AIBU to think that parenting a teen is one of the most stressful parts of being a parent?

[Milicentbystander72]

Maybe I'm looking at the toddler years with reuse-tinted glasses....
but I've never been more emotionally and psychologically tired currently being a parent to my teens.

Don't get me wrong, they're great kids. They go to school, do relatively well etc. But oh my god, everyday when they walk through the door after school I feel a little tension over what their mood will be. Laughter, rage, tears, bickering or hanger!

I'm lucky in that I have a good relationship with them. My dd15 especially talks to me about most things. However the friendship issues and constant insecurity of 'being liked' does get to me. I put my heart and soul into the looong advice I give her and then she skips off happier but I'm left feeling worried and tense, only for the major trouble t blow over the next day.

My ds13 is slightly easier although he tends to bottle any worries up and then explodes every worry he's had in the last 6 months at me out of the blue in a fit of tearful rage sometimes. It's hard to know where to start with it.

My dh takes the attitude "it's all fine" no matter what the situation is. Maybe he's right? The thing is, they never tell him their troubles so he's not aware.

I think I was smug parent of younger children. We did all the music classes, outdoor play, painting, baking, dats out, pretending. They were high flyers at Primary. Super confident, really wanting to go against the crowd and stand out. Now they're teens they seem slightly frightened to do anything unless their friends are. They say everything is 'stressful' and my dd especially swings from being confident to having a panic attack over a slight mistake.
Argh. I feel like I was a brilliant parent (haha the arrogance of it!). Now I feel like I've got a couple of angry bags of emotions and I never know what I'm getting that day, or even that hour!

I'm not sure what I'm asking in the post really. Just, I think I thought I'd cracked this parenting thing and was congratulating myself - then got teens. I feel like I'm through the wringer everyday. I wish I could go back to the times where they seemed excited by a nature walk, or enthused by a subject at a museum.
God. I think I sound like a right twat 😂.

Any tips on getting your teens worries out of your own head would be great.

Couldn’t agree more. I have four teens 13-17.

They’re all good kids but have different issues and are exhausting in different ways. It’s very rare they want to do anything (outside) with us as parents anymore but we still have family game nights and usually end up with at least 3 of the 4...

I loved the toddler years.

TBH though it all just sounds like normal teen parenting just remind yourself it’s all normal and whatever crisis they’re having it’s only temporary!

My eldest is 12 and its already really tough...God help me!

Agree with everything you said.

I hear you.

How much internet access do they have? All the wanting to be liked sounds like a product of too much social media.

I totally agree. I have a DS nearly 13. Hard work at the moment. I saw alovely little boy about 5 so excited that he pressed the pelican crossing button I just wanted to go back to that innocence.

Agree 100%. I guess I’m coming out the other side? Maybe.. It doesn’t feel we’re in the clear yet. I have 3 aged 18 - 21 (so one that’s not even a teen now!) and it’s still a rollercoaster ride. Feel I’ve aged very fast.

User1333796 how do you limit social media use then? Particularly in 5-17 yr Oldsmobile the cusp of adulthood? My daughter is out the house 8-6pm at school with about 4 hours in that where she could access it and the on it when she gets home. Genuinely want to know how to stop them as mine won’t and taking phone off them is pretty tricky at 17.

15-17 year olds that should say!

Well I'm finding toddlerhood hard blinking work so hopefully that means I'll have easy peasy teens :D seriously though, I'm a secondary teacher and dreading the teenage years. Teenagers are very tricky!

How much internet access do they have? All the wanting to be liked sounds like a product of too much social media.

Well like most teens they have a smart phone. Please don't try and tell me that's unusual.

When I say 'wanting to be liked' this is real life friendship niggles. Real life conversations. For instance at the moment they're all in a school production - my dd is assistant stage manager along with her best friend. Over the months though her friend has started bragging to her that she knows the sixth formers better than dd dies and hangs out with them. Dd knows it's to wind her up, but it doesn't stop her from moaning about it and asking me how she should handle it.

That's rl not social media.

Oh and I think dd has taken 2 selfies in her whole life. She doesn't even wear makeup.

