Things your teens don’t know

[Mumofteentwins]

I remember seeing threads like these over the years but now I have teens of my own wanted to resurrect the topic!

I have 15yo twins. They are wonderful, lively, bright, sporty, funny kids. But sometimes I’m astounded at stuff they don’t know 😂 They have two well educated parents and a wide circle of family and friends and a houseful of books etc etc.

The other day I commented that I was pleased at how well my supermarket hyacinths are doing. Both looked blank, neither of them knew what a hyacinth was, ok not the end of the world but there are other examples.

Semi light hearted, but I do feel I’ve only got a couple more years with them at home and I want to fill with them as much general and practical knowledge as possible!

What do your teens not know? Seem to remember teachers usually have a lot to say on these threads!

I don’t think my kids (20 and 17) can read analogue clocks very well. They’ve got a vague idea but say things like ‘twenty after 3’ (I’m sure that’s a legitimate way of phrasing it in some regions, but not where we are!)

I was that naive teenager at a bus stop 30yrs ago. When first visiting my sibling at Uni in a busy city I couldn’t work out why the buses kept flying past without stopping. Later finding out you had to stick your arm out. We were used to living in a sleepy town where standing at the stop was enough.

My DC sometimes amaze me with what they don’t know, or even better, when they have put 2+2 together and made 5. One actually thought the world had been in black and white in the past!

However, with technology I am totally inept so they are more ready for the world in many ways than I am now.

I think its more than just less books and low quality online screen stuff. It's lack of observing. So many hours of my childhood and teens were spent just doing nothing and watching. Sitting waiting somewhere with my Mum, waiting at bus stops, outside a shop to meet friends, on a bus or a long car journey, or just hanging around the kitchen chatting while someone worked. I might have mindlessly watched someone unload a lorry with a pallet truck or close down a buggy or pour tarmac on a pothole or skin a fish or unblock the sink or whatever. You never learned this information you just knew it from half watching in childhood. Teens don't mindlessly watch anything anymore because they aren't bored enough or have long periods of nothing. No way would they notice what's happening the local roadworks on their commute to school because they dont look out windows, they look at their phones

My 20 year old still does this 😂

I’m usually more amazed at what my teens do know, considering they don’t read or watch the news. Am always saying “How do you know that?!” (usually about 80s music)

That’s brilliant, they have probably never used a dictionary because of predictive text and spell checker which is sad and worrying 😂

Loads of older people do that too, it's not a generational thing.

Same! My DS was talking about an investment bank the other day and I wondered how he'd heard of them!

Quite often I say "how on earth do you know that"!

I hadn't either, I only knew it as a paying in slip. I still used cheques until very recently as the guy who serviced our old gas boiler took them.

I only found out last year that you open jars with stiff lids by gently banging the jar on the ground to release the vacuum.

There was a clip of Madonna on the telly recently and my 18yo said: “Oh, I always thought she was black.”

My teens are absolutely abysmal at geography. DS is vaguely looking at unis (hes year 11) and he discounted Oxford and Coventry "because London will be really expensive"
For info we live about 40 min from London by train and hes doing geography gcse!

A few years ago DD asked if Glastonbury was a sports event!

I feel like i may have failed as a parent! 🤣

Again, I don't think that's a generational thing. Everyone seems to be glued to their satnav/Google maps!

When I was 15 (30+ years ago) I did work experience and had to sort some index cards into alphabetical order, which i thought was pretty straight forward. The people working there seemed amazed how quickly and easily I did it....this was well before phones and predictive text!

It's lack of observing. So many hours of my childhood and teens were spent just doing nothing and watching. Sitting waiting somewhere with my Mum, waiting at bus stops, outside a shop to meet friends, on a bus or a long car journey, or just hanging around the kitchen chatting while someone worked.

Yes, exactly. And too many people these days, not just teens, pay no attention to the world around them because they're glued to their phones and plugged in to earphones.

You often see on MN 'have you shown ds/dd how to [insert basic household job]' and I think 'haven't they, in all the years they've been alive, ever seen someone else do it?'

This is fair. I really enjoy watching Hit List with my teens and being wowed at what they do know.

Other specialist subjects include Greek mythology and Zack Polanski. I'll take that over British rivers TBH.

I’d love to read that version!

DH was away on Valentine’s Day & arranged for flowers to be delivered to the house. Unfortunately they arrived after I’d left for work. DS phoned me to ask where the vases are kept (so that’s the 1st thing he didn’t know, but at least he knew that cut flowers need to go in one). I told him in the sideboard in the office & that’s when he asked, “What’s a sideboard?” Made me giggle.

Yes I tell my teens that it has been my wonderful parenting.

Mine know everything.

Neither of my teens seem to know that a knock at the door might indicate a visitor, as opposed to another delivery from Amazon. I'm sure DS only opens the door when he's expecting pizza.

16yo DS has only just learned how to hold a cat. It was most amusing watching him hold them as one would a machine gun for a few months. The cats would give him sideways looks as if thinking he was a complete idiot.

I'm 38 and don't know how to use a rotary phone.

Yes, I always thought teens know absolutely everything, far better than
their parents. It’s only when they’re quite a bit older that they realise that Mum and Dad aren’t quite as woefully ignorant as they’d thought.

I once asked someone (another adult) who was wearing a watch what the time was. She looked at it puzzled for a while and then told me she didn't know because it was in "adult time" .

DD2, at 17, when asked if she knew who Nelson Mandela was had a brief think and said ''didn't he win the battle of waterloo ... ?''

😳

He knows nothing, but according to him he knows absolutely everything! He can't even seem to remember where towels are kept, or the pots. I'm sure he was more capable when he was 4!