Teens growing up too fast - why?

I don't see a problem with any of what you listed. It seems a good thing to me.

I don't think kids are maturing earlier at all. I was very independent as were my friends from a young age. We all hard part time jobs as teenagers to fund the clubbing and partying (which all started underage). We didn't have mobile phones our parents couldn't monitor what we were doing 24/7.
My teenagers are deffinatley less indpendent and due to tighter restrictions (and not purchasing fake ID) have waited until 18 to go to pubs/clubs to drink. But there's been house parties with penty of drinking etc along the way. I think my kids are less resiliant and independent that my generation.
Honestly I think it sounds really dull how many of the teenagers described on this thread are living their lives, (even as a 40 something year old its too boring for me) but if they are happy then good for them, we are all different.
I think how a teenagers acts, what they are into etc is personality driven. My eldest away at uni, is certainly throwing himself in to the drinking socialising culture and having the time of his life (though almost definately at the expense of his studies). His sister at 17 loves partying at weekend and drinking with her friends and they will go for a meal too, but she can't wait to go clubing and have more independence. She's got a good balance, she studies hard, keeps fit and lets her hair down. My son, well he's unpredictable, enjoys letting his hair down and going a bit wild.
Our generation smoked, our kids vape (its like an epidemic) the drugs have moned on to different types, but there is still penty aorund for those inclined.
I also think it's more expensive to go out clubbing and drinking compared to when we were younger. I could afford to go out 3-4 nights a week and hit it hard, no way could my kids afford that now.

Yup my kids are like this;polar opposite of myself and DH at that age.

The drinking culture in our city has changed;student nights aren't what they use to be and their less nightclubs etc now.

Also nights out now are so expensive.You could go out with a tenner for the night when I was a teen.

Your lovely sensible son sounds like an absolute dream!

Apparently having a proper boyfriend/girlfriend now before GCSEs just makes you desperate 🫣. And if you have a casual one, he/she must be parked around GCSE season.

My teen is the same. Turning 16 tomorrow, no interest in parties, not really showing much interest in alcohol. Of course it might change when he goes off to uni.

I'm glad to be honest, I was the total opposite. Drinks every night after work, going clubbing with a fake ID, surviving on 2 hours sleep, then I got pregnant when I was 17.

I think there's been a reduction in alcohol consumption but an increase in drug use.

I think it's a side effect of not being able to go to the pub till they're 18.

Someone up thread said that the teenagers fell into two groups after COVID, and I think that's true. I have two teenagers, aged 17 and 19, and so know a lot of teenagers, and the ones who party, party hard, and then the other group don't at all.

Depends on the teen and the friends they get involved with IME. One of mine was like this, the other completely different.

It's just a totally different generation. My 16 yr old spends his spare time at the gym, playing golf/football and stays home on a Saturday night. At his age I was dropping E's at raves and had left home! Hedonism seems to have died out in the 90's.

Yep my two are like this. To be honest I find them a little dull. All this staying in cooking nice meals, visiting restaurants and being healthy is so different to what I was like at that age. You only get one go at this. I go out more than my young adults. I stay out later and I certainly drink more and I’m not a big drinker. But as a parent I would rather it was this way. It’s easier to handle.

Interesting point

He sounds like he has a particularly sensible/focused group of friends. My DS’s were far more beer-based at this age, though still all mostly managed A/A* so must have squeezed in some studying as well.

Pubs are much stricter now though than when I was young. Your DS is 18, but are all of his friends? My DS seemed to all have friends born in the early part of the autumn term so didn’t have to wait for anyone to turn 18 so they weren’t left out

Anecdotally ops description is very common round here and fits most teens I know my friends teens etc

I know it's not intended but this feels like a stealth boast.
I can confirm that a lot of 18 yo don't live as sensibly as yours.

Also clubs and pubs are now properly strict on id. In our day we used to go out out from 16. Now unless you’ve got real id forget it.

Mine have the balance right to be fair. They do what ops teen does but do also go to clubs and parties dd1 not until 6th form though dd2 15 is in the popular party set so has a livelier time.

