The endless rewards of working with troubled teens.

Reward #1 – I see that a major reward in working with troubled teens (boys and girls) is the rapid and ever-present exposure to useful, productive, stimulating, and very colorful language. This is a huge benefit to being a parent of a troubled teen. “How so?” you might ask. Well fist of all, I am able to stay on the cutting edge of all the relevant slang, thus I can tune into any group of teens and understand what they are talking about. This helps to avoid the otherwise inevitable questioning one must present to just begin to understand teen-speak. Living with teens I am spared the embarrassment of having to ask, “What are you talking about?” Another great benefit is that I am well versed in the new and creative use of language. The most valuable information I have learned is that the seven words you can’t say on television, as made famous by the late great George Carlin, were invented by my teenagers. Not a single English speaking human has ever used the word f*ck or sh!t or douche-bag mother*cking a$$hole to “enliven” or add accent to speech. Additionally, the magnitude of the idea to use these words has spread so rapidly that “everyone says that.” This speaks to the truly divine roots of their ideas. Finally, the concept of these words being offensive and impolite has also been “cured” in that their widespread and wondrous use has demonstrated that any pre-conceptions adults had about these words was dead wrong. These are common parts of speech and if you find them offensive, crude, brash, degrading, dirty, or morally objectionable you are a relic stuck in the days of yore. I sleep better knowing that I am current on my language use – and the next time you have a professional meeting make sure and greet everyone in the room with a huge smile and a big f*ck you!