My teenagers are quite nice

[TinfoilTwat]

You don't often hear the positives of living with teenagers. I have to say, mine are pretty decent people.
They work hard, get good grades, volunteer their time to coach their sports in the local primary school. They're funny. They are brave and passionate about life. I genuinely enjoy their company and feel very lucky to live with them.

We are having a very scaled back Christmas this year because we're spending all available money on me doing a course next year. No complaints from them; "Mum, we'll just eat gruel for a year. Do the course. We're proud of you!"

(Disclaimer: Yes, they also play about 64 hours of videogames a day and have a functional blindness that does not allow them to see used cups and plates, and they leave sweet-wrappers in the living room, and have extraordinarily bad haircuts, and steal my shoes, and stay up until 3am if I don't stop them...)

Tell me about your lovely teenagers.

I have two lovely teenage girls. They are great to spend time with. They help around the house, offer to help if I need it, will happily do things outside the home with me and dh.
They are funny, confident and kind. They don't drink, smoke or so drugs. They have nice friends too.
We are very lucky I know.

My kids are not teens anymore but I just love hearing about your kids.

it is sort of sad that now they are grown and flown ( except the youngest ) 25+ yr olds I don’t see them so much but it’s such a fantastic things knowing they have secure roots and are flying free doing what they want and being proper effective adults

My 18yr old DS is lovely. Conscientious, kind, considerate, helpful, funny, clever and hardworking. He always has been. His teenage years have been a breeze. I'm guessing we might have our work cut out with his younger sister though...

My 19 year old Ds has a countdown on his phone for counting down the days until he is home for Christmas from uni. He and Ds2 aged 16 are best friends, have never really fallen out. They do chores without comment, unpack shopping, cook dinners, do gardening and are truly lovely to be around. They send us memes or links to things they think we might find interesting or funny. They both have lovely friends. They spend time with us as a family and seem to enjoy our company as much as we enjoy theirs.

They have never slammed doors or screamed in our faces and are grateful for lifts and the money we give them. I don't know what we did but we are truly grateful for who they are.

Awww lovely thread ❤️ Mike are fab too - polite and friendly but opinionated and moody too 🤣
Have some great conversations about life, they help with cleaning, are thoughtful and kind to others and phone their grandparents

I have a truly lovely 17 year old ds
He's so kind, compassionate, funny and loving. We genuinely enjoy each others company and love spending time together. We go to the cinema and Comic con and he shares musical tastes with his dad so they go to gigs together. We are a very close little family of 3. He hugs me daily. He's very caring and thoughtful and has a great relationship with my mum too, his remaining Nan. He has never brought any trouble to our door and is respectful and responsible. When he's out with friends we can 100% trust him. He is at a Performing Arts/Music College. His passion is the guitar and he worked so hard to pass the audition and continues to work so hard every day. We are extremely proud of the person he is.

Mine is funny, kind, works hard, has strong values and does his chores with little to no complaining. He also likes to spend time with me and we have lots of great and interesting chats, especially now he’s in sixth form and enjoying new subjects in A levels. His friends seem to be a great bunch, they are all supportive of one another, they help each other with studying or problems and come across as accepting and kind.

Some of his friends have had some really tough times like losing a parent or a parent being sent to prison but they all seem to just find support with each other - and it doesn’t seem cliquey depending on grades or sporting interests and things like that which is what it was like when i was at school (as in you had the sporty kids, the high achieving academically kids, the arts-focused kids etc), just seems like they all mix well together.

Been very surprising to me as my teen years were really tough and not at all supportive, but the teens around my son are really just great kids, funny and caring and they all work hard at whatever goals they have. Honestly it’s been a bit of an eye opener!

My 2 are ok. Ds1 was an extremely difficult child, but has got a lot easier. Suddenly matured significantly during A'level's. Ds2 was an easy child. My mum said I was.
I feel proud of how they both have turned out. Dh and I worked very hard to try and instil good values into them. I like to think they are reasonably rounded. They were loved a lot, firm rules, no nonsense, loved, cuddles, talking about emotions and MH, but no pandering. Both are pleasant enough. Both have good self esteem. All our friends think they are lovely. We can take them to restaurants and parties and they dance and behave beautifully. We took them to a wedding recently and they were dancing and pleasant and chatty and talk to other people, nit shy or nervous like most of their peers, and everyone who met them said they were absolutely lovely. Made me and Dh proud.

