Maybe this is why I don't always hear Christine

Wired.com article here

The Teen Brain “Shuts Down” When It Hears Mom’s Criticism

Just a small portion of the article:

Quote :

...Here’s the main take-away: when listening to Moms’ criticism, and for a period afterwards, the teens’ brains showed more activity in areas involved in negative emotions (no surprise there), but they actually showed reduced activity in regions involved in emotional control and in taking other people’s point of view. This suggests, the researchers said, that in response to maternal criticism: “youth shut down social processing [and] possibly do not think about their parents’ mental states.” They add: “… the decrement in brain activity in regions involved in mentalizing or perspective taking could help to explain the high frequency of maladaptive conflict resolution in parent-adolescent dyads.”...

That is why you have to have a hit and run approach with teens. Say the key thing and walk out of the room. It needs to echo a bit….

(That's quite a bit of gray for a teen, Eric!)

You mean the grunt like a cave mother to the cave child! "Shoes!" Which can be interpreted: take them off, pick them up, put them on or let's go buy some new ones. They always preferred the latter.

Miss my kids. They become adults toooooooo soon.