Reconciling your own 'teen' years as you parent your own child.

[Bluestar23]

I am in my 40s and grew up in NW London and now live up north.
I was an oldest child in a middle class family but a bit confused and way too much freedom and lack of guidance.
Lots of my experiences between 12 years and 16 years involve being very drunk, hitchhiking, being taken advantage of, inappropriate sexual situations, fast cars and generally being out of my depth.
My Dad was at work and I genuinely don't think my Mum had a clue of the possibilities. I wasn't street smart and would honestly say I'm relieved I got through that time of my life alive in retrospect . Things got better as I moved towards 16 years etc.
Now I've reread that it sounds horrific but there's more context as I was just a normal kid.
I know have 2 girls and my oldest is me in repeat but I'm different in my approach to my parents.
I'm trying to explain to my DH why our responses etc are so key to keeping her safe.
I always feel very lucky to now be in a very safe relationship for the last 20 years when my story could have been so different.
But my fears for both my daughters remain.
Can anyone relate?

This is similar to my upbringing.

I have to say though that I had friends who had strict, over-involved parents who got up to the same (and worse) stuff that I did, but it involved a lot of "sleepovers", lying, hiding stuff, arguments and going awol.

I was a teenager in the 80s/early 90s. I could pretty much do as I liked - clubbing and getting excessively drunk every weekend from 16, staying out all night, wandering about, getting lifts in cars that were not being driven properly and by people I barely knew, going to raves and doing drugs.
I was close with my mum and we talked a lot but I only told her what I wanted her to know. If she had tried to stop me going out I probably would not have listened. I appreciated her for being laidback and not interfering, if I'm honest.
I do not try to stop my teens doing anything but I make it clear where bad choices can lead and I have told them true stories about things that have happened in the hope that they will be sensible.

I was a very troubled and wild teen. My DC had their moments, but were not like me.

They had the freedom to go out and experiment and make mistakes, and take responsibility for them, within parameters of us knowing roughly where they were and times to be in, etc.
They mostly kept to these and rarely went beyond them.

Along with their peers, they experimented with sex and drugs a bit, and rock and roll (literally, both were in bands) but neither dropped out of school, got into trouble with the police, other than being moved on, and one ran away once from his birth father's.
That was scary, but he phoned me once every day; that was the condition of me not reporting him to the police as a missing person. Then, after a few days, I organised a train ticket home.

I was AWOL such a lot of the time, hitchhiking, staying in squats, stoned and so on. I didn't discuss it much with the DC, because I didn’t want them to feel they had to outdo that, in terms of rebelling.

Definitely think this is true in my experience, I talked to my mum about it today funnily enough. She was a teen in the 60s and said she was once went to the pub with friends after work (so she'd have been 17/18yo ish) and her dad went ballistic when she got home.

My mum in turn was very relaxed when we were teens and we had a lot of freedom. My mum said she did worry sometimes when I was out but she knew my friends and figured I'd be okay 🤷‍♀️

I am trying to find the happy medium between these two approaches! My mum also pointed out that you weren't thought of as an adult into you turned 21 in her day so at 18 you were still considered a child.

Now I have an 18yo I wish 21 was still the age at which they become a legal adult!!

I think I'll be pretty lenient when we get there... I certainly did some sneaking around, underage drinking, sexual encounters from 14/15 onwards but there's nothing I wholeheartedly regret, never felt out of my depth or taken advantage of. I knew what I was doing.

Despite the above I felt my mum was too strict on certain things like boyfriends, and was weird about me going clubbing (could only do it if I stayed at a friends afterwards, wtf?) and I'd rather be a bit more accepting of that kind of thing.

Yea I can relate, my family was useless tbh! I've coaches a lot of kids and teens over the years (fitness, gym, a bit of sports) and I've seen the many dangers that can happen just by seemingly alright parents just not taking much notice. I think it's awesome you are bearing this in mind. I personally think staying involved and just trying to be as approachable as possible if they need to talk is the best thing you can do, and keep the boundaries going.

Why wtf at staying at a friend's house afterwards? Do you mean you wanted to go home or you wanted more freedom to stay elsewhere?

I didn’t get why it was fine for me to go out if I stayed at a friends place but not go home. I mean what difference does that make?

Ah I see, maybe they didn't want to be disturbed when you came home.
Odd though as I would want to know my kids came back safely!

Oh my god this.

I was in a nightclub at 14.

How the fuck? I came from a "good" family, very well respected and still are. How the actual fuck was I managing to get to nightclubs at 14??!!!!

Where did they think I was?? It was 1am.

I found it triggering and also healing in some ways. I've always beaten myself up for things I did as a teen and have spent most of my adult life aiming to be 'perfect' to somehow 'make up' for my behaviour. I've lived with incredibly low self esteem and always felt less worthy than other people.

Seeing my DC as teens and just how young they are has made me have a little more compassion for the young girl I was. But it's also made me feel resentful towards my parents who didn't give me the emotional support I clearly needed, and so angry with the much older men who took advantage of me.

I put myself in incredible dangerous situations, so I'm lucky to be alive really. As a result, I've always tried to do things differently with my DC and encouraged openness and honesty and tried to show them that they can come to me no matter what, I'll always love them and support them the best I can.

I think those of us that were wayward in our teens are set up excellently to parent our DC. I verify everything with other parents, the ones that send their DC for sleepovers here without checking with me that they are definitely happening clearly never got up to the shit I did.

I have raised one to adulthood and have a young teen now and I do think if they are going to do something like drinking or drugs they are going to do it regardless, so it is best to keep up lines of communication and honesty and explain risks etc.

We sailed through with DS, a bit under aged drinking and experimentation and we let him go most places and do most things he wanted to, but if we said no he understood it must be for a good reason. I found that when he was younger and wanted to go in central London or similar and we said yes, the only difference between us and the parents who said no, was we knew where our a child was.

We don’t live in London anymore and I am astounded at what the year 8s and 9s are getting up to out in the sticks compared to 8 years ago when DS was that age and we still lived in London. There is vaping, drinking and edible consumption. DD is tempted I think, but still talking to us about it all and hasn’t done it.

I was an oldest child in a middle class family but a bit confused and way too much freedom and lack of guidance.

Similar here except I was an only child. I got myself into a few risky situations, but luckily got through relatively unscathed, except for one sexual assault that some people rescued me from. I didn’t tell my parents about it.

What I definitely needed was more guidance with regard to forward planning and career choices. My parents meant well, but they didn’t encourage me to think ahead, I.e., if you do X, where will that get you, etc.

My teenagers (19 and 15) drink less and are more focused. We talk much more about what they want to with their lives. They also do more sport, because we’re willing to support them and give them lifts.

It’s so interesting to read these. I had very strict parents but no emotional connection with them though they were loving in their own way. Wanted to parent very differently and believe in our teens.

We tried our best to be very warm loving and open with DDs as teens but with a few boundaries. One DD was easy, co-operative and just got a bit drunk, the other took us to the edge with not telling us where she was, coming back late, being utterly determined to do whatever she wanted and extremely rebellious about school and any parameters. It’s so hard and terrifying when you’re worried about safety.

Fortunately they've both turned into lovely young women with great values and say they always felt loved. I hoped by instilling (obsessively) a very strong sense of self and being loved that they wouldn’t get coerced into behaviour they were uncomfortable with. Of course I will never know all they got up to (and really don’t want to) but they are both self confident assertive and great at being themselves. In other words you can’t control everything but that gives teenagers more resilience when they have strong support at home in my experience.