to think some people on here have no idea what 16-18 year olds are actually like?

[Twile]

I’ve noticed that some posters on here seem to have no idea what parenting an older teenager is actually like.

Someone will post about their 16-18 year old being completely out of control - staying out all night, drinking, vaping, refusing school or college, being verbally abusive, getting involved with unsuitable partners or simply refusing to follow any rules.

Without fail, there are replies saying things like:

“Just stop them going.”
“Take their phone off them.”
“Ground them.”
“You’re the parent - just say no.”
“I’d never allow that”

It makes me wonder whether these people have actually parented an older teen.

A 16-18-year-old is not the same as a 10-year-old. They’re often physically bigger than you, legally have increasing autonomy, can leave the house if they choose, earn their own money and in many cases simply refuse to comply. You can’t physically force them to stay indoors, attend college, end a relationship or make sensible choices. And nor should you.

Of course boundaries still matter, and parenting doesn’t stop at 16. But the strategies change. You’re often relying on influence rather than control, and sometimes you’re choosing the least bad option rather than the ideal one.

But your own behaviour at sixth form age is not a universal benchmark for how all 16-18 year olds will respond. You may have been naturally compliant, had a different temperament or grown up in a family and culture where questioning parents carried much greater consequences.

Accepting punishment also does not necessarily mean the punishment was fair, effective or appropriate. At that age, young people are close to adulthood and are developing independent judgement. Sometimes disagreement is defiance; sometimes it is a reasonable response to being controlled or treated as much younger than they are.

Your experience shows what you would have done. It does not prove that a teenager who resists punishment has been badly parented, lacks respect or should simply obey without question.

Having rules in your home is fine. But having rules is not the same as being able to guarantee that a 16-18 year old will obey them. Parents can tell their teenagers how they expect them to behave, set consequences and enforce boundaries but they cannot control their choices.

At 16 and especially at 18, young people are not fully mature but neither are they small children. They are developing independence, forming relationships outside the family and making decisions their parents may strongly disagree with. Parenting at that stage often involves influence, negotiation and proportionate consequences rather than simply issuing instructions and expecting unquestioning obedience.

It is also a huge leap to read about a teenager behaving appallingly and conclude that the parents raised them to be vile or entitled. Sometimes poor parenting contributes. Sometimes parents have spent years setting boundaries and the teenager still becomes aggressive, reckless or oppositional because of temperament, mental health difficulties, trauma, peer influence, substance use or circumstances outside the parents’ control.

You are judging the entire upbringing by the outcome you can see. By that logic, every well-behaved teenager must have excellent parents and every difficult teenager must have poor ones, which clearly is not true. Siblings raised in the same home can behave completely differently.

Parents should not excuse cruelty or rudeness merely because it comes from a teenager. But saying “I cannot make them do it” is not necessarily weakness or permissiveness. Sometimes it is an honest recognition that, beyond setting boundaries and consequences, a parent cannot physically or psychologically force an older teenager to comply.

I agree I’m 24 now but at 16 I had a baby moved out at 16 rented a room in a house and at 18 rented my own apartment.

And people on here are talking about their 17 year olds bedtime? Lol

@Twile I just wanted to thank you for your articulate and well-expressed posts here, you’ve captured the issues on this topic so well.
(and my 3 teens are having war as I type, ironically, so I need to remove myself from this rabbit hole & deal with … life!)

I think by 16-17 you reap what you've sown. It is very hard to pull it around at that point.

Yes I’ve had people tell me my parents must have neglected me because I had a baby at 16 when really they were just ordinary parents who did their best and I still did what I was going to do.

I assume these people either don’t have teenage children or they don’t realise they were lucky to have a very compliant well behaved teenager

🙄 about to leave to engage in real life when I read this.

Firstly, if there are challenges in any area of our lives, it’s never ‘too late’ to make changes.

Secondly, as this thread exemplifies, it’s not about ‘reaping what you sow’. That takes responsibility away from the teen, and also makes any issues sound like a pre-determined outcome, which is nonsense.

Ultimately, if you put the hard work in as a parent from the moment they’re born, your dc will respect you and listen to you (most of the time). The vast majority of feral teens have had poor parenting resulting in a complete lack of understanding of how society works, and total disrespect towards their parents.
Both my DC were hard work as older teens, both eventually realised that as parents we had their best interests at heart. There were many occasions when we did just say ‘no’.

