Tell me about your teenager's stupid behaviour

[TeenagedTwit]

16yo
Wants a job. Apparently.
Weirdly, a job hasn't fluttered into his bedroom and landed on his lap so he is most perplexed.

Picked up an application form for him from a local supermarket.
Encourage him to get a pen (no easy feat) and sit down to complete application.

20 seconds later... "What's my name?"

And that was just the beginning. I swear a 4yo would make a better employee. I fear for our future.

Note from MNHQ - we've edited the title as we had a few reports about one of the terms used there. We're sure there was no intention to offend but it was clearly upsetting a few people and we didn't want the issue to derail the thread

Early teen ds and friend decided to smoke cigarettes in his room. They set his duvet on fire somehow, panicked and stuffed the duvet in the toilet.

Your mama must be sooo proud.

My brother actually said that to our dad one time when he was getting told off, my dad agreed and started to rant about bad parenting. He stopped mid sentence when he realised he was the parent in this case. The look on his face was just priceless. We still laugh about it now, 30 odd years later.

The majority of people responding to this thread actually seem to be proud / smug of their darling offsprings incompetence. In the hope they'll be attached to parents tits for evermore? Yup, I didn't differentiate which parents tits initially provided sustenance because that would be confusing.

To posters frothing about my son calling police, nowhere did I present this as funny or something I'm proud of. I was merely chatting with another poster whose teenager had called emergency services.
He was in a bad space mentally and it was handled very sensitively by police. 🙏

And to the biggest bore of all trying to shame parents for being honest about their exasperating parenting moments, no shame accepted. You are a friend to no-one and it must be a lonely place to be.

DS making a milky chocolate drink. Placed spoonfuls of choc powder into a cup and then tipped milk straight into new 1kg tub of choc powder.

Good grief, I could’ve throttled him.

Mine feels the need to check every single detail of a recipe that’s right in front of her when baking. “Mum! When it says “two eggs” here, does that mean “two eggs?” (Yes, dear).

I find it quite sweet, to be honest!

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@HoHoHolyCrap

This made me laugh out loud!! Wish I could have seen the nurses face!!

Oh I have one!

DD was asked to do a urine sample by a nurse in hospital, she went in the loo with the bowl, had a wee in the toilet then came out and actually handed the empty bowl to the nurse like she could examine the air that had been in the same room as the urine?!!
I think it may have been the first time in my life I’d ever been speechless

Teenaged DD decided to cook herself some pasta which was nice only she forgot to add the water. In her panic she then lifted the saucepan off the hob and placed it on the vinyl tablecloth which melted a perfect circle through it. She is at Uni now and has learnt quickly to add water to the pasta!

Younger DS had a growth spurt. Asked how tall he was now, DS who was sitting his GCSE’s at the time said hold on, I’ll weigh you! And dashed off for the scales. The same DS has just finished measuring himself as well.

he is also perplexed by the lack of jobs floating into his bedroom. Even more concerned that when he gets an email about a job he’s half arsed applied for, that his email doesn’t flash up and tell him it’s about a job and he misses it.

we are doomed

When asked for his address, DS (17) still often just gives the post code!

To everyone who is being disparaging about the parents on this thread, please get a sense of humour and remind yourself you’ve probably done something just as idiotic as these teenagers without even the excuse of their allegedly awful parenting. People whose teenagers have had a momentary brain blank are not the same as those who turn out completely fucked up adults unable to function in the real world. I am one: was consistently underparented in most things to do with adulthood and therefore, though I’m quite good at working things out, generally need a bit of a push in the right direction (I’m autistic as well. When I moved out to London I was very overwhelmed but lucky to have a friend who helped me find a place to live, give me tips on using buses, stuff I’d never known I needed to do like registering for a GP). At the same time, I’m still overparented on things like my body temperature, whether I need to go to the toilet, how much I eat, whether I ride my own bicycle. I get asked and reminded about these things constantly (a particular favourite is “say thank you” addressed to me in front of a stranger, as I’m opening my mouth to say it having tried to ensure that I won’t be interrupting anyone, which would also get me in trouble). That is bad parenting and I won’t go into depth about what it’s done to me except that I’m a wreck at 31 now with no confidence about anything. Let people laugh about making noodles in a kettle or forgetting their names.

