Teenagers & their room

[Niceguy2]

Hi all

I've been told this is normal behaviour and frankly I can't remember specifically for myself. But how much time do your teenagers spend in their room?

Mine practically lives in there. Other than dinner, she rarely ventures out unless there's shopping or her best mate calls.

She's no TV and no laptop but she can surf the web on her iphone. To be fair she's rarely doing that either.

Most of the time she's just either listening to music or reading a magazine or doing her hair based on some mag she's reading.

When she does come to watch some TV she doesn't really converse with us.

She seems happy enough as teenagers go...snaps at me if I ask her what she's up to or suggests she perhaps goes out?

Normal or am I raising a hermit?

Sounds normal. I was like that.

My dds don't spend that much time in their room but I think it's because they share and they have no tv or laptop in there.

Normal IME.

I lived in my room from when I was about 12 and didn't surface until I was 18/19 . No TV or Internet in my day but I did spend a lot of time reading, listening to music and experimenting with hair/make up.

My DDs are 16 and 13 and they too spend most of the their time in their rooms, only venturing out for food or for DD2 to watch I'm a sleb with me because the reception on her TV is rubbish.

As long as she seems happy and you keep up some form of contact (perhaps discussing everyones' day over dinner) then at least you know she is safe and warm.

My DS spends a ridiculous amount of time in his room, despite invitations from us to spend time with the family. We are far too boring.

He has a lap top, tv and x box in there though.

Mine haven't become "bedroom dwellers" as DS2 calls them. Perhaps because they don't have tv, computer or x boxes in their bedrooms.
We all eat together and there are a few programmes such as sleb that we watch as a family but other than that we do all tend to do our separate things in different rooms, just not bedrooms.

Not unusual, no. Mine have no TVs or laptops etc in theirs and no internet on their phones. DD1 is usually listening to music, reading or doing school work; dd2 is usually drawing, painting or making a mess in some other way.

We always eat together as a family though and talk then. And they watch television with dp (I rarely watch TV).

Thanks. It's a house rule we always eat together around the table but sometimes it seems the only time we spend together.

I remember a ding dong we had a while back where DD uttered the immortal words "God! Why do you always want to spend time together!?!?! No-one elses parents do!"

I know! Awful aren't I?

Sounds normal. We try and eat together so we do talk then but I understand that my teen doesn't really want to spend time with 2 old people. I was the same at her age although all I had in my room was a transistor radio and a few copies of Jackie.

My dd never leaves her room. Or gets vertical, come to think of it

sounds normal to me too.

We have an 'eat together'rule but DD (13) then usually disappears upstairs to talk on facebook to friends she saw 2 hours earlier at school.

DS (12) slopes off to X box on the spare telly.

Me on here, talking to strangers

maybe i should get out the 'bored' games instead, and have a good family fight over Monopoly!

I think there are two kinds of teenagers.

Ones that stay in their rooms all the time, and those that are out and about god knows where

I have the latter.

Parents of both types worry, it's normal.

my dd is the same but she does go out a lot at weekends. Hers is a foetid dump so lord knows how she can stomach it.....

she does not have tv or laptop or phone either
Belligerent your dds sound lovely

Me too, I was like that. The upside was, I was extremely well read by the time I emerged to go to university.