@MrsTingly interesting. You forget that we teens in the 90’s had parents that would be relatively poor by todays standards. It was always going to be easier to be better off than them. Todays kids can expect the same standard of living as we had growing up if not actually better.
I think todays youth have many more opportunities to be as rich as their parents actually. Many sectors actually pay well in comparison to the 90’s. Literally anyone can use social media to promote anything and make money. Houses are expensive but young people expect to live at home to save or have a bit of parental help and the fact that more jobs can be done remotely helps.
It’s not sneering to wonder why they aren’t risk taking in the way previous generations did. And rather that than feeling sorry for a generation that’s had it pretty comfortable actually.

Well I’m on a different planet!
My youngest is Y10 and there’s a massive binge drinking culture among a sizeable proportion of her peers - she reckons about 60 at least out of a year of 300 are hard core getting absolutely hammered at parties. I’ve picked her up from several, and seen it myself - teens vomiting in the street outside. Last party she was at, two girls ended up in alcohol with alcohol poisoning.
So that’s both the last party she was at - and the last one she’s going to be at!
It’s awful. Gradually people like my daughter are falling away from the parties because they actually don’t want that (she’s not fighting me when I said I don’t want her going again) but there’s still a good number from her year going.

Tbh I think it’s entirely personality driven.

I have three at Uni atm.

One tee-total, beyond sensible, has to be reminded that studying isn’t the sole activity of life.

One absolute party animal. Her group of friends could easily have fitted in in the 90s when I went. Thankfully they are very very good at looking out for each other.

The other is a moderate mix of both. A good bit of study, a good bit of partying, a PT job and park runs as a hobby.

I worry the least about the third one as I think the healthiest life is one with a good balance of everything.

That’s an interesting perspective Sazzahera I guess there’s always been the responsible types and the less responsible types but perhaps Covid exaggerated it

I worry that all these very responsible teens are going to hit a mid life crisis in their late 20s. They will have done the grown up thing to death and be bored of it by then.

I was a responsible teen - luckily let my hair down a fair bit at uni but still feel I could have done with a few more irresponsible years before settling down.

I didn't party or go drinking or anything like that as a teen (1980s). It wasn't my personality. I did a little bit of clubbing at uni but didn't particularly enjoy it.
There seem to be plenty of kids who still do the party/drug/drinking/clubbing stuff. Personally I'm much happier my daughter is a homebody - wasn't much fun picking my son up half passed out on the street, getting a phone call from the school about yet another detention, collecting him from parties at whatever hour, worrying about who he was hanging out with.
As long as your teen is content why overthink it?

Me too! And they are in no rush to get into a relationship no matter what, either.

Yes. I was a teen in the 90s and the world felt hopeful and positive. I don’t think that’s how it feels to teenagers now, at all. For people my age, you could reasonably hope to be as well off as your parents, which is not true for the majority now. We were never locked down for months at a time. We didn’t have social media either. And casual violence hasn’t ended, I’m sad to say.

I’m really glad I was a teen in the 90s. I think we had it better than teens today in almost every way. I have very little time for old people who sneer at young people.

Sorry but are you actually saying the 80’s and 90’s was safer!! 😁. We had the very real threat of nuclear war, the actual Falklands war, the AID’s epidemic and then mad cow disease later on. We had expensive interest rates ( so no easy credit then) and the crash in the early nineties. Casual violence was everywhere from Brixton riots to football hooligan gangs to fights between schools. You could expect to be made fun off it you were black, brown, gay, special needs, disabled, Irish, red haired and that was on just on TV let alone in the real world.
The difference was it was never dull.

Hiya! Im a year older than your son and i feel like i might kinda understand why this is happening. During covid our age range kinda fell into two different boxes, those of us who saw it as homeschool and those of us who saw it as a extra long summer break. Unfortunately im in the latter lol. Ive seen this with pretty much everyone i grew up with recently, those of us who took the covid work seriously were still in the habit of working super hard in college and those of us who didnt, ended up doing basically enough to pass but focusing more on clubbing, maccies etc. I personally think it comes down to wether the lockdown scared them about the prospect about losing grades or scared them about the prospect of losing a social life and its just carried on a bit into how we interact with life. I cant speak on behalf of your son but ive spoken about this with my siblings and classmates and we all seemed to fit into one of the two boxes

I think when your adolescence takes place during a time of safety you look for risks in your personal life- sex, booze, drugs etc.

When everyday life feels risky, you don’t need to take so many risks yourself. These kids have grown up during austerity, Covid, cost of living crisis and now people discussing WW3. I’m not surprised that they want a bit of safety and comfort in their leisure time.