We were at T.Puzzle’s thirteen year wellness check. He was sailing through, crushing milestones and checking all the boxes landing him in healthy ranges for almost everything (screen time average was the only number in question).
The nurse turned to me and said, “Any concerns?”
“No. Unless you have a magic formula for getting a thirteen year old boy to articulate his thoughts,” I said.
The nurse could empathize. She experienced a similar phenomenon with her now seventeen year old son. Every question she asked him was met with an, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
How is it possible that once boys reach the age of thirteen they don’t know anything? Where does all their knowledge go? How do they make it through the day not knowing anything?
As we waited in the exam room for the doctor to appear, I decided to investigate this communication/knowledge block.
“So, T.Puzzle. Do you talk to your friends at school?” I said.
“Yes.”
“What do you talk about?” I said.
“Stuff.”
Wow. I could sense I was really getting somewhere. I continued my sure-be-successful line of questioning:
“What else do you talk about?”
“Sometimes, we talk about things.”
Oh, the stuff and sometimes the things. It all makes sense to me now.
“Why are you able to talk to them but not me?”
“Because they don’t ask me questions,” he said.
I didn’t know how to respond to that. Oh no! It’s happening.
I don’t know.
I really, truly don’t.
Writes for all Mommies 