Tell me a Happy Ending to raising teenagers.

[Nearly45]

That's all I want!

I've posted at my wits' end in the past under another user name (forgot the login so I reregistered) and I really, really, really don't want any advice or pep talks. Although they've helped loads in the past. : )

I have two teenagers and it's not their details, ages or their behaviours that I want to dwell on this time, just a simple request for anyone who has come out the other side and who has thought they could never have imagined it could have gone from something so awful to something so great....that kind of thing?

That's what I want to hear! And only that! If you have such an uplifting story about your now grown-up teenager/s, please tell me it. I need to hear it! I think it's only this I'm looking for. Thanks lots.

My DD became grateful I repeat, grateful for lifts, home-cooked food etc as soon as she left home. Also went from very untidy to very tidy and helps with housework unasked.

My DS went from refusing to speak to me, for four years, to being one of the nicest people I know.

Hang on in there!

I wrote on another post...
I had 4 teens... one lovely (he's autistic and delayed and still sweet at 18), two moderately teen-like girls... grumpy, got spectacularly pissed and put themselves in danger ages 14-16, and one VILE lad...

He stole (hundreds from me) lied, smashed holes in the walls, was arrested at 16 (for something he hadn't done luckily) was curfewed informally by the local police....sold weed to friends...

Now 22, kind, loving, pays me rent, works with adults who have learning disabilities (last 3 years) doing his NVQ level 3 while there... he loves them and they love him. He plays his guitar and sings in local clubs and has saved enough to go travelling to Australia in february.He takes leave every summer to be the pied piper at a special needs kids camp where he is adored by the kids who come to dig him out of his tent at 7am

I will miss him every second he is away. He is lovely now. Still untidy but he doesn't steal, lie, smash things, hate me or do anything untoward. He has grown up!

If, when he was aged 12-17 you had told me he would grow into a perfectly decent man, someone I would trust with my bank card, someone funny, loving and kind I would have laughed... then sobbed.

But he did. And I'm probably prouder of him in a weird way than his sisters who are in fab careers now, or his brother who fights for his independence in a world that doesn't like disabled people very much. He is a good man.

He is also grateful and very apologetic for the shit he put us through!

Hang in there!

From the other side, I was a horror of a teenager. As was my brother. They coped. Not always well.
If you'd suggested in our early 20s that we spend Xmas anywhere other than with our parents we'd have been distraught. It was grown ups having a ball :) Happy happy days :)

My dd was a awful,moody,stroppy,cow. She was just awful to live with some days. Reluctant to join in family activities and general just being a pain. She went of to university and came back a lovely polite,helpful and caring young lady. I am very proud of her.

DS1, after years of trying to get him to do homework, including languages, now travels the world, in a very senior job and is fluent in another language.
DS2 took ages to find his niche, but did it in the end! In fact he now has several niches at which he excels.
There've been years of dramas, bailing them out and trying not to explode at them, but they've both grown into wonderful adults. Hang on in there!

What a lovely idea for a thread!

Thank OP for starting the thread and thanks for the uplifting stories...

Thankyou. This was just what I needed. You have no idea.

My youngest son was very difficult, unlike his brother, from age 13 to 16. Not know what to do we just hung in there trying to advise, create boundaries, which he kept breaking (how do you make someone taller than you stay in his room!), and telling him that we made rules because we loved him and wanted to protect him - and that we wouldn't bother if we didn't care. A counsellor friend said that the brain wiring of teenagers is all over the place and its hard for them to control their extreme emotions (good to read up on this as it explains a lot). Be a solid wall for them to bounce off and test against, it won't be easy, I would quite often end up crying on the stairs. Keep a sense of humour too, they can be so funny especially with their friends, who I would invite round so I knew who he was mixing with. My boy is now 25 and a responsible young man with a very good job. I would not have thought this possible 10 years ago

I moaned about my very feckless 16yo & a colleague was nice enough to tell me about his chronic truanting DD who got up to wild behaviour for a few yrs to boot, like going out drinking "You can't stop me!" type stuff.

She made him a proud grandfather today. Solid husband, many yrs of respectable work experience after she left school. Hang in there.

Several stories here:
My XH and I split when my DD1 was nine. Remarried when she was 10 and she hated my DH. She rebelled at 14 and went to live with her dad. At 18, out on her own, she started doing and selling drugs. She didn't talk to me for two years. (It was my fault I finally divorced her dad after his serial affairs...right!)
She worked low paying jobs a few years, decided to go to university and became an M.D. She is the most thoughtful, loving, responsible adult. Never did I give up. Just kept loving her and gritting my way through the awful (years of tears) times.
Skip to my youngest (we had six in a blended family) and here we go again! Drugs, bad grades, stealing from me, destroying neighbors property etc... But he also has a B.A. degree and now is going for start his Masters in Public Health.
The others were just normal kids and are successful in their lives.
I didn't do anything different with them.
Love them, keep being a boundary to bounce off of (as fluffylavelle said)
And hang on for dear life.

Mine are now lovely well rounded young adults, with good degrees, good jobs and good manners, and an appreciation for what we have done for them.

And great company too. x

Both my girls were horrible at 13, I didn't like them very much for quite a bit of the time. My oldest is now 22 and she was lovely again by the age of 14. My youngest is 18 and she stretched out her horribleness until she was almost 15. They are both great now, we enjoy spending time together and they make me laugh every day.
They have both moved out, they live on the same street so look out for each other ( and no doubt lead each other astray ). My oldest works and the youngest is at Uni, I'm so proud of them and think back to when they were 13 like they were different people entirely.

It does get better

Raising a teenager is certainly a rollercoaster, but hang in there! From my experience, it does get better; it's important to remember the emotional hardship that comes with being a teenager. We have so many emotions and feeling running through our brain, combined with the increasing strive for independence and mature semblance which usually results in a variety of problems.

Yet, in almost every case I've heard, these same teenagers are able to mature and grow and actually end up as level-headed people. Hang in there, there's always a chance for a happy ending!

Having just had a row about getting a full time job and not slobbing around the house all day, I needed this thread. Well done everyone who has come out the other side. Xx

What a brilliant post - finally done hope

My oldest son was the most ungrateful, lazy and thoughtless teenager I could imagine! He is now at uni, texting grateful thanks and loving messages when I do the least little thing. They really need to leave the nest when 18! Now my previously lovely daughter is exactly the same as her brother was - even last night when I picked her up from a party she bundled some friend in the car for a lift home when I'd explicitly said I wasn't going to do lifts! Grrrr, it's all so emotional and hard to get in perspective but I keep thinking the frontal lobe has to grow and things can change!

StillMedusa your post has made me cry buckets! What a lovely story - I am desperately hoping that my son comes out the other side unscathed. At the moment I feel broken by the whole situation, he sounds very like your DS at the same age. Am so happy that you got a happy ending...

They eventually have teenagers of their own

My oldest ds gave us hell as a teenager played traunt from school got into all sort of wrong gangs drank heavily messed with drugs dropped out of two college courses caused havoc in the house stole money from me.. It goes on. Now in mid twenties is back in college studying really hard is fun around the house calls me for chats and is generally great. I feel he did miss a few years so is more like a 22 year old now but that's OK. He is not perfect still very bad with money but then so was l until l was 40! Hang in there. Keep thinking of the cute toddlers they were. Have your own life. Take up something for yourself. Don't panic and most of all pick your battles.My younger two were grand mostly l think because they were sick of the drama with the older one and couldn't be bothered going down that road. It wrecked me at times but l lived to tell the tale.