Today my teenager was upset because.....

A few years ago I suggested taking my DC to Australia for Christmas. They said they wanted Christmas in the UK sos would only go after that. There wasn't time for that.

Obviously screaming the house down and threatening him with some sort of Pray The Gay Away camp was what I should have done

Oh My there's so much to learn with this parenting lark.

And YY to the music ones.

AMAZING band, I wont have heard of them but they are really good and have some great "new" music.

Fleetwood Mac.

I kid you not.

Made it worse when I (innocently) said I had a couple of albums she could have if she wanted to go through the boxes. OMG the fall out from that went on for days because I only offered them to make her look stupid. Even her older sister thought she was being a knob over that one and normally they tag team against me!

I have long said that this whole gender thing is this generations "Celtic Armband Tattoo". They all try so hard to be different that they all end up the same! There is a line in Phineas and Ferb that I always snigger at because it demonstrates exactly this.

Candace - Mom, can I get a pink streak in my hair?
Mom - Why do you want to do that?
Candace - To assert my individuality......everybody's doing it!

DS made a huge song and dance about being Bi/Pan/Whatever and I said "OK". "DONT YOU EVEN CARE?!!!!!" And I said well what reaction do you want? Would you expect a huge reaction if you said you were straight? So why would you expect one for this? If that is who you are then I am fine with that, I just want you to be happy.

That PROVES beyond all doubt that I am total cow who doesnt care about him at all.

Obviously screaming the house down and threatening him with some sort of Pray The Gay Away camp was what I should have done

Today my teenager was upset because I had the ABSOLUTE FRONT to describe him as big and strong.

He's 13yo, 9 inches taller than me at 5'10" and has extremely broad, powerful shoulders and upper arms.

How dare I?!

Dd15's newest one is to instigate an argument about something tiny, push it on and on until I get cross and then plays the victim 'Oooohhh I can't keep doing this. I'm so fed up of arguing with you' wail, wail, cry.
When Dh and I point out that if she hadn't started in the first place it literally wouldn't have happened. The same when she complains about how her younger sister speaks to her when she's the one who started it

My teen reserves the questionable behaviour and somewhat selfish attitude for her Dad and I. Everyone else gets the ‘yes missus pattison, no missus pattison’ version of her (a la Perry).

I don’t worry about her being an entitled asshole to anyone but us. And she knows she gets called out on it all the time and usually responds with a wry smile and acknowledgement of her dickishness.

The problem with your teens are they still have this attitude when they go to uni and try to inflict it on neighbours. The difference between parents and neighbours is that neighbours get attitude from these teens, they phone the police... And their local ASBO unit. Having the ASBO Unit visit can be a very alarming wake up call as it becomes part of their criminal record and needs to be disclosed when they are ready to start working. Just sayin'.

As I always told my very frequently embarrassed and annoyed by me dds when they were teenagers and slamming doors stropping off and well just generally being a teenage pain in the arse if u do not hate me as your mum at least once in your life then I haven't done my job properly 😂😂🤣🤣. Needless to say they were not impressed by this haha

I recently caught my 13 yo dd trying a vape and I screamed at her like a fish wife in very colourful language to get in the car. All of her mates scarpered. Think she got the message.

She was in a shop with dh and called me earlier to complain he wouldn’t buy a WKD for her and her friend. Then when I told her no, she relayed that I’d said yes. We are wise to this now and he demanded to speak to me. Funnily enough I’d also said no.

She was most indignant as apparently it’s only 4% and everyone drinks them. We are so uncool and embarrassing. Clearly.

re. vaping - honestly, it's endemic in Australia in high schools, it's atrocious.
I'm on the PTA equivalent of DS1's high school and the principal is VERY hot against it, but they reckon about half of the kids at school do it. Not only do it themselves, but deal in them too - they're supposed to be only sold to over 18s but if they're bought over the internet, then who's to know? The sales websites state "only over 18s" but it's not that hard to get around.
Some high schools in NSW are so overwhelmed with the problem that they've given up even trying to deal with it.
A lot of the problem as well is that some families don't care that their kids are doing it, because they think it's better than them smoking. The health and education departments here aren't working well enough together to knock this on the head, but they're trying to find ways to stamp it out.
I actually think Trump's answer to this was quite a good one - to make it illegal to send them by post - but I don't know how well it's worked, to be fair!

Point being that vaping is becoming a real problem in high schools, from Y7 up.

[quote Snoopsnoggysnog]@FancyAnOlive

Your 13 yo is vaping?[/quote]
She isn't but some of her friends are. She tried it and thought it was disgusting.

[quote Thisgroupneverceasestoamazeme]@Hardbackwriter I can remember having a eureka moment about how to make everything more fair and excitedly telling my mum the idea and her telling me I’d just described socialism 😆[/quote]
😂 I love this - exactly the sort of thing I would have done as a teen. Mine are I fear, not such deep thinkers but they’re still young so may surprise me

She once left her school bag on the bus. Inside were her house keys and her planner that had our address in. Had to change all the locks before we could go to bed as it hadn't been handed in at the depot.

@Whitefire yep... some of what we have to deal with would make peoples hair stand on end. So i have no issue sharing some of the more 'typical teenager' moments, as to be honest, they're refreshingly normal.

DS is 11 and considers me 'old' because I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of football players, music or football trading cards. It's also highly unreasonable for me to have parental controls set on his Nintendo Switch and his phone, unlike 'all the other parents'. He also considers it unreasonable that he's required to do extra chores to pay me back for the 50 quid's worth of PE kit he lost in the first two weeks of term.

My kid asked me if I had ever heard of a band called "oh, my gosh what are they called, yeah The Beatles"
' son, go and talk to your nan, she used to go to the Caven as a teenager growing up in Loverpool at exactly the same time as the Beatles She screamed and nearly fainted when John Lennon walked past her!!!"

Oh the music ones we get too 😂😂😂

DD on discovering ACDC & raving about how much better music is now.

She was most put out when I showed her a video of her dancing to the same track as an 18 month old & that the record was actually mine. I spoil everything apparently 😂😂

[quote cricketmum84]@EmotionalSupportBear I hear you! My 17yo has just recently been diagnosed as ASD and ADHD. It's been a very hard few years before diagnosis. She needs everything repeating eleventy billion times as it "falls out of her brain" (her words not mine) [/quote]
I hear you too. As mentioned my DS has ASD, the issues we have with him make the ones on here pale into insignificance, hence not sharing them.

DD came home with a badge of a cannabis leaf on her bag when she was at college. I asked her if she smoked weed.

She was astounded that I’d recognised what it was and couldn’t possibly understand how I came by this knowledge.