This is the kind of thing we all do tho, how many of us have made stock & carefully drained the end product down the sink saving the bones and veg scraps?!
bless them tho, I have a had a teen in my clinic look at their mum for the answer when I asked if they had any pain! They had looked at their mum for every other answer too. They’re just a bit shy & don’t know the norms.

Laughing at these, some are brilliant!

When I was a teen, I got the train into London from my uni city. I was rather head-in-the-clouds and didn't take notice of which station I arrived into. I didn't think it was important, because I rather assumed that trains were like buses; you could get one from any major station that would take you wherever you wanted to go.

I had a lovely day in London and when I was done, headed to the nearest major station to catch a train home. It was not the correct station.

Long story short, after spending quite some time traversing London on the tube to investigate the opportunities at different stations, I had to concede defeat and call my mum to confess that I was stuck in London and had no idea how to get home. She could not stop laughing. It was well before the days of smart phones so she had no real advice except to keep trying stations and luckily for me the next one (the fourth!) I tried was the correct one.

When I was a form tutor in secondary school, I was surprised by how many children didn’t know their addresses or their parents’ (or guardian’s) actual names, so I used to make them learn them.

Mine insisted to the 6th form head that we were paying his uni fees upfront when filling in his UCAS form. Fortunately she rang me to check and made him change it.

“Seems like a bloody waste of good doves if you ask me”…my teenage self proclaimed, prompting my parent to explain that the birds released at ceremonies are trained to fly home and not just flung willy nilly into the elements 😂

For some reason it just doesn’t ‘stick’ with DS.

We’ve gone over and over, but it seems to be when he’s asked directly in front of others, at a hospital appointment for example, he just gives the bloody post code!

He ordered something online last week and didn’t enter the house number! 🙄

Sadly similar. Had a call from pastoral care head, my daughter had spoken to them complaining that I had asked 15/16 year old to empty the dishwasher and help around the house.

Pastoral care head, said that she had told my daughter she should be doing these kinds of chores.

She had seriously complained about me at her school.

Im clearly not as scary as my mother was, but would never have complained about her as she loves me, and I knew growing up that you have to help out.

All school incidents, All teenagers. All boys, All under the category ‘to see what happens…

1. Put finger in electric stick food blender, switched it on. Result neat circular cut right ound finger. Fortunately fixable with plasters.
2. Hot glued hands together. We had cool melt glue guns, still hot enough to burn. Result. Sore hands. Some skin missing.
3. Cut through live mains cable with wire cutters. (Electronics GCSE class) Result… ruined cutters, power tripped, severe bollocking, phone call home along the lines of ‘good news your son is still alive’, day in exclusion.

When DHand I were staying at a hotel recently, at breakfast DH went to make the toast and saw a young man about 19/20 using the toasting machine to heat up a pain au chocolat. He seemed surprised it burst into flames (the pain au chocolat not the toasting machine).

Such a great thread, I’m sad to get to the end.

There is so much to learn it’s not surprising to miss the odd life skill- you just don’t know which until they demonstrate! And they need to revisit their skills- they don’t remember what they learned half their lifetime ago! The 8 yr old who was a dab hand at safely making cupcakes turns into a 16yr old who hasn’t done it for years, without you noticing.

My own numpty moment- DS went missing for an hour when quite young- 11? I checked the neighbours, rang the school, was about to call the police when I thought they’d probably ask if I’d checked he wasn’t hiding in the house. He wasn’t hiding as such, he’d just put his shoes and bag away for the first time ever, leaving me to assume he wasn’t home yet.

I did this with a stapler….

Reminds me of the work experience Oxbridge student we had in the office. He was asked to print off for signature some letters that had been typed externally, put a file copy in the file, and sort out the enclosures. He came to me proudly with a pile of files but no letters. When I asked where they were, he showed me the top copies, all neatly hole-punched and filed with the file copies. I had to explain that, when we produced a letter to someone, we kind of wanted them to receive it, and somehow I didn't think they would if the letter was tucked away in the file.