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

..except the whole internet...

You may get a strange kind of comfort from this OP.

Ancient complaints about the youth of today. Seems parents have been feeling like this since forever...😀

The 2,500-Year-Old History of Adults Blaming the Younger Generation (historyhustle.com)

"Long before Tide Pods, we were blaming “millennials” in some form or another for ruining everything we hold sacred, and having no morals or intelligence. But somehow those hooligans grow up to say the same thing. And over and over it goes. Here are 25 quotes, going back to ancient Athens, that prove it:

4th Century B.C.E.“[Young people] are high-minded because they have not yet been humbled by life, nor have they experienced the force of circumstances.
…
They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”

Children And Children’s Parties”, published in The Mothers’ Journal and Family Visitant, S.B.S.
1853

“A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages…chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements … they require out-door exercises–not this sort of mental gladiatorship.”

Playing CHESS!!! The horror!!! How WERE these children brought up?!?!? 😂

It's one of the pleasures of being a grandparent, watching your once teenaged offspring getting hell from their teens. I think I once read about the late Queen being amused at Anne having problems with Zara!

Brilliant thread!

Asked my 14 year old to lock the front door on the inside the other night after he had used his key to open it and come in the house.

Boy: I don’t have the right key
Me: You just used it to come in the house
Boy: Yeah I used my key on the outside, I don’t have an inside key
Me: You know it’s the same key right? Works both sides!

Boy opened front door and I watch him try to line up the locks on either side to prove me wrong. Accepts they are inline.

Boy shakes his head, exasperated that he has just discovered this. It’s like a lightbulb has gone on! I’m satisfied that today’s life lesson is complete.

Me: So can you lock the door?
Boy: Sure, what key shall I use?

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🫠🫠🫠🫠

Referring back to the two health and safety disasters- how to lose a finger, and never do this to a grenade-

The automatic part of the brain doesn’t really grasp negatives. Don’t think of a blue elephant etc.

Negative instructions are often automatically carried out before the conscious brain gets involved.

A couple of years ago I was looking at my perfume checking which way the spray was pointing thinking ‘don’t spray that in your eye!’, which of course I promptly did.

I also locked the keys in the car as a teen when my dad’s parting words had been ‘don’t lock the keys in the car.’

With my kids I tried to phrase everything positively- use two hands, hold on tight, look where you are going.

Never say ‘Mind you don’t fall!’!

Wow you have just restored by faith in this country! My DS left his bag on a long distance train when we were abroad and I was amazed to get the bag back a couple of days later, telling DS that he was very lucky as it would never have been returned back in England!

I think DS has an issue with trains as he often calls to be picked from remote places he has got stuck because he took the wrong train or forgot to get off.

Another story isn't DS but one of his friends at sixth form college, they were all secretly smoking with windows open in an unused room upstairs at school when a teacher comes in. DS and the other boys all threw their cigarettes out of the window, but DS's friend jumped out of the window instead. Unfortunately he needed to go to A&E for a broken ankle. When asked why he jumped, he just said it didn't occur to him to just throw the cigarette out!

When he was 16, my eldest got a small motorscooter, all great. I wasn't overkeen when he decided to take it out for a spin around the village when we had about four feet of snow, but thought he'd soon learn his lesson.

I only found out when I developed the photographs that his sister had taken of the village in snow, that he'd been giving his brother and sisters 'rides' - towed along behind his bike on the frame of an old futon they'd found and turned into a makeshift sledge. I'm all for 'making your own entertainment', but...

Me too.

I deal with a lot of tech challenged people. An old boss of mine thought that they only way to get to a website was to search for it on Yahoo, then click on the link that Yahoo provided. He didn't believe me when I told him that he could go directly to the website.

crikeymikeydoyoulikey · Today 08:54

"Ancient complaints about the youth of today. Seems parents have been feeling like this since forever..."

Don’t talk back to me!“…a fearful multitude of untutored savages… [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits…[girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody…the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly.”

Newcastle remains little changed since the 1840s.

When my dad was a teacher, he had to take a student to Casualty. Said student had been in a metalwork class where the back plate had been taken off a spinning lathe (so you could look straight through and see the spinning bit of it). He decided to insert a finger, to see what would happen.

what happened was that all his finger joints were dislocated, and his finger was elongated into a bag full of blood. Luckily the doctor was able to drain it carefully and relocate the joints, and he had no permanent damage.

It wouldn’t happen now, I’m sure - H&S rules would prevent maintenance being done on equipment whilst kids were in the classroom - but it does show that teenagers were just as daft back in the 50s.

My DS is 26 and I laughed and laughed but in all honesty things don’t get much better. However misery loves company so I’m glad I’m not alone

I exploded at my three teenagers about a year ago. I told them that I was working full-time shift work, studying full time and have a progressive heart condition. I was not their PA nor was I responsible for remembering their appointments and commitments. The twins (17) had a couple of phone calls from their p/t jobs asking where they were and they got in trouble. One attempted to blame me until I referred back to my explosion. The eldest managed to get her drivers Licence, buy a car find herself a new job that fitted in better with her other commitments and now the only thing that we deal with are almost daily “Can you drive me to work?” from the twins. (They are supposed to write their shifts on the whiteboard on the fridge. It’s happened once.)

Driving ds 18 to work and we had to turn back because he had forgotten to put on his shoes.

oh dear! 😄

Honestly I’m feeling pants today with a nasty cold but this thread has given me life! My kids are small so I have this to come- though some of it rings true for DH…. 🤣

Ah yes. As I dropped DS1 at school half an hours drive away, he realised he’d forgotten his shoes. I drove to the nearest supermarket to buy trainers that I dropped back at the school.
he never wore them again because they were ‘fugly’.

I blame the parents. 😆

crikeymikeydoyoulikey · Today 08:46

- - Newcastle remains little changed since the 1840s. - -

oh dear!

.... I am a Geordie, btw!

My DD definitely takes after me in the daft stakes!!

when I was 14, I picked up the house phone (cordless) rather than my mobile and went out. So I tried to ring home to let them know. Surprisingly, the cordless house phone didn't work from a mile away!

@berksandbeyond seriously I would hold off judging until yours reach adolescence. 12 yr old DD is already showing signs of the re-wiring happening and teenage brain is starting to emerge eg wet towels left on bed/floor, can't find anything etc and we are only at the start of it. She was the most sensible, mature 5 yr old around but it happens to them all to some extent.

I know plenty of intelligent, supposedly tech-savvy people who use Google that way.

DH says that people who work with compressed air are given an orientation and safety session mentioning the extreme danger of doing something really stupid with an air line, something that teenage boys would think was funny, that can cause instant death.

A few years ago, I was walking to the shop, and about 200m down the road, realised I was carrying my TV remote rather than my phone.
I was around 30 at the time.....I had already made the decision to never reproduce, and I am still committed to that life choice 😆

A few years ago, I was walking to the shop, and about 200m down the road, realised I was carrying my TV remote rather than my phone.
I was in my 30s at the time.....I had already made the decision to never reproduce, and I am still committed to that life choice 😆