Here's the thing: when adults tell you act mature, they're not expecting you to act like a grown up...they're training you to act that way. They know you're still going to be hot-headed, overly emotional, irrational. What they're doing is starting before you have to act like a grown-up so that you actually do act that way when the time comes.

It's like having a toddler who keeps trying to jam things in the electrical outlet. You tell it no and put it in timeout, but you expect it's going to try again. And again. And again. You keep making this same demand -- don't act like a toddler -- because you're teaching it how it should act so that as it grows, it grows into maturity.

This might feel unfair, you have an adult saying, "Stop acting this way," but it's necessary. If they said, "It's okay, you can stomp your feel and scream and slam doors, it's because you're 14," one day you'd be a 30-year-old doing this because no one ever trained and shaped the teenager into the eventual adult they became.

There are, unfortunately, many teens who weren't trained and instructed as teens and they're now grown adults who don't know how to -- or refuse to try to -- manage their feelings like adults.

It's hard. It sucks. Being told that you have to breathe and not act the way your emotions tell you to act is hard. But it's a vital life lesson.

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