Please don't get rid of the Teenagers board

[TeenTimesTwo]

Just that really.

You'll see that a number of us are responding to the MNHQ post on the board itself, but just in case you're not checking replies there, a number of us really, really want to keep teenagers stuff away from the potty training, and parents of 6yos who think their darlings will never behave like that as teens.

Please keep the teens section separate. I don't post much but I do look at existing threads all the time. They would get lost in a mixed section.

Please keep

Why would you do this MNHQ? If the boards were merged posts would get lost and not responded to, or only responded to by parents without experience of teens as said by pp. Terrible idea, please keep - I often read through and find it helpful, but I wouldn't want to trudge through posts and posts about nappies and weaning and toddler tantrums. That life is well and truly passed...
Please keep!

Teenagers need their space.
Teenagers need understanding.
Teenagers need the support of peers.

They do not need their annoying baby cousins, or younger siblings barging into their bedroom uninvited.

Please keep their board separate too.

Parenting teens is very different from parenting primary aged kids!

Having a separate teen section means we do not get too many parents of perfectly behaved 6 yr olds telling us how to apply their superior parenting skills to our teens (they don't have a clue...)

Thanks for all the comments. It's just a proposal at the moment - we looked at the data and the section seemed fairly quiet. But we're absolutely not doing anything without talking to the people who post in the group. And if you want to keep the group and it's super-useful, then I'm sure we'll slowly back off.

Another voice for keeping the teens board. Parents of teens need all the support they can get and there isn't much out there

Another point I'd like to make as a parent and professional dealing with parents of teens, is that we don't tend to mix with other parents as much as we did when we they were primary.
Due to not being at the school gate and being back at work etc.
This less opportunity to share experiences and feel a little less isolated.
I feel a little better when I realise other people are experiencing the same issues, as do my clients.

Michael, surely there's lots of other sections on MN you could turn into one thing, there's loads of topics I can't imagine are much used?

Ledkr that is an excellent point. I found myself feeling very isolated whenever a problem occurred when it came to parenting my children as teens.

When they were younger there'd be other parents at playgroups, Tumbletots etc and the health visitor and then came the school gates and chatting there but once they've left primary school you've pretty much lost all of that. From a personal point of view, when our children were teens our friends were parents to much younger children so we didn't have them to discuss things with either.

I agree with ledkr too, also I found a lot of friends split up when their kids became teens and moved away so my close circle of primary school friends sort of disappeared

Please keep the teens board MNHQ

PLEASE keep it.
I don't post on it much, but the times I have I really needed to ask other teen parents and not get holier than thou attitudes from those who don;t have teens yet.
and i read other threads and feel better!

I have always thought mn needed a function where it says how many kids the person has, and what age. Or perhaps relevant info, eg secondary school teacher.
Or the ability to filter posts - get rid of all posts of toddler parents for example.

and I am only half joking!

To parents of teenagers its really helpful and there is nothing relevant to parents of teenagers on the other parenting boards. Our issues are unique!

Ledkr is right, as parents of secondary schoolers we don't have that school gate sounding board.

I joined MN in 2006 when Ds2 was born, and my friends, whose first children were born in 2006, ask me for advice as I have a 16 year old.

I may not post a lot on the teens board but I read it to see how to head stuff off at the pass so to speak, forewarned is forearmed and all that.

Please keep it separate. Such a bad idea to merge this board.

Seriously "baking" and "cakes and bakes" are separate but teenagers is your suggestion for a section that can go, on a parenting website?

Wow, this is wrong. Teens are technically from 13-19 so a 6 year age range with a million and one issues so we need this.

There are loads of imo silly topics where parenting a teen is actually a very real and stressful event and we need the support of others.

Sorry that didn't come out as planned.
I meant that there are silly topics elsewhere on MN and a teenage topic is very much worthy.

Totally agree. I might not need to post about dd much but when I do have an issue I would post on the teen board where hopefully people would give more targeted advice.

With everything in the news about teen MH and suicide atm I’m staggered you would even consider this.

We really do need the teen board- they are very different to parenting 0-11 year olds with completely separate issues. Please keep it!!!

What are you thinking of? The teenager section is all that’s preserving my sanity at the moment

I agree, I thought the same when I saw the plan.

So I've only just discovered the Teenagers board as a result of this thread and now I want you to keep it too. What a relief to see those posts and responses. I agree it meets a niche need. Please keep it.

Agree with ledkr. I look at teens board all the time, might not have ever contributed to it though. Please keep teens board!

Neither can I see any logic to merging this board.

I didn't know there's a 'baking' topic and a separate 'cakes and 'bakes' one 🤣