our inspiration
Parenting teenagers requires patience, restraint, and a willingness to be confidently corrected by someone who still needs a ride to everything. Teenagers are often irritated and reliably unimpressed with your perspective. They are also quite certain you don’t understand what’s going on, despite decades of evidence to the contrary.
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We learned this firsthand. Each of our kids developed their own strategy for testing limits and patience, usually delivered with a sigh, an
eye roll, or both frequently before we had finished the sentence they
were already disagreeing with.
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We got through it in part because we knew other people raising teenagers. Comparing notes confirmed something helpful: this is not a
personal failure. It’s a pattern.
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Our hope is this game offers the same reassurance. Because when a teen says “WHATEVER,” it is not an attempt to resolve anything. It is generally followed by a dramatic exit, a door closing with more force than necessary, and a silence that suggests you’ve misunderstood everything.
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And when the person you love most is pushing buttons you didn’t know you had, the most productive response is usually to pause, keep perspective, and not say the extremely accurate, deeply satisfying thing that will make
everything worse almost instantly.
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You’re not doing it wrong.
It just feels like you are.
HOW TO PLAY
SETUP
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Choose who will be the Teen first. (The youngest player works well, so does whoever feels the most dramatic.)
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Everyone else is a Parent.
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Shuffle all decks place within reach.
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Each parent draws 6 Parent Response cards.
OBJECTIVE
​The first player whose response card is chosen by the “Teen” five times wins.
This is less a victory and more of an accidental moment of understanding.
Appreciate it. These moments are rare.
SET THE SCENE
The Teen draws:
1 Parent Scenario Card
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1 Teen Mood Card. The Teen reads both out loud.
Reality has been set.
Adjust your expectations accordingly.
OPTIONAL:
If you want to spice it up, add a Teen Mood card.
If not, there’s already plenty of tone.
Based on the Teen Scenario, choose the Parent Response you believe makes sense. You are probably wrong.
PARENT RESPONDS
Each parent secretly chooses one Parent Response card they believe is best. "Best" may mean:
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Most accurate
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Most unfair
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Most irrational
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Most likely to have happened last week
​Each Parent then lays face down in the center the "Best" card they have chosen from their hand.
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There are no wrong choices. There are consequences.
You'll find lots of EMOTIONALLY TIRED cards because exhaustion is the baseline. Plenty of REALITY CHECKS because someone has to say it out loud. A solid set of CONSEQUENCES and NOT HAPPENING cards because choices eventually find you.
PICK YOUR FAVORITE PARENT RESPONSE
TEEN DECIDES
The Teen reviews all responses and chooses a winner based entirely on vibes.
Official criteria include (but are not limited to):
• What feels irrationally upsetting.
• What sounds emotionally correct, despite the facts.
• What annoyed you the most for reasons no one can explain.
The Teen reads the Parent Responses aloud. Tone matters. A lot. The Teen chooses the response that feels correct. They read the winning Parent Response out loud, like it’s obvious. End of discussion.
ROTATE ROLES
Pass the Teen role clockwise to the next player. Everyone draws another Teen Scenario card to replace the one played.
Repeat until someone wins.
WINNING
The first Parent to 5 points wins.
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Or play until:
Someone insists they're winning anyway.
A Teen declares the whole thing "unfair."
The vibes shift and the game is somehow about feelings now.
Congratulations. You made the hard calls.
The game ends. Parenting teenagers does not.
Expansion packs
Confidence without planning. Independence without budgeting.
Every decision feels correct. The bill says otherwise.
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They call it experimenting.
You call it staying awake.
Altered
States
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Available to purchase