I am still in the toddler years and find it difficult with 2 clingy and quite highly strung kids. I work with colleagues who have teens and preteens who are so refreshingly honest. Although I know it's physically draining at the moment I am savouring my DC smallness and wander at the world.

Parents of teens/pre teens I salute you!!

QuietCrotchgonlins oh yes try and saviour their smallness. I wish I had!

I can only describe the emotion of watching your teens deal with friendship/social issues as watching another child come up and whack your toddler in the face. You're horrified and outraged and they cone to you for a cry and a cuddle. You soothe it as best you can and they trot off happier. However your left sat on the bench slightly fuming about it while your child has forgotten it. Draining.

I think its physical tiredness more with smaller ones but obv that can lead to bit mental tiredness but when teens its very mentally tiring.

User1333 do you have teenage kids then?

I completely disagree with user333 re how much SM.
I agree with OP, that the fear of wanting to fit in, even for previously confident primary children now is very bad.

It was always this way, partly, even when we all were teens. But it's so much worse now.

And I don't know what the answer is.

It's that constant difficult balance between letting them go from your control whilst still giving them guidance. With the teenagers resistance to telling you anything because they think that's independence.

"How much internet access do they have? All the wanting to be liked sounds like a product of too much social media"

I've one who won't do social media. He still wants to be liked. The one who has all the social media (doesn't use it that much).

I hear you OP. My DS is 13 and my DD still just 10 but my God I am DREADING the next 5 years if this last year us anything to go by and that's just with one teen. I'd give anything to have my slightly hyper, moany toddlers back

Absolutely spot on for me. I go through the emotional wringer on a daily basis, it’s awful frankly. I long for the simple toddler days again.

I agree it’s exhausting. I’ve got a DS15 and DD (nearly 12). DD is in year 7 and I never know from one day to the next what friendship drama there will be. It’s exhausting and you’re right in that we listen, give them advice and feel absolutely rung out with all the emotional drama only for everything to be fine the next day. My DS doesn’t have the friend dramas but would be on his Xbox all day every day if I let him and find we can’t get him interested in doing anything! I too look back at when they were little and so excited with the world and they looked forward to being taken out and even though it was physically harder it certainly wasn’t as mentally tiring. You aren’t alone!

Mine are more or less out of their teens now, but I agree. I found it hard. Everything matters more and has more consequences as they get older. When I think of how I stressed over which nursery school they should go to, I could laugh now.

I think it depends on the child. My eldest is very strong willed and really knows her own mind. As a child, she was bloody hard work, I mean really hard work and we really struggled with her, because she just wouldn't comply with what we wanted. However, she's 16 now and for the last year or two has been the easiest we've ever had. Don't get me wrong, we still have our rows but she now has that strong will with her friends... and will do what she thinks is right. She has openly told the cool kid in her class that he was an idiot to vape, and others that they're stupid to get too drunk. Don't get me wrong, she's not anti social, she likes going to parties and the like, but she knows her limits with alcohol etc and she sticks to them.

My other daughter is much more malleable and has a strong desire to be liked. She was much easier as a child as she always wanted to please. She's 13 now, and I'm finding her to be much harder work, because she's now wanting to please her friends or worried about what others think if her. So she doesn't like to stand up to people. This can lead her into trouble, because she's not always strong enough to say no.

This is why I have just one DC as I'm scared for the teenage years . That said, my sibling was a heroin addict as a teenager and over a decade on is still causing a lot of stress for my parents; I hope that after witnessing that it won't be as bad with my own, my expectations for stress levels are pretty low.

No. I found the toddler years much much harder. Teens were easier because they were so independent. I wasn't a parent who often gave lifts, if they wanted to go somewhere they had to find out how to get there and back. There was the odd spat about the state of bedrooms but usually I just left their rooms and if they wanted to live in a pigsty that was up to them. I was quite strict as a parent so I didn't really have many problems with behaviour. Moods used to get on my nerves but it was no big deal really. They got money every month and had to make it last. They both worked whilst still at school so they could get extra money.