How do you deal with teenage know it all's

[conjunctionhedge]

Just that really.
3 teenage daughters, 12,14 and 15. they're lovely mostly but by GOD this evening they think they know it all about everything and tonight I'm finding it hard to bite my tongue.
Tell me how you all cope
( without a lecture about free thinking and all that, thanks. Obvs I'm encouraging that)

My stepson is SUCH a know it all. He knows lots of 'facts', about sports, politics, history, random stuff going on. He knows every word of every song we hear - or so it seems at least. If he asks us about something and we don't know (I'm not remotely interested in sport, so why would I?) he tells us we're so stupid, and he doesn't understand how anyone can't know that. If I'm singing along to a song and I don't know every single word he laughs at me in a sneery way.

He is failing his A Levels because he spends all his time reading crap on the internet, hence he knows all this pointless shit, and spends half of his life sitting on the sofa with a smug look on his face, because me and DP are so thick, and will NEVER be as clever and knowing as he is!

Drives me insane.

He knows nothing about the real world though. 'Facts' only get you so far. He doesn't know how to write a CV, how to get a job, how to do his own washing (although I've said he has to do it given he's a sodding adult now) yet he honestly believes that his bank of useless facts make him highly superior.

Start discussing regrouting the bathroom or getting the curtains dry cleaned. Or gutter maintenance. It’s even better if you can discuss someone they only know by several degrees of separation doing any of the above in as much detail as possible. So the ideal would be, “Claire - Claire from yoga, the one with the sister who’s been going through the bad divorce - well, her mother’s neighbour had someone in to check the guttering ...” It’s pure teen repellent.

I don’t have kids but a couple of my friends have really sanctimonious, snotty teens that I could cheerfully put in the bin some days

At least they’ll push through it and be normal humans again in a few years!

It took until I was in my 30’s realise my parents were actually right about loads of stuff due to experience. As an older teen and young adult I thought they were idiots and talking through their arses.

@BitchyHen

DS was a proper know it all in his teens. I used to remind him that I'd taught him to wipe his own arse.

Stealing this one 😂

I have said 'which you tuber told you to think that' when its a load of tosh. I might follow it up with 'did you look at any other sources'

My teenage son actually does know a lot about things that I don’t know about (lots of history etc), although he can be a bit disrespectful about my lack of knowledge. But I like to counter his pronouncements with arcane knowledge of my own (foreign language verb tables). If there’s any real difference of opinion we look stuff up. Fortunately he has recently learned that Reddit is not a reliable or legitimate source.

But I’m probably odd in that I don’t mind arguing about facts. What stresses me out is the constant challenges to my authority when I say they need to do something or they can’t do something. I’m not particularly authoritarian but sometimes I just want to roar, “Because I said so!”