Your teen’s substance use can be emotionally heavy.
It feels physically heavy sometimes.
Laughter provides much needed relief from all the tension.
Just because you enjoy some laughter with your teen doesn’t mean you approve of all their actions.
My daughter and I had an argument at a drive through one night, and she took off walking.
I didn’t know where she was for hours.
I was furious when she got home because she was already grounded before that happened and I was worried about her.
I was so angry that I went to the street to meet her when she got home.
I laughed as soon as I saw her.
It was cold that night.
She was wearing slippers, no coat, and I knew she had walked far.
I cracked a joke about it.
We both laughed hard for a while and then we hugged.
I was so mad that she ran away, but I was more glad she was home.
She was still grounded.
We still needed to talk about her running away that night and the consequences.
More than anything though, we both needed that laugh.