But realistically we shouldn't be surprised because they should be this way, because we've taught them properly and taught them all the rules and taught them how to behave so it's not exactly surprising because we put in all the donkey work.
Saying that both of them can be quite selfish and rude, sarky little buggers and obviously other people don't see their that kind of behaviour that we get at home. It's always ongoing and Dh and I just nip such behaviour in the bud and say I'm not prepared to put up with that .
I don't know why other parents aren't tougher.

I have two teens and two just left the teens (although they still are not fully fledged adults yet). They all love each other and show it to each other in the inimitable teenage style of teasing and gentle shoving. They help around the house with only a few moans and generally have good hygiene. They also study hard, are nice to be around and the two that have found girlfriends, have picked lovely ones. I am very lucky to have them and now that they are starting to stretch out into the world for more and more time, I miss them.

This is a lovely read. Tell me how you raised these wonderful teens? Did you have a certain parenting style? Did they go to private schools? Were they difficult in the early years or were they always this lovely?

We need more positivity like this thread (I don’t have teens, pregnant with a sometimes-lovely-sometimes-challenging toddler DD). All the doom, gloom and talk of MH on mumsnet has frankly put the fear of god in me about having children and these posts have been a real tonic.

I worked PT when they were small and they went to a wonderful childminder. I gradually increased my days and now work FT as am a single parent.

We've always expected them to be quite independent (making own lunches & not chased for homework etc). They go to a girls grammar which focuses on empowering girls.

My friend told me when they were younger to try and keep their 'cups' full and not sweat the small stuff. I'm pretty sarcastic with them and we have a laugh but I do pull them up sharpish if they are rude. They've always been expected to contribute to household life and do it pretty much ungrudgingly now.

I'm not perfect but we are all muddling our way through, seemingly ok so long May that continue 🤞

And yes, tips welcome.

Apparently one of the teachers at my kids school finally clocked they were related this week. Both kids independently came home and told me “Miss said that our mum is really lucky to have us as children.”

I’m so glad she saw what I see. Although she doesn’t see the state of their rooms!

DS16 has 4 mates round tonight as DH and dog are away, so I'm skulking upstairs.

It was starting to get a bit noisy so I thought I'd better go down and check what they were up to - they're playing Monopoly !

DD is 17 (and ND fwiw). She can be a raging knob at times and I worry about her toddler like impulsivity. But she's so funny, has great music taste and a fabulous, individual dress sense. She's fiercely independent and incredibly brave. She's is the best company I could ever have and my heart overflows with pride that she's mine.

My Dd had 6 friends over for her 16th and they built a Lego tank and watch Jo Jo Rabbit 😄

My DS is 17 and I can hand on heart say he hasn't given me any trouble at all, even the terrible two's so I felt quite sure the teens would be awful but thankfully he's got such a good nature even they passed without problems, he's grown into such a lovely, funny, hard working young man, my heart could burst with pride!!

I think the teenage years have been one of my favourite times. I'm blessed with two fantastic teenagers. Yes, sometimes lazy, yes sometimes moody but on the whole a joy. I love spending time with them, and their friends.

sounds like you worked hard to instil firm boundaries and strong values. Planning on ttc next year so enjoying these tips. What I’ve noticed is there’s a lot of parenting woo out there lately- with gentle parenting- never saying no to your children, breastfeeding- breast is best propaganda and it has me wondering about what really works.

@Psychgrad I did breastfeed to a year old but I don't think that made all the difference 🤣🤣

Boundaries and fun, yes 👍

@Psychgrad personally as a parent and a teacher I think the “never say no to your child” parenting is utter wank and not doing our kids any favours at all. The horror stories from employers about lazy and entitled new entrants to the work place stems from the idea we should bring our children up to believe the world revolves around them. It doesn’t. We always made sure our kids had firm boundaries, manners and understood that actions have consequences.

It’s worked for us.

I have two lovely step teenagers! One girl 16 lives with us, other boy 15 lives with mum and partner. Both great kids, polite hard working and responsible!

I have 2 boys, 17 and 18

They are funny, kind, loving, thoughtful, hard working and my absolute joy

If they would just empty the dishwasher they would be perfect...

My just 18 year old has just left to cover a night shift at a care home to cover staff absences, she volunteered for her first night shift yesterday. I think she's amazing