16 years 11 months

Kayla has done well in all of her math and science classes, and now really finds 11th grade physics to be quite interesting. It doesn’t surprise us since Kayla has really been capable of Piaget’s hypothetico-deductive reasoning for a while. She helped her school's team win first at the math competition this year, and she is planning to submit a project to the county science fair this year. We took her to visit friends and former college pals who work in math/science-related fields at their place of work in an effort to help Kayla get ideas about possible future jobs. Kayla is focused on studying and is starting to look into possible colleges where she might go. She is involved in student leadership and plays leadership roles in a couple of school clubs. She ended up with A’s and B’s this year and so she will be able to take AP Chemistry and AP Physics. Kayla can sometimes be a little self conscious, which could be a cognitive weakness, but it doesn’t seem to be an ongoing issue so we are keeping an eye on it but we aren’t too concerned.

Kayla has always had friends over the years and for the most part not really had any major issues. She’s a good student and likes to hang with her friends on the weekends, typical teen. Recently though, she got into a really vicious argument with a friend who made a play for her boyfriend and that friend is spreading insulting rumors about her. The rumors and revenge rumors continued for a couple of weeks and then died down, thankfully, because all the girls got bored talking and text-messaging about it. We were glad to see that pass with little residual damage to other friendships and they were able to mend things as well. Her report card noted that she had no problems with peers so that was a relief too.

We are glad to see Kayla developing and behaving as a ‘normal teen.’ She got her drivers license and a part time job. She has gone through a few things that tested us a parents like earlier when she had been dating someone for 2 months, we were a little worried when she said that she was in love and we were nervous that she might be having sex. We had a talk and stated our complete opposition to pre-marital sex and asked that she not go out with the boyfriend alone. She has gone through a few other relationships sense then. Also, we allowed Kayla to go out with some friends to a party on a Friday night. Around midnight, she called me to come pick her up. On the way home, I smelled alcohol on Kayla's breath. The next day she has a real doozy of a headache. I told her I was proud of her for being responsible enough to call instead of riding with a drunk driver or driving home herself. I also reminded her about the dangers of underage drinking. Another time Kayla came home from another party smelling of marijuana. When I ask about it, she was evasive and said, "I'll talk to you later about it." A day later, she admitted to having tried marijuana outside the house and where there were no parents monitoring the kids. We told her that we were glad she told us but that it was against our rules and that she was grounded for a week. So aside from those few times we really haven’t had that many issues and are grateful to see her on a good educational path to college and making better choices with friends.