And it’s possible to raise teenagers with all those qualities without having to go through a period of aggression, drugs, sex, etc and other challenging behaviour. And as I have said, luck also plays a huge part and you can’t control external influences on your child.

We will have to agree to disagree. I think the stereotype of teenagers in the West is extremely unhelpful.

I totally agree with this. And it is why I would never post for help on here as so many posters just want to put the boot in.
This is not because I want to be in an echo chamber or only hear nice things but because the negatives are not provided with useful advice, they are just shouted out to make the OP feel worse.

I mentioned to a friend recently that I was struggling with one aspect of parenting and she gave me a good idea of something new to try.
The best of Mumsnet should draw on a wealth of knowledge of "been there, done that". Posts about troubled teens don't need to be filled with people with no experience or people who had no problems (unless their lack of problems comes with something the OP could actively do now).

Parenting is an overall journey and hopefully good parenting will be rewarded with decent adults. It doesn't mean every stage along the way will be problem free, good parenting doesn't mean your baby sleeps through at 8 weeks, prefers vegetables to haribo, never tries a cigarette, etc. But hopefully, broadly, ends well!

By 16 or 17, parents are seeing the combined effects of upbringing, temperament, adolescence, friendships, school, social media, relationships, mental health and experiences outside the home. Parenting matters but it is not the only thing being “reaped”.

Teenagers can also change dramatically despite having been raised consistently, and siblings brought up by the same parents can turn out very differently. Equally, some young people who were extremely difficult at 16 become thoughtful and responsible adults later. That suggests behaviour at this age is not simply the final product of what parents sowed in childhood.

It may be harder to change established patterns by the but saying parents are reaping what they have sown risks blaming them for every serious difficulty their teenager develops. Sometimes parents did sow boundaries, care and respect and the outcome is still not what anyone expected.

Well, I would feel that I had to take some responsibility if my children got pregnant at 16. I would most definitely look at my parenting. Thankfully they are in their 20s now so teenage pregnancy is off the radar.

That still mistakes a good outcome for proof of good parenting and a bad outcome for proof of poor parenting.

Putting in the hard work matters, but it does not guarantee that a child will respect or listen to you most of the time. Parents can be loving, consistent and firm from birth and still have an older teenager who becomes hostile, reckless or deeply oppositional. Your own children eventually recognising that you had their best interests at heart shows what happened in your family. It does not prove that the same approach would produce the same result in every family.

There is also a big difference between saying that poor parenting can contribute to bad behaviour and claiming that the “vast majority” of badly behaved teenagers were poorly parented. That is an assumption, not something you can establish from seeing the teenager’s behaviour alone. It ignores temperament, neurodiversity, mental illness, trauma, peer influence, abusive relationships, substance use and the fact that siblings raised in the same home can behave completely differently.

Simply saying “no” is not the decisive factor. Many struggling parents say no repeatedly, enforce consequences and hold boundaries, yet their teenager still refuses, lies, leaves the house or becomes aggressive. A boundary shows what the parent permits. It does not give them complete control over an older teenager’s actions.

Parents should take responsibility where their parenting has contributed but describing difficult teenagers as “feral” and treating their behaviour as evidence of parental failure is judgment rather than analysis.

I don't think the OP means your experience is null and void, if this thread were a general discussions of all teenagers.

My understanding is that for posters who do have teens with various challenges, those who have of parenting thst type of teen, might not be best placed to give advice. That's the aim of the thread.

Challenging behaviour doesn’t have to mean ‘drugs, sex, etc’. You clearly haven’t a clue.

You’ve also just contradicted yourself by saying there are external influences that can’t be controlled 🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m not sure what you mean about stereotypes of teenagers in the West - teenagers are people, and not a generic group, they are as different from each other as anyone else is.

Some will pose challenges, others won’t; the challenges will be myriad and what works for one, may not work for another.

I don’t think a 16 year old becoming pregnant automatically means the parents are responsible or that their parenting was poor. Parents can give clear guidance, provide contraception information, set boundaries and talk openly about sex but they still cannot control every choice an older teenager makes.

