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.

I remember a mum of 1 telling me how to parent my 3dc. But yes, I have an 18yo. If your 18yo is rude then I think you’ve probably missed the time to parent and set those boundaries.

This resonates a lot with me. Thanks for sharing. I’m delighted it’s worked out so well for your DS, huge respect to you for your approach ❤️

A drug addict warned me to keep a close eye on who my kids mixed with . He said he got in with the wrong crowd which led to his addiction. It was sometime before his parents noticed there was a problem. He said if he could turn back the clock he would have never have got involved with these so called friends.

I say that it was part of strict discipline that it helped. My parents always made sure I was on the right path.

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/world/indians-top-uk-chart-for-rise-in-sexual-offence-convictions-report-1900036

Yes..those are the Indians in India..not the British Indians.

The snuggery of this is literal rage bait 😂

I actually think smacking your child is disgusting and if the choice is between being physical violent or having a child who doesn’t behave I’d pick poor behaviour.

There is a clear association between those who have suffered violence, perpetuating future violence. Both against their own siblings and future intimate partners and DC. Never mind outside of the home.

You cannot have it both ways. When you want to boast that “Indian parenting is strict and effective”, you treat Indians as one convenient cultural group. But the moment Indian nationals in the UK appear in an uncomfortable statistic, you suddenly insist they are completely separate from British Indians and therefore irrelevant.

Yes, Indian nationals and British Indians are different statistical categories, and the article does not prove anything specifically about British Indians. But they were not “Indians in India” either. They were Indian nationals convicted of offences in the UK. Your attempt to relocate them to India was simply false.

The article also reports the biggest percentage rise, from 28 convictions to 100. That is not the same as having the highest total number of convictions or the highest offending rate, particularly without accounting for changes in the Indian-national population.

None of this proves that Indian parenting causes offending. It does, however, expose how ridiculous it is to present “strict Indian parenting” as automatically superior and effective. Strictness can produce obedience in front of parents while also producing fear, secrecy and double lives. Obedience is not the same as empathy, judgement or good character.

You cannot credit an entire culture for every successful child, dismiss every negative outcome as belonging to somebody else, and then pretend you have proved your parenting model works. That is not evidence. It is selective cultural boasting.

👍

And you're advocating beating children knowing that especially young girls will grow up to think it's ok for their husbands to beat them, because their parents did so it's 'normal'?

And that kids who receive physical punishments are statistically more likely to hit their own kids?

So you're saying you're all for domestic violence in families?

These people are just smug arseholes who don’t actually know what they are talking about.

Best to ignore.

Time to stop your boasting then?

Do you actually get angry at people not knowing the specific reason for why their kids turned out the way they did? Is this a common reaction?

I am neurodivergent. Some of the posts on this thread are hard for me to understand. Surely it's better to admit you don't know than, to claim on no evidence it was either all down to luck or all down to great parenting?

I said physical discipline was part of the strict upbringing that kept me (and a lot of British Indian kids of my generation) on the straight and narrow. I did not say “go out and belt your daughters so they grow up thinking wife-beating is normal.”

Acknowledging that a controlled smack or two from parents who actually gave a shit about outcomes ≠ “advocating beating children.”

Depends what you mean by well - I think reponsive parenting - parenting that child needs does massively help.

It's less about problems not arising but how they are dealth with - dealing with them before they get too huge and there being that bond and trust devloped in childhood that make them even partially listen and tust you to know in time.

Doesn't mean every bad decision is parents fault - just most case I've seen in RL have had parents who missed or ignored growing problems then have narrative it's come out of nowhere. I'm sure there are exceptions to that.

A lot of my brother issues in teen years which blindsidied my parents had always been there - they often then went super authortain when something and made it worse - a lot was based on poor communication they never really listened and not really knowing any of us or wanting to.

At 16 you cannot drag them out of bed.
I took away his phone, turned off the internet, stopped social lifts, drove him to school in the morning, spoke with school, school spoke with my son, got him therapy, locked him in at night.

so if he got a mix of a and a stars at 16 - then he made a quite monumentally seismic transformation? And nothing you did?

You are advocating hitting kids to keep them in line, just as many men hit their wives to keep them in line.

Add to that your mention of corporal punishment in primary school and how much you admire Indian parenting, you are absolutely advocating violence.

Which as I said earlier, really hasn't worked out well given the amount of gangs of Indian lads/men going about stabbing people and selling drugs in many areas, just as other lads/men from other cultures are.

Violence is never the answer and I suspect it's fear that's kept you 'on the straight and narrow', whereas millions of others were kept on it by loving, compassionate parenting.

Not bullying children.

Probably true. Mine are late twenties/ thirties. afraid it doesn't stop me putting in my two penn'orth though.

Responsive parenting can help enormously, but you are still turning it into a retrospective explanation for outcomes that parents cannot always control.

Saying that most serious teenage problems were “always there” and that parents simply missed or ignored them is very easy with hindsight. Teenagers can conceal things, lie convincingly, behave completely differently outside the home, reject help and refuse to communicate even where there has previously been a close and trusting relationship. Mental illness, neurodivergence, addiction, abusive relationships, peer influence and impulsivity do not disappear because a parent listened well in childhood.

A strong bond may mean a teenager listens “partially”, but it does not give parents the power to make them act safely or sensibly. Nor does a crisis automatically prove that the parent failed to notice warning signs. Sometimes the signs were genuinely absent, sometimes professionals missed them too and sometimes the parent saw them, sought help and was unable to stop the situation escalating.

Your experience with your brother may well have involved poor communication and authoritarian parenting, but that does not make it a reliable explanation for other families. It is unfair to assume that parents describing a problem as coming “out of nowhere” must have been inattentive or are rewriting the past.

Sometimes things really do escalate suddenly, and sometimes parents have been dealing with growing problems quietly for years before anyone else becomes aware of them.

What was your experience @Twile ?

You are starting to sound obsessed now 🤣

2 questions. Obsessed?

Although I guess starting the thread and then spending your Sunday writing out pretty fierce and long posts gives a somewhat strong hint that… difficult

You know what I didn't read that article fully.

Those were Indian nationals (mostly young men) in the UK here on temporary visas. Being far from home with no family they lose the ongoing community enforcement mechanism that the British Indian community.

The low overall crime and high attainment figures belong to the Indian ethnic group in the UK (many of them British-born or long-settled). The rise in sexual-offence convictions is concentrated among Indian nationals — a younger, more temporary, demographically skewed population. These are overlapping but not identical groups.

🤣