To wonder if I was this annoying as an 11 year old

[Girlsjustwannahaverum]

I tutor and babysit/look after an 11 year old, she’s a lovely girl, I have an almost 5 year old and thought this was likely the hardest age (early years)
Spent three hours with her and harder work than my 5 year old 🙈
I feel very old in her presence, although feel quite young in a way..or do normally 😂
Most things I say are met with a ‘Side eye’
as she says, things like saying I read a magazine 🤷🏻‍♀️Everything is *Crusty, which has apparently a bad thing, or slay..which is good. It’s allll about YouTube as she asks me a million times ‘You don’t know who (such and such is?!) with a surprised and disgusted face ..usually some American family on YouTube.
She says her and her friends don’t listen to music or read books…it’s all YouTube, TikTok and playing Roblox
I was a 90’s teen and our lives then feel like they were nothing like this

*Is apparently a bad thing

Is part of your tutoring contract/friendship that you denigrate the child online?

I have an 11yr old and teach several others and they're funny, kind, curious, spirited and so on. And not a sprawling homogeneous mass.

This will sound a bit sarcastic and it isn’t meant to but it’s fairly obvious that our lives as 90s teens won’t have featured TikTok and so on, isn’t it!? It wasn’t invented!

She sounds like hard work, but I doubt if it's to do with her post-internet life. She just sounds a bit of a wannabe "cool kid". So in answer to your question - I suppose it depends how cool you were or were trying to be at eleven!

Oh, we were all totally that irritating as 11-year-olds. As we're out parents, and their parents before them. At 11 we all tend to think we are nearly grown up, and try very hard to be so, whilst still being a child. Try to rise above and find the humour in it. I'm sure she's actually fine... And you can always throw in a few references to cool people she won't know, parroting back the surprised mock horror. My mum was a genius at this, and I learned a lot about amazing music from the 60s, 70s and 80s because of it :)

@ShowOfHands Oh for goodness sake, she’s an amazing girl, I’m not saying anything awful at all, I was just comparing then and now and reminiscing a bit on my youth and how annoying I would have been to my family too, also how old I feel.
Not everything has to be taken so seriously, you don’t need to be immediately cross and offended. She’s a fantastic girl, much brighter than I remember being at that age and more mature.

@EsmeSusanOgg So true, I can imagine I was most likely much worse…! It’s so long ago now

Each generation always thinks the previously one is boring, old, uncool and stuffy. However I know most of my friends with children that age would not be happy to know their child was just being ever so slightly rude like that.

IMO She should ideally be showing better manners to you, especially in your 'tutor' roll, but perhaps its become a little blurred as you're also a babysitter too.

@FarmGirl78 I don’t think she means it in a rude way as she is a nice girl, I think it’s just the age and yes blurred lines a bit due to the babysitting and being family friends etc
Just interesting the huge role of the internet now

Its a pity you didn't put this in your opening post. If you read it again perhaps you might realise you came across much more cheesed off then you actually are. This post seems like a completely different opinion to your first one.

My 12 year old isn’t allowed TikTok (doesn’t want it anyway) and loves reading as do all her friends so it’s not all kids that age. I was 11 in the early 90’s and I’m sure we all walked round going ‘rad’, ‘dork’, ‘cool’ etc which is the equivalent of today’s ‘slay’, ‘side eye’ etc. I was really into reading at that age but there were definitely girls who weren’t and they tended to be the ones into makeup and putting Sun in into their hair who no doubt would be on TikTok and YouTube if those had been around then.

I was signing a passport for a friend from uni recently... And was distressed to realise 2005 was 18 years ago. I'm not counting back to when I was 11. I'll get a case of the vapours!

Oh god - sun in - that's a flashback! I was mostly a bookish pre-teen, but I did indulge in some pretend cool attempts. Sun in was best paired with a hair braid, and (almost immediately chipped) glittery nail polish.

I remember putting on an hour long Sound of Music themed concert for my parents' friends, so yeah, I'm guessing it is just 11 year olds in general. My 11yo DD is a right pita, but she has a heart of gold, so I try to let it go.

If I recall correctly my mothers most used phrases when I was 11 were

‘pack it in or I’ll throttle you’
’children should be seen and not heard’
‘ I have to love you but I dont have to like you’
‘the answer was no the first time’

I can only assume I was annoying 😂

@Wehadthistoo 😂Yes to many of those from mine too

You do realise you a positively ancient to her.

My youngest turns 18 this year, it only feels like 10 minutes ago that I was 18.

I'm not sure about how annoying we were but at primary school in the 90's, whatever was "in" at the time we talked about all day and often copied what we saw on TV. I don't think it is any different now, just with the internet. My toddler could tell you about several YouTube families and she only watches it for a limited amount of time.

My DS is 11 - out of his year group at school, there are some gorgeous lovely kids who I really enjoy spending time with… and some total a-holes.

I'm neither cross nor offended. Just surprised that a tutor would be discussing a pupil online using quite judgemental language. Or it's less formal and you're talking about a friend's child in this way.

Nowt wrong with asking about generational divides and changing times and attitudes at all. It's the specifics that surprised me.