Horses. I should probably call it a social media creep, because I’m reluctant to be pushy. So much so, that my sister, who was watching for announcements and information, did not see any. She suggested I might want to increase the volume just a little to get any results.

My reluctance stems from a belief that merely collecting Likes or followers is not inherently beneficial. The person who is excited and interested in Hold Horses will click Like, watch for updates, and be a willing supporter of the sequel. Someone who has just clicked Like in order to enter a contest or win a freebie will probably evaporate when the time comes to support the sequel. I could be wrong about that. It could be that once people show up, they’ll stay and become engaged. I just feel better about hawking my wares if I believe I’m talking to an audience who wants to hear about them. I’m not trying to inflate the number of Likes on the Hold Horses page, I’m trying to use the number of Likes to gauge interest in a sequel. That effort will fail if I use contests or giveaways to artificially inflate the number of Likes. this article is most talking about how buying likes leads to false search data, but it also supports what I’m saying. Spending money and effort to acquire Likes or followers is wasted. Instead I must focus on creating compelling content and use social media to help people become aware that the content is available. Good content + awareness = a growing group of people interested in new projects.

So I’m working hard to be content with a slow-growth model of building fanbase. Yes I get impatient. Yes sometimes I feel like I’m tap dancing to an empty theater or an unresponsive crowd. But I’m still pretty convinced that this is the right way for me to approach social media. I just hope I can build up enough momentum to support the sequel I want to do.

Thoughts on Writing and Being Careful

By / January 21, 2013 / 4 Comments

I read a piece on how to write courageous memoir and came away understanding why my book of essays is never likely to sell. Memoir needs to pull no punches. To succeed at memoir, one has to be willing to offend relatives and friends. All those things which are politely not said need to be on display. I see what the article meant because I’ve read some careful memoir and I was constantly wishing I could have the whole story instead of the pieces I was given.

I am careful when I write, because words are like knives. If I leave them laying around carelessly they have the ability to cut long after I’ve moved on to something else. Sometimes things need to be cut, this is what knives are for, but no one wants to cut carelessly. When I write I follow an oath similar to a doctors, first do no harm. I can’t succeed of course. We are all of us causing offense every day of our lives without even meaning to. Just two days ago the guy behind me in his truck flipped me off because I chose to stomp the brake instead of the gas at a yellow light. I will offend. Sometimes my words will wound even when I don’t mean them to. Yet I can do my best to wield my words carefully, aim my cuts precisely, and reduce collateral damage.

It may be denial, but I have to believe that I can be careful with my words and still write things that are powerful. I have to believe that just because something I write is not easily marketable, it still can find an audience of people who both love it and need it. The spiritual guidance I receive seems to support this idea. I know that Stepping Stones was important, is important. I felt that when I was writing it. The multi-dozen rejections it has had since then do not change that. However my logic brain is also wary, because God’s idea of important may be very different than mine. I want important to mean that it goes out into the world and inspires people. It is possible that the real importance is that writing the book changed me.

So this turns out to be yet another post in which I ramble to myself in a way that justifies me continuing to write. I wanted to write something else, but these thoughts were on top and needed to be written before I could get to whatever comes next.

Running Away to Antelope Island

By / January 19, 2013

This afternoon I dropped all my responsibilities to go walk in knee-deep snow on Antelope Island. I have a good life full of good things, but sometimes I can’t see them as good until I run away from them for a little while. So my friend and I went to a place where the snow was covered in animal tracks and very few people tracks.

Even out at Fielding Garr Ranch, where there were people structures, most of the tracks were supplied by four legged critters. We walked out on the beach where all the sand was covered in snow. Some steps we walked along a crust on the top of the snow and it crunched under our feet. Other steps found us knee deep in fluffy flakes. We plowed our way through heading toward the water. It was only when I looked back at our tracks and they were wet that we realized we were already beyond the water’s edge. We’d walked out onto the ice.

The silence is something I always notice when out on the island. This time I only noticed it when I stood still. The rest of the time the crunching of snow and my own laughter filled my ears. It is hard not to laugh when trying to walk in the tracks left by a buffalo. His ambling steps required me to make over-long strides which probably would have qualified me for the Ministry of Silly Walks.

