Do some kids stay nice or have I got it all to come?

[breakfastbap]

My work colleague can be a bit of a cow at times!

I have DS age 16 and DD 13 and to be fair they are really good kids. Both doing well at school, so far they've been no trouble at all, okay, they leave cups and plates around in their rooms, DS can eat me out of house and home and DD does a brilliant eye roll and can be a drama queen when she wants to be - her bedroom can be a tip at times too. DS has a small, stable circle of friends who he plays football with but most of his time he's studying, playing football and online gaming. No drinking, drugs or roaming the streets causing trouble. DD has a small circle of friends and apart from the obligatory piles of makeup and spending hours perfecting her pout and taking selfies she lounges around on her phone in her room etc.

Having said that there is never any really bad behaviour, they will help with chores if I ask them or if I ask them for help with anything they are always willing. They are generally polite, well behaved and have respect for our home and their belongings. They both like a hug, I'd like to think they can come to me about anything and we can talk openly and have a laugh over most things.

The point is my colleague who has had quite a bit of trouble with her 20 yr old son seems to think I've 'got it all to come' and that they are going to be a nightmare soon. She delights in saying 'once they start driving look out' or 'once they start drinking then you'll have your hands full' or 'once she's got a boyfriend look out - she'll be a handful'.

So, is that always the case? I know DS has said that he's got friends who smoke, have sex with their Gfs and one girl his yr is pregnant. I know it's going on at his age and I'm hoping that he has more sense than to bother (he appears to). DD I think may be slightly more rebellious and outgoing but so far she appears to be sensible.

Does anyone have good kids who stayed good kids or will they always go off the rails a little at some point?

Some parents treat their teenagers like people they don't like not someone they love.

My mum often says this about my lovely kids. 'Well they're lovely now, but you wait!' Maybe they won't be awful, don't get why she always says this!

teens ime are like other people= people

individuals

Yes, they are affected by hormones, but so are plenty of menopausal women, and you don't get people going around saying "oh yes, your wife's all right now, but wait until she gets to the menopause".

I remember my mother's menopause. I could never have summoned up the energy to be so dramatic as a teenager or at any other stage of my life. Lazy, I am...

Bobo that's rubbish, just because you have a difficult teenager doesn't mean your a rubbish parent what utter crap.

I agree.

Bobo, you often spout that rubbish on here, it is wrong and deeply insulting to parents with tough teens. Just because you have been lucky

OP, you have been lucky too and that's great. I will say my mother has banged on all her life about what perfect children me and my db were, it meant I have hidden a lot of problems from her over the years so as not to shatter this image. So dont tell them too much how chuffed you are.

I agree it is deeply insulting, camhs comment regularly about what a great relationship me and DD have it doesn't stop her being very tough. I had a great relationship with my DM hit 13 and hated her for 3 years she'd honestly done nothing wrong and I knew even at the time I was being ridiculous , I just couldn't stop, even the way she ate irritated me

mumonahottinroof - can you not see the contradiction in your post? Your own mother failed to let you be your true self and manipulated you into role playing the teen/person she wanted you to be, yet you claim it's teens, not parents, who have the problems?

My mother was just a bit deluded as to what was going on - plenty of rebellion but she just never found out the bad stuff because, in hindsight, I was very lucky and got away with things. The rebellion had nothing to do with the way she brought me up and a lot of teenage rebellion has nothing to do with parents. I repeat if you have had/have easy teens then you are just lucky, ditto easy toddlers, whom I remember you being smug about way back on here as well.

I was that good teen - so were my siblings. My reason was that my Mam knew loads of people that if I misbehaved it would get back to her quick and wouldn't be worth my while

Although honestly I was quite a placid, anything-for-an-easy-life child so it didn't occur to me didn't have the imagination to 'get into trouble'.

Current friends who have late teens (5 that I can think of from the top of my head) are all surprisingly but hand on heart nice kids who are quite studious, help look after their younger siblings types and don't give their parents grief other than asking for money/being messy usual low key issues. I'll have to ask them what their secret is

My DSSs' mother thought her sons were nightmare teens. They were horrible to her because she was useless and stupid! She would ring DP to complain about them but he had nothing to say - they were fine with us. Different parents, same DC --> completely different behavior. In the end the DSSs came to live FT with us and were very easy and straightforward.

That is one very particular situation. Do not extrapolate from it that all parents of tough teens are "useless and stupid" because they are not.