Looking honestly at your parenting is reasonable but assuming responsibility simply because of the outcome is different. Teenagers can act impulsively, be pressured by a partner, misuse contraception or deliberately ignore everything they have been taught. Equally, a teenager who does not become pregnant is not necessarily evidence of superior parenting such as luck, opportunity, relationships and individual temperament all play a part.

While teenage pregnancy may be off the radar once your children reach their 20s, plenty of other serious issues can still come onto the radar. Unhealthy relationships, addiction, debt, mental health problems, reckless decisions or an unplanned pregnancy later on. Reaching their 20s does not prove that every previous parenting decision was right or mean that parents can no longer be tested by their adult children’s choices.

Parenting influences risk but it does not determine every outcome at 16, 20 or beyond.

I think the reap what you sow is a little simplistic but can apply.

The relationship you build with your child can have a huge influence. Our teens (17/15) so this demographic, trust us, they don’t always like us or our decisions but trust us.

And that helps, a lot.

I think it is more that parents whose kids have gone off the rails don't want to hear what other parents did to prevent it. They want a mutual pity party about how it is unfair and someone else must be to blame.

The truth is I think people always simplify parenting advice without thinking about personality of the teen, their experience and what they are going through.

I do think that many people forget that teens are sort of mini adults, in terms of you cannot parent a teen as if they are a child. My teen is still under 16, but I have always parented her with the idea of “what did I need when I was her age” and I feel like I have this ability to go back to being younger me, as I’m a pretty emotional person. And also, the other part of my parenting has always been “who is she, and what does she need right now, and how does she respond to the world”.

I think somehow, having the mix of those 2 thought processes has helped me so far, but I’m also not scared to bring in external help. Whenever i have needed help with her because I couldn’t answer the 2 questions, I would go to teachers if relevant, and if school was affected, I’ll ask friends and family - and I’ll do abit of research.

I would like to think I have raised her well, but also, I think us as parents, have to be more human towards our children as they age. I always remind mine that there is that boundary between us, I’m mum, she’s my child, but I also remind her that she needs to trust her own self, and that bad choices have consequences - and I’m always praying that she learns fast and doesn’t encounter too much bad. I also share my experience too.

OP, parenting is so complex, and one answer doesn’t fit all. Our children are always changing. And they teach us a lot too.

I feel like all parents should be given a crash course is psychology and self defense!

It's a little unscientific to argue that the teen period of life is just like any other and an unruly teen is just about your parenting skills or lack of them. The teen years see some of the most dramatic changes in neurological development. Most notably, the prefrontal cortex, which is closely linked to personality development, logical reasoning and the structure of speech hence why teens start to challenge their parents more, obviously some more than others.

And there are many teenagers who are too cautious, they don’t go out, or take chances, or hang out with friends, and parents despair they are missing their teenage.

Some have no fear of consequences
Some have paralysing fears of failure

Parents differ in what they think their teenagers should and shouldn’t be doing.

We can’t tell our teens what to do much nowadays but we can ask them.

I am not contradicting myself. I have always said that there are external factors that can’t be controlled. I have not ever said that it is just all about good parenting. Because I don’t believe that.

I don’t think the stereotype of teenagers behaving badly is helpful at all.

Fair point. Maybe my parents didn't have to go that far. But their strictness and discipline shaped who I am today. I've not had sex, neither have my younger siblings. And absolutely none of us will smoke or do drugs.

Well yes, obviously! There is no room for parental complacency at any stage. But I can say as a fact, that teen pregnancy is off my radar!

Parenting influences risk but it does not determine every outcome at 16, 20 or beyond.

This really sums it up.

For me, the teenage years have felt so hard, even though there’s been lots of positives too. This is aside from the really challenging behaviour.

My eldest, DD, 19, has always been easy to parent and really came into her own as a teen. We ate fortunate to have a good relationship. This year, she went through a difficult time (it’ll ultimately be fine but it was so hard for her for a period) and I was surprised how little I could help. I couldn’t stop it happening, I was there for her but that didn’t ease the situation all that much.

For me, the younger years were relatively easy, I’d children who slept well, ate with no issues and so I feel huge sympathy with posters here who describe massive sleep deprivation, reflux, challenging eating and so on. Maybe we all get periods of parenting that are easier / more challenging!