It was cold, a mere twenty degrees, but it did not feel cold at first. We were having too much fun exploring and making tracks. Later we felt cold, because our breaks in the car to warm up allowed the snow gathered on pant legs and socks to melt and make the fabric wet. Even then we did not mind. The cold was worth it to crunch through glittering snow, see a great horned owl roosting in a tree, see a barn owl out hunting, look at little mouse tracks across the snow, read in the circling tracks how a fox caught and ate a rabbit. We saw the fox himself later as he paused to make eye contact with a passing buffalo. There were other cars on the island, but we were the only ones to venture forth knee deep in snow.

When I close my eyes I can see the glittering snow, I feel the cold on my face, and I know I have to go back again.

Shipping Cups and Hats

By / January 18, 2013

This has not been a writing day. It has been a sorting invoices, printing postage, assembling boxes, filling boxes, labeling boxes, packages for the mailman kind of day. I’m most of the way done. By tomorrow at noon I should have all the cup and hat orders shipped. That would be lovely and then I could stare at nothing for awhile to see if my writer thoughts creep out of hiding.

Being a Teenage Geek Girl

By / January 17, 2013 / 4 Comments

“Mr. P says that in ten years of teaching Science Fiction, this is the first time he’s had a class with more girls than boys.” Kiki told me as I drove her home from school. I had been startled to learn that a high school had a Science Fiction Literature class at all, but it does, and Kiki signed up for it. Apparently so did many other girls. Kiki has geeky girl friends who will agonize with her over Avatar The Last Airbender or the latest video game story. I had male friends who would talk these things, but no girls. None of the girls I knew really got it. Or at least they didn’t seem to.

In high school I was in full geek girl stealth mode. I borrowed Esprit sweatshirts from my friends, had slumber parties, went to dances. I enjoyed all of this things, but there was a whole list of things that I also enjoyed only at home. I watched Star Trek and Doctor Who. I played Dungeons and Dragons with my siblings. I read fantasy books. I wonder now how many other geek girls there were out there, also stealthed.

My daughter’s geek girl experience has been different. She and her friends have video game parties. She wears a Halo hat to school. She carried a bag embroidered with dice and the words “Bag of Holding” and got compliments for it instead of ridicule. She has never been teased for any of these things. She never felt like she had to hide these things in order to successfully navigate the social scene at school. It is possible that she is braver than I was, more geeky. However I also think there has been a significant social shift which makes it okay for girls to like these things. This shift is evidenced by the Sci Fi Lit class which now has more girls than boys when ten years ago it was exclusively male.

I’m glad for my daughters that this is so.

Letter Month 2013

By / January 16, 2013 / 2 Comments


My friend Mary Robinette Kowal is once again issuing a month of letters challenge. I participated in this challenge last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, not just because of the fun of getting and sending letters during the month of February, but also because it gave back to me something I had lost. I didn’t even think to miss it before Mary asked people to write her letters on paper. These days I so rarely write things for an audience of one, but in a letter I do exactly that. Every sentence is intended just for the person who receives it. Even when the month was over, I’ve continued sending letters because it adds joy to my life. It is a small gift I can give to people I love, people with whom I want to connect. Friendships thrive and grow deep when the people involved have more than one point of contact: Neighbors and work out buddies, Twitter friend and person to hang with at conventions, facebook friend and shopping companion. I’ve discovered in letter writing an additional point of contact and I enjoy it a lot. So I am again picking up the challenge to mail something every day in February. Packages ordered by customers don’t count. I’ll also write a letter back to anyone who writes to me.

Sandra Tayler
PO Box 385
Orem UT 84059

Will you also pick up the challenge? You can read Mary’s challenge here. There are also links to forums and communities where you can talk letter writing with other folk. Lots of people are exchanging addresses, talking pens, acquiring paper, and generally preparing to begin.

Link’s Cheevo Book

By / January 16, 2013 / 1 Comment

“I definitely earned the cheevo for agony.” Link said as we drove away from the doctor’s office. It took me a moment to parse this statement and I only half succeeded when I remembered that cheevo is video gamer slang for achievement. It refers to badges one can earn by accomplishing things in video games. We had not been playing video games, we’d just exited the doctor’s office after having Link’s ingrown toenail removed.

“You earned a cheevo?” I said, trying to sound like I knew what he was talking about while gathering more information.

“Yup. I need to write it down in my notebook.”

“You have a notebook for cheevos?” I was an awesome conversationalist on this particular day.

“The one I got in my stocking for Christmas. I’m using it to keep track of all my cheevos.”

Further conversation clarified that when Link is faced with something challenging, he makes a cheevo for it in his book. When he accomplishes that difficult thing, he draws himself a little badge as a reward. It seems to me that a notebook full of cheevos is a good thing to have. I love that he made it for himself.