By Thom McKee

Have you ever noticed that there are some things about teenagers that seem to be universal? We spend a lot of time talking about all of the things that are changing for teenagers, but sometimes we forget to notice the things that stay the same.

About a month ago, my wife and I were in Israel and Jordan, and one of the things that we noticed was how similar the teens were to our teens back home. It didn’t matter whether they were Palestinian or Israeli, they still rolled their eyes when their parents told them to do something. Or they still sighed in disbelief when someone would say something that they thought was stupid or uncool