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Original poster

What would you do if you ended up with a teenage 'brat'

63 replies

Blandmum · 23/02/2006 08:23

Having watched 'Brat Camp' last night I had my usual semi-panic over what I would do if dd/ds ended up this bratish.

What stratagies would you/have you used to curb excessive behaviour in older kids.

Can you ground them, if they are big enough to just walk out of the house? Stop pocket money....will they then just steal from you?

Seeing some of these kids...one had been reported as a missing person 70-80 times, one was smoking 20 spliffs a day, one was extremly violent....yuo are left wondering what the parents can do. And in my experience (school wise) social services tend not to be much help.

What would you do?

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expatinscotland · 23/02/2006 09:56

i would have literally been thrown out of the house if I even thought of behaving that way. And I knew it. So I just didn't go there. My mother and father respected themselves too much to take crap off some teenage brat. Seriously, they'd have streeted us big time.

puddle · 23/02/2006 09:57

'streeted us' expat - like it

tiredemma · 23/02/2006 09:57

expat- i love your stories of your dad when he demanded you clean your rooms etc that you posted a few weeks ago, PMSL.

NotQuiteCockney · 23/02/2006 09:58

Hmm, I was probably a bit of a teenage brat. Started having sex at 15 (with boyf, used contraception, but still, my parents weren't happy), did a fair bit of pot, despite getting caught a lot.

I think Enid makes a good point - getting help earlier rather than later. I'd go for family counselling when/if things became difficult, rather than waiting until things were impossible.

(I also hope to be more relaxed about sex than my parents were.)

puddle · 23/02/2006 09:58

'streeted us' expat - like it

3princesses · 23/02/2006 10:01

It's impossible to say. Take Poppy her homelife looks idyllic, but there's obviously massive issues (self harm?? wtf?? that wasn't mentioned before last night!) and she is the one who, even after all this time is looking utterly incapable of getting herself together and making some effort to help herself. I think that's a sort of 'middle-class-supportive-parents' malaise the knowledge that you don't really need to do anything becasue if you wait long enough someone will do it for you. She looks like a girl who's never had to stretch herself at all, and simply doesn't know how to. Perhaps sometimes there is a case for NOT having parents who are carrying you all the way....

Enif · 23/02/2006 10:02

perhaps poppy got brought up by the aupair

DumbledoresGirl · 23/02/2006 10:02

I must admit I am dreading the teenage years in case one of mine does turn out to be a brat. Common or garden sulkiness I can cope with, but I agree that I am not sure what you do if a teenager refuses to be grounded.

OTOH, I am a pretty strict and in control sort of parent, and common parenting issues such as getting the kids to go to bed etc just have not been a problem for me. Basically, when I tell my children to do something, they jolly well do it, so hopefully, this discipline will continue in later years.

But I wouldn't bet on it....

DumbledoresGirl · 23/02/2006 10:05

Oh and I agree with Cod that you have to try and have a relatiosnhip going based on mutual respect (I think that is what you said Cod).

3princesses · 23/02/2006 10:06

Could be Enid. In which case I bet she said 'You do it. It's what you're paid for' all the time.

expatinscotland · 23/02/2006 10:07

For real. As my dad would say, I didn't spend years in the army getting my ass kicked to take it off some brat. He came from a rough neighbourhood, grew up just this side of starving but their mother ruled the roost w/an iron fist and everyone of them graduated from uni and moved onto a professional life.

And my mother. Uh uh. You just didn't go there. My African American friends always said she was a black mother in a Hispanic woman's body.

I was no angel, but believe me, when it came to my parents, you just did NOT let them find out.

They walked the walk from day one. You could count on that. No threats, only warnings.

My sister wanted to go away to uni. As you do. So my dad told her she needed to keep a C average or she was coming home. Sure enough, first semester, she goes and parties hardy. Gets two Ds.

Let's just say she graduated from the local university 5 years later, all on her own dime.

elliott · 23/02/2006 10:13

hmmm. One thing that frustrates me about this program and the whole brat camp approach is the lack of an attempt to work out what is going wrong in the family. I don't think it is all (or even mostly) down to the kids. a few of them just look like they are crying out for love and affection (Lucy for e.g.). Poppy's parents may have given her a lot materially but they didn't actually seem particularly loving - a bit cluelesss really especially the dad.
Think Georgie could be really great - stacks of personality and oomph and I think she will be fine later on. Rosie just seems very sad.
With some of them I think it is parental over-reaction to fairly normal teen behaviour that is the problem - Julia for e.g. whose mum seems to be of the 'all drugs are bad and shameful' school and who Julia seems to have worked out to a tee - 'she only cares abotu what other people will think about my bad behaviour'.
But hey ho, maybe I'll be back on here in 10 years time wondering where I went wrong.

