Were you a shithed of a teenager ?

[GodThatsBrilliant]

My current 13 year old is pushing every button she can get her hands on. I caught her sneaking out the window last week at 12 am. The dogs dobbed her in.. so now she has my old Nokia 3510 with it original Winnie the poo case. And she comes home from school immediately,She has the ability to text me and her friends obviously not on WhatsApp and her texts come out of the credit she has to put on herself.

I’m angry that she chose to disobey mine and her dads strict orders of no meeting friends late near her friends house (her next door neighbour is a drug dealer and the whole area is dodgy). Anyway when we’ve stopped shouted at each other and cried and hugged it out then cried some more when she realised she would have to use a brick for about 3 months.

I keep thinking -A. My poor mum and her nerves B I’m so grateful DD isn’t as bad as I was as a young teenager

My worst argument with my mum was when I was 14 . My dad died when I was 12 and mum had decided I categorically would not be allowed to go to the cinema with a friend rather than a family meal out. We were screaming at each other and I screamed at my mum ‘well just so you know, the wrong parent died, at least Dad loved me’ she slapped me across the face and I deserved every second of that. We both cried and then made up. We didn’t go to the family meal, we watched ET instead at home talking about Dad.

Was anyone else an absolute shit head as a teen?

I was pretty reasonable all things considered.

Unfortunately I was the youngest of four, and the elder three had caused all sorts of extra rules to be written and complied with. I was very narked that my parents didn't realise that I was nothing like the others!

I had completely free reign to do what I wanted most of the time, but interestingly although I used to go clubbing and drink when I was 13 I wasn’t promiscuous at all.

Yes same here! I was never out really except at sleepovers at friends houses but I was an absolute shit at school for a while. Rude, answered back, wasn’t kind to my friends particularly or classmates.

We’d moved around a fair bit before I went to high school and I never felt like my parents understood how hard it was for me (in hindsight it would have been hard for them too), I just wanted good friends and somewhere that felt like home.

The number of calls they received from school was shameful 🙈

Terrible. Constant drinking, then later on drugs, out at all hours, serial shagger, constantly trying to prove how edgy I was. It's the smoking I'm most embarrassed about now. What an idiot. I got away with it mostly because I was good at school. Left home at 18 so I could continue the teenage nonsense way too far into my 20s. Partner was also wild. We live in dread of our kid being as bad as we were.

Nah I was a good girl. Too good, I sometimes think. Wish I’d lived a little and taken a few risks.

I was a nightmare. I was sent to boarding school at 13 and we were feral. It was the 80s, we had an alcoholic housemistress who was either too drunk to do anything or shouting at us, it was in the middle of nowhere and we were all just trying to survive and get through it. I smoked, I drank alcohol, we'd break out and go for walks in the night just to do something, and nobody really cared. When I left I was worse and careered off the rails spectacularly.
My 13 year old ran away to meet a boy she'd met online in another area of the country a few months ago. She's been self harming and took an overdose in school a few weeks ago. She's not in school currently. It's been hard. That's an understatement. CAMHS are as good as useless, school have essentially walked away and dont want to know now we've said we're trying to get her in to another school (I will be complaining) and trying to be strong as a single parent but jeeez it's hard!

Oh yes, I was an insufferable shit 🤣 and lived with my grandparents too so feel terribly for them but they insisted it kept them young! In my defence my mum left when I was six so a lot of acting out in hurt which is quite sad looking back on it now.

I was a moody, but low drama teenager and I still got twin daughters.
I think it was karma for being an absolute prick in my 20s. 😬

I was absolutely loathsome. Smoked, drank, did drugs, lied, swore, argued, flashed lorry drivers from the school bus, hooked up with dodgy boys behind the supermarket bins, vandalized the school...

I look back at myself, and honestly don't know what the hell I was thinking. I'm now a very boring, very respectable teacher.

I was a nice teenager,as were my siblings (well my brother was a bit of an annoying smartarse pre/ early teens). My parents trusted us not to do anything stupid and we wanted to repay that trust, and we liked them and they liked us. I'm horribly unprepared for awful teens. I think it's important to like teenagers as default, though I know some are just little sods. I do think it's luck of the draw much of the time, like toddlers, but at the same time some parents do bring it on themselves by not accepting their kids are growing up and that's when you get problems you might not have had otherwise.

Oldest is nearly 18 and has been great really. Youngest is 14 and still a darling but there's still time for that to go south I suppose so I am not resting on my laurels.

DH says he was an awful teenager!

No but I wish I had been.

I was a terrible cunt. I'm nearly 53 and still cringe slightly, although I didn't have a great childhood or relationship with my mother (still don't) I have 3 sons aged 35, 20 and 19. The first 2 were no bother as young teens but number 3 😳😳😳😳 that was me right there at 13-16 😭 He's a different person now though, bear with it. Sending love and strength x

Yeah.
I mean in my defence, I was undiagnosed AuDHD with a sister dx with ADHD, an alcoholic cheating mother, a barely present and then not remotely present father.. oh and as I was going through adolescence, mother was going through menopause.

