At what age do teenage boys stop being stroppy drama queens?

[alistron1]

DS1 is nearly 13 and currently is always on the verge of being histrionic. Stomping, shouting, swearing, door slamming etc over everything and anything.Today he had arranged to go to the cinema with a friend, but the friend was unable to go. Obviously DS1 is disappointed but he has been utterly vile all day.

He has also started to do this 'thing' when I remind him that his behaviour is less than desirable of 'shushing' me with the words 'hush woman' - I could kill the little buggar

When he's not being vile he is actually lovely. But this won't go on for too many years will it?!

I've got two teen DD's and thought that the hormonalness and general passive aggressive arseyness was teeth clenchingly irritating.

We have DD1 doing GCSE's. That's fun. If her eyes rolled anymore at the moment they'd fall out.

She can't bring cups/plates down from her room 'cos of exam stress.

DD2 is 14 and ok, sort of. Sometimes.

And I thought having 3 under 3 was hard 12 years ago.

It can be grim. When he had his last big strop - and kicked a door off its hinges, overturned furniture, broke a window, etc - I called 999 and had him arrested :( Afterwards I told him that I couldn't stop him behaving badly any more, so if he couldn't stop himself, I'd have no choice but to call in the cavalry...

sorry OP, I have a lovely 12.5yo DS. Currently my favourite child Some bad moments (he went teary with furious name-calling frustration at my poor game-playing skills the other day), but mostly great company, very helpful, patient, understanding, wickedly wonderful sense of humour. Needs hand-holding to get out of house on school days, but could be so much worse.

Now, if you want to talk razor-sharp tongue fairly schizophrenic moods self-obsessed prone-to-hysterics, I present you with 10yo DD. Who does organise herself out the door in the mornings, at least. Perhaps you could swap your DS for her? Makes a change.

OMG - boys become drama queens too? I already have this with DD, I don't know if I can stand two of them

Yes, Flow, that's when it tips over into unacceptable violence. Poor you.

Three tips for controlling teenagers:
1 Turn up (or threaten to turn up) after school every day and just wait by school gates. Your being there is such an excruciating prospect, said teen will be licking out of your hand. Seriously Big Guns.
2 If you don't have one of your own, beg, borrow or steal a toddler. Get teen to watch toddler tantrum and draw parallels with own behaviour.

3 Imitate teen behaviour when asked to provide meals, do washing etc. Heavy sighs, stomping, 'It's so unfair!' etc. Especially when friends are around.

One good thing about DS1, he is friends with lots of girls, if they organise social events they actually happen and I get to know when and where.

I am currently waiting, holding my breath. 12 year old DS is at a football tournament.
If his team do well it will be a nice evening, and he will be ok.
If his team do badly, he will run up the stairs slam the door of his bedroom and tell DH to take his kit back to his coach as he is never playing football EVER again.

But saying that, it's Sunday so come 9pm he will be trying to remember what homework was set and texting all his friends to find out.

OMG. They got to the final and lost. DS has just rung and he is sobbing and said he hated every minute of it. (He's the goalie so it is a bit different for him)

They will be home in 15 minutes. This will not be fun.

Oh dear Sparkling, I feel your pain. However today we have had (so far) no histrionics at all. The night is young though...

No homework drama-or is that later on alistron?

DS1 is back. They lost on penalties. he is eating Ben and Jerrys and drowning his sorrows now. I am keeping my distance in case I say the wrong think and make it worse.

I am not even going there with homework tonight, I mentioned it yesterday morning and IMHO (given the response) one mention per weekend is enough!! I've been letting him use my fancy ipod headphones today, so he is happy. And he has arranged to meet his friend and see the avenger movie next weekend...

All I want is for him to be happy, not feeling disgruntled and raging against the world.

ds is now 22 so I can look back and laugh
but dd is 15 and is one millions times worse
I have no cutlery left, no that's a lie. I have knives. But where are the spoons and forks? Nobody knows.
I have just ironed 2 weeks worth of washing. The dining room table was covered in huge piles. we all had one, except for DD, her pile consisted of 1 sock.
and everything is GAY!

Have just found this thread and could kiss you all

My DS1 is nearly 14 and I feel as though my sweet, kind, pliable little boy of yesteryear has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a scowling, "bitchy" (yes, bitchy!), frustrated, impatient, nasty clone

He hates us, hates his brother, hates homework, hates bedtime, hates getting up etc,etc. The only time he is happy is when he's either kicking a football or on the XBOX!

I was hoping that by this point in his life I would be teaching him to cook, iron clean, shop, manage his money and he would be delighting in wanting to learn those things... how wrong was I?!

At least I can take some comfort in the fact that I am not the only one with a monster in my house - although I am bracing myself for DS2 hitting this stage as he is already a handful at 10. I'm battening down the hatches already.

My DD's do the plate/bowl/cutlery hoarding but are not histrionic (well not too much!!)

Perhaps we could do a mumsnet teenager summer holiday swap or something to balance things out?! For example you can have my DD's in exchange for an 11 year old and I'll swap DS1 for toddler triplets?!

Its the swing from 'nasty' to 'nice' that astounds me. My DS1 is a lovely boy on the whole, but dear god the 'bad' bits are 'bad'...

I would love toddler triplets for a week It would be a proper break

My DSs are 19 & 17 now so we are over the worse. In fact, looking back, we had it pretty easy.

But I remember the unfair days and continuously being told to "chillax"

You have TWO teenage sons Jazz?

alistron his driving is still amazing to me - when I look out of the window and see him pulling up I still get a shock - don't get to carried away though - he still has to be reminded to brush his teeth!

I truly believe the only reason he learned to drive was because we moved to house a that wasn't in walking distance of his grandma's (where he goes to be be fed 'exactly the way he likes it and be waited on hand and foot), if he/she where still 2 mins away he would still be languishing!