To ask which are more trouble - toddlers or teens

[ProudAS]

I'm not a parent myself but I am curious

Depends on what you find most difficult to handle: a small clingy person who sticks to your side throughout the day and talks non-stop or a big independent person who talks back and may actually occasionally understand things better than you.

As for keeping safe, Kelly is right: there are dangers both ways.

Personally, I find it reassuring that dc are now old enough and sensible enough to look after themselves: they seem to do a much better job of it than I did than they were little.

Fewer accidents, fewer scares- what I see of them is sensible decisions, pulling out when a situation gets dodgy, getting help when someone is in trouble- it all looks good from where I'm sitting.

6yo is the worst age ime. Between tots & teens I think I prefer tots, although tots are cuter & teens are funner.

Toddlers are awful, I hate them. Never get any peace. Teenagers, if you are lucky, choose your battles and always keep communications open, are tremendously good fun, except when they disappear in a car full of teenage boys having told you they were being picked up by a friends parent. However, despite all the worry and tears the teenage years caused me, I found them much easier to deal with than horrible, whiney, clingy, snotty nosed toddlers. Yeuch.

Teenagers are just over grown toddlers really although at the time the toddlers seemed such hard work give me a pack of 2 year olds anyday to one stroppy 16 yr old

I have a toddler AND a teen. At the moment they seem to be tag teaming with the bad behaviour. There is never a moment where neither if them is being a pita

shall we say then both as bad/good as each other and don't do it op.

The very worst is the young teen....older teens are proper humans and reasonably ok to deal with.
The pre-teen/young teen is an absolute horror!

It seems to me that you have some choice about whether to worry about your teens. (leaving aside the particularly problematic ones with severe anorexia or drug problems, but most teens aren't in that category).

I tend to yak on about safety and then hope for the best.

But toddlers, you can't just decide not to worry about them getting run over/falling off a cliff/drowning/lost in a public place. I still wake up in with nightmares about that sort of toddler experience.

And you can choose whether to wait up for a teen if they are out late, but you can't choose to ignore a wakeful toddler at 5am.

My mum has a saying...

Wee weans, wee worries...big weans, big worries

I much preferred teens to toddlers.

I'm not sure about the choice thing, maddaddam. Almost 100% of the teens I know in this area are exposed to drink, drugs, sex, police stop and searches, etc. Only a very small minority don't join in. Parental worry seems directly correlated to how much of a blind eye is turned but even those who are oblivious to their teenager's antics can get a big horrible shock when they suddenly get called by police/ school /party host's parents to report disaster. At least 3 of my boys' friends are under the youth offending team, most have tried weed and mdma, lots are regular smokers, lots are sexually active etc etc. Choosing not to worry is all very well but there is a fine line between that and being unrealistic about the dangerous stuff they're doing or at least watching their friends doing.

Toddlers are physically hard work - I often wonder how I managed when they were little- but then again I was 10 years younger!! I think teens are much more of a worry cos a lot of things are not under your control - schoolwork, friends,internet,personal safety. You can only hope that all the things you tried to teach them as they were growing up are somewhere in there!I think that my life is much more stressful now that I have teens and I can understand why my mum says that no matter how old your kids are, you never stop worrying about them!

Teens no contest. I look back with fondness on the toddler years. I don't look back with any fondness on the teen years.

Teens are harder, absolutely no sodding contest!

It's going to depend on the teen, and also on the toddler, obviously, but overall, for me, I LOVE the teen years.
Toddler years tend to be combined with a baby as well, and that usually = sleep deprivation, and I don't do well on sleep deprivation.
When teens are having a strop you can just go without them, but it's frowned upon to leave your two yr old home alone

I'm enjoying having teenagers far more than I enjoyed having toddlers.

My three DC are close in age & I found the toddler years really hard work.

I'd rather deal with a teenager any day, despite the inevitable dramas and angst.

Toddlers.

My teens are pretty much self sufficient when necessary, reasonable & can be left!

Toddlers are loads harder. They are 24/7 and can't be reasoned with, and need everything doing for them (washing, cooking, playdates). My teens are delightful, great company, independent and thoughtful. They can cook, travel independently and are great conversationalists. Perhaps I have been lucky or perhaps (my own theory) it is because I have not tried to rule their lives but have trusted them more and more over time. (Girls btw). The only thing is the worry, but that is my problem and not to do with them - I worry about how drivers drive when they are on their bikes going to school/ university, I worry about how safe they are on the night buses home from parties and I worry about how they will afford to live as students. Yes, as Acrylic says, I am sure they drink and are sexually active but that is pretty similar to adults (they are older teens btw) and they manage it whilst still getting top grades and glowing reports so I can't really complain. OTOH my life felt like a living hell of drudgery and boredom when they were toddlers ( it is just possible that I am not good with small children!)

I foolishly believed that if your children had a loving and stable upbringing then they would be OK. Silly me!
One teen was heavily into drink, hard drugs and stealing (hasn't ended well)
Other teen academic and sensitive but a huge worry in other ways.

They were lovely toddlers.

I'm with OwlCapone on this one. I agree that a toddler would be winey but a teenager would just keep quiet in their bedroom.

teens are harder no contest. Give me a toddler anyway.

I think the 16-18 stage is most worrying
Will they do well in their exams, do they want to go to uni, how will they pay for it, if they don't go where will they live ? How will they earn
Will they stay at home forever
The education \ career choices are what I find most stressful

Give me potty training any day

DD is 10yo, so not a teen yet, But I remember people saying that things would be easier when she was a toddler rather than a baby. They weren't easier. And then they said things would be easier once she was in school, but they weren't. I have come to the conclusion that things don't get easier with kids. They just get hard in different ways.

Isn't it worth mentioning what personality your toddler had?

My ds' s were all placid and biddable as toddlers, in fact smug mother alert it was 16 that my first son related stress incident kicked in < apart from ds2's Christmas card at primary school issue ooh the shame>.

Teendom is a minefield.

Teendom throws up all kinds of shite.

Without a doubt TEENS.... Toddlerdom/tiredness is all very hard work, but at least you know where they are/what they're doing/their 'problems' are usually smaller/cheaper/easier to sort out... Teens OTOH... More demanding in emotionally challenging/draining ways, some of their issues/problems/demands can be much much more expensive/costly in terms of time/money/peace of mind.... Wouldn't/couldn't be without them of course and they bring much joy/entertainment, but with 3DC's/2SDC's now from 15 to 30, there will be some measure of relief/achievement at seeing them all safely into productive happy healthy adulthood... And we're actually at the GC stage now (aged 4 and 2) so we're back at toddlerdom but get to hand them back after sleepovers . I didn't have ANY idea of this before having babies/toddlers/teens/gc, it doesn't seem to matter what you're told, it doesn't mean much until you're in it...