I rapidly learned attempts to be good did not work, did not benefit me in any way, the goal posts would always be moved so I fell short of whatever was expected so at around 13, I thought 'fuck you all, I'll do exactly as I damn well please'.

So I smoked and I drank and I didn't go to school or I did then fucked off early and I lied about where I was and when Mother tried to slap me around I hit her back and as I could by that point hit harder than she could, she gave that one up.

I grew out of it around 16 when I was packed off to residential (equine/agricultural college) and had to fend for myself even more, though not before I'd been left unattended/unsupervised for several months when Mother was sectioned (oh that was such a wonderful time, no one fucking noticed for weeks and I do not know to this day why I didn't reach out to someone - probably because I was by that point, used to people not actually listening to me).

Post 16 I basically parented myself, there was some input from my actual parents but it was sporadic, generally unpleasant and unsupportive. I did eventually get some support from other adults around me, particularly the stint I spent in a young persons homeless shelter/housing initiative. I learned some useful stuff there and not just about drugs and drink.

I dont think I was too bad if im honest....I did all the bad things, but I never got caught 😂 i kept my head down at school and home, so my parents never really suspected much. But id say I was staying at a friend's most weekends and we would be drinking in a field somewhere with boys, fires ,alcohol,drugs. Never really had an argument with my mum until I was 17 over a boyfriend. I have an almost 16 year old daughter now and shes been so easy its unreal, I know she goes out with friends and she will occasionally drink alcohol but she asks ,she always let's us know where she is,keeps in touch regularly while she is out and shes always home before curfew. I honestly feel so lucky sometimes because I know some teens can be nightmares 😅

I was an absolute arsehole. My two boys are not, my daughter is, in fact far worse than I was so I now believe in karma!

I was revolting and now I’m getting a well deserved payback with my 18 yr old DD. Unheard of but left her phone, yes! Her phone at her friends house so she could stay the night as some arsehole’s house who is using her, knowing full well that we would be upset if we knew where she was staying. Location she got right but the fact that she didn’t respond to any texts or calls made us extremely suspicious. Can you ground an 18 yr old?

Not at home. I would have been given a good (literal) kicking.
But out of the house I was awful; I drank, did drugs, slept with older men (with anyone, tbh) and rarely did what I was told at school. I got my GCSEs by the skin of my teeth and my A Levels.

Parents didn't care enough to find any of this out. They never went to parent's evenings etc.

Is that you Monty?

I was generally quiet and compliant …. but I did have a fair few hormonal wobblers where I really screamed at my poor dad. Including “I wish you had died instead of mum!” which I still feel awful about 30+ years later.

I was a nightmare but I was reacting to my mother being a psycho menopausal narcisstic bitch (sorry I hardly ever use the word bitch, but she was).

She didn’t know me at all, and didn’t want to. Only her emotions mattered. I’m the dutiful daughter now but we are still not ‘close’. She still pushes all the same teenage buttons in me even though I’m in my late 50s!

Get to know your teens as individuals! It makes life so much easier and it is so rewarding.

Yes and no.

my mum would say yes. At some points I would say yes. I was a difficult teen.

however in reality I had ptsd from a traumatic event. At 11 I couldn’t express my emotions, or even knew why I had those emotions.

it wasn’t a secret. However everyone just seemed to shrug and say “kids are resilient” and expect it not to affect me. In fact I was expected to grow up and step into an adult role. My mum put my upset/anger/emotions down to “hormones”.

Like @Screamingabdabz said, it was all about how it made her life difficult, and she never made even the slightest attempt to dig deeper and wonder if I needed some sort of trauma counselling. We aren’t close, she does not know me or understand me. I don’t blame her completely as I know she had her own issues, I just wish an adult, any adult, at some point had thought hang on, that was a pretty life changing event that kid went through, perhaps they need some help processing it…. Instead of putting it down to me being a “difficult teen”.

Same! Mine are only 7 and utterly wild.

Mine are about to turn 2 and I'm scared. 😂

No, my older sibling was such a horrific teen that I vowed not to be, sometimes I felt the red mist rising and calmed myself down. My childhood memories of my teen sibling are awful, ruined family life.

I was great until I left boarding school and came home to do A Levels locally. Went from clean and well behaved to a right slapper at 16! Took up smoking and went to the village pub every night with the local gang. Several boys had cars so we went all over, noone worried about drink driving. Found old diaries recently and they were all about how many fags I smoked and which boys i snogged!

Ok fairly harmless but I was up the pub every night from 16, and only just scraped my A Levels. Met a boyfriend at 17 and stayed with him (ish) for 10 years. Spent my 20s partying, drinking and occasional drugs but had left home by then. Not sure my parents really knew about anything. Mum said that us teens going up the pub was the equivalent to them going to coffee bars in the 50s....😀

My DD is about to turn 18 and I'm dreading it.....