Original poster
Blandmum · 23/02/2006 10:22

having a look at the Brat camp website....I know very sad! , it would seem that he family also has to carry out some therapy, work on specific areas in their parenting, and there is a 2.5 day family therapy session at the end .

We just see the edited fing and blinding.....more 'entertaining' than watching people study I suppose.

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Original poster
Blandmum · 23/02/2006 10:24

elliot, I'd worry lots at 20 spliffs a day, every day. And she admits that she is 'addicted' and 'needs' them to function, that she doesn't 'like' herself sober. That would worry me a lot.

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Tortington · 23/02/2006 10:26

do as i do - or your out on yer arse. then kick em out and lock the door.

i have money - they dont. love me love my money hate me - kiss my arse

Original poster
Blandmum · 23/02/2006 10:30

You are my hero custy....arse licking mode engaged!

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Eowyn · 23/02/2006 10:36

I thought in one of the episodes it seemed clear that several of the families had let their daughters do/have whatever they wanted from day 1.

Maybe they never started with discipline & installed any standards to start with, & I guess you can get by while the child is younger & more amenable but if you have no pre-set boundaries maybe it all goes wrong later if you're so disposed.

does that make any sense? I know what i mean...

Caligula · 23/02/2006 10:42

I wondered about whether they were doing any work on the parents. I'm certainly not in the "I blame the parents" camp, but I really don't see how it's possible to get to such a stage of hideousness without at least some of it being down to what parents may have done wrong.

Except in quite specific cases, like drugs, which can happen to kids from the nicest of homes. I also know of one family where the child has always had what looked like reasonable, consistent parenting, exactly the sort of thing Dr Tanya Byron would approve of. She was still a nightmare child. Now 25, she's just told her parents she's a lesbian, having struggled with years of denial about it. They now suspect that much of her behaviour was down to the anguish she was going through about her sexuality, which hadn't ever occurred to them.

Original poster
Blandmum · 23/02/2006 10:46

But that doesn't really explain how a family can have two exceptionaly nice and 'normal' kids and one utter 'brat'. I have come across this a few times with kids in school. Siblings are fine and one will be the child from hell. Now while the kids will not have had identical experiences as a child, it doesn't explain the wild disparities in behaviour.

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elliott · 23/02/2006 10:47

mb, yes I agree that it is a huge problem NOW for her - but I wonder how it got to that point? And I have felt when the mum was interviewed that she seemed quite concerned about appearances - and not really the kind of mum that you could have a balanced discussion about the hazards of cannabis with. But agree it is very difficult to work out what is really going on from the selective editing.

elliott · 23/02/2006 10:48

isn't the sibling disparity sometimes to do with scapegoating/labelling within a family? One kid gets identified as the 'bad' or 'difficult' one and it just snowballs from there?

Original poster
Blandmum · 23/02/2006 10:52

Sometimes, but not always. I saw this with a close family friend.....I practicaly lived in the house so I'd have seen any scapegoating that went on. And it didn't. In that case it seemed to be personality driven, with the one child being a very difficult personality.

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3princesses · 23/02/2006 11:08

That's how it is in our house. 2 who wake up smiling and say 'hello mummy.' One who isn't old enough to swear yet, but would if she was....

Did anyone see the child or our time prog last night? It featured exactly this sort of family. Lovely, well-adjusted 6 yr old, and her loud, demanding, attention-seeking sister. Made me feel deeply uncomfortable watching it as making judgements is too easy-- nice girl, nasty girl. And I know from having daughters with these kind of personality differences that it's never that simple. The difficult ones do need lots of love, lots of understanding but lots of extra stuff too. They're just more difficult to parent and I can see how they end up like the girls on Brat Camp.

alexsmum · 23/02/2006 11:09

do any of think that things you do now, will affect the way they are? of course it will-i'm not explaining myself well.I mean , things like getting them very interested in sports now-so that later they will be busy involved in things like that?
Ds is a very good swimmer.If he carries on as he is, by the time he is in his teens he will be training evry day after school and some days before school.Add homework on to that and he's not going to have time to hang out getting drunk and getting into trouble! That's the theory anyway!

3princesses · 23/02/2006 11:11

Totally agree alexmum. Good point.