I work with lots of teens and their parents. I have yet to come across a problem teen who had effective parents! There are always longstanding parenting issues (usually poorly thought out decisions that set DC up to fail) when teenage DC are difficult (or worse).

I think corythatwas is right - it's more about personality than a particular age, although at some points in life traits become more exaggerated. My mother always said that a nasty old person was once a nasty young person.

A toddler prone to tantrums and rages will no doubt become the teenager who slams doors and "hates" you. The quiet toddler can morph into the one lying on its bed listening to emo music for hours on end. The bouncy toddler charging full-pelt into nursery will become the teenager glued to social media and out partying.

Rhoda - I agree. And it is up to parents to guide the child they have!

Mine were both pretty hard work up to the age of four. After that life just got easier. I was wary about the teenage years and yet I needn't have been. Now 20 and 18 they have never been anything other than a pleasure.

We were quite strict when they were little but if I think back very hard I can't think I've ever had to "impose sanctions" since they were in primary school. As they got to teenage years I relaxed as many "rules" as possible, trying to insist only on things that really matter.There has never been a door slammed or a voice raised, but then DH and I would never do either of those things.

I don't know how much is due to parenting or how much is due to inherited genes or how much is just luck. I know families with 3 children who all had the same parenting and one goes off the rails while the other two are fine.

There has never been a door slammed or a voice raised, but then DH and I would never do either of those things.

We can't escape our genes - well, if we can it takes a huge amount of effort. Dh is a bit prickly and very sensitive - and dd is very like that. If she feels she's been misunderstood or ridiculed there are tears and ructions. I am a festerer and ds is inclined towards a bit of brooding.

I wonder if there is less "bad teenage behaviour" nowadays than a generation ago? I know people in their 60s who complain that their parents were horrified by their (probably only a tiny bit rebellious) teens and kept on droning, "We fought a war for you," etc etc.

Teenage mental health is worse than it has ever been, according to the media. Parents have to bring up their DC in a world that has very different pressures to the world they grow up in and it can be hard work to guide DC through the unknown

So that's not really anyone's fault is it?

Oh, I'm a dreadful parent. Slapdash, careless, veering between the over-indulgent and the draconian. I've worked since my babies were four months old and I never remember which days they're going into school early (not least because they get themselves up and out of the house).

My teenagers are lovely. Sensitive articulate hard-working young women with social consciences and lots of friends. Nature over nurture, definitely.

No one's fault but still the responsibility of parents to guide their DC through.

I think to say it is all luck is to do some teens and their parents a disservice.

You see threads on here all the time where a parent and teen are at loggerheads and sometimes it started over the slightest of things, such as not keeping their bedroom pristine. I', not saying don't have a base standard, but sometimes it's not worth sweating the small stuff or trying to take a different approach for a change rather than being confrontational.

I definitely don't have the answers and I think personality, who they are hanging out with, your family circumstances, parenting, schooling etc all have a part to play and those aren't necessarily all equal between all your children.

So, is having "good parents" all that decides whether a teen is a "good teen" or not? I think that it isn't but putting the right kind of parenting in place is certainly and element of improving the chances, it's just not the only element.

How does one actually know what teenage mental health was like a generation ago or two generations ago or three or four generations ago? There were no ways of registering it in any kind of record until very recently and even when I was young it carried a terrible stigma, which meant people would rather lean heavily on family members than seek medical help. Suicides and suicide attempts were covered up if at all possible, because even after they stopped being illegal, they brought shame on the family. (Remember that bit in Downton Abbey where Carson says he is going to tell the family that Thomas is ill with influenza- otherwise known as a hot bath and a razor).

In my family, we have had depression and high anxiety for at least 4 generations, but my dd is the first who will leave a mark in any kind of record. I am not sure my mother suffered much less than she has, but the difference was that my DM got no medical help and was completely reliant on her family (including her young dd). I am not sure that was a better situation, or that it tells us a lot about modern life.

What I do think is that a lot of health issues, if not actually caused, are unmasked by the pressures of modern life: you could get away with shaky school attendance in my grandmother's day because they weren't fussed about statistics.

Yes. It is the parents' responsibility but I dislike the way parents are automatically to blame. Part and parcel of teenagers is to rebel and grow away from parents. It's the terrible twos with swearing.

Mine were the most tantrumy two year olds. I WAS that parent. I tried all the textbook stuff it only half worked. I hate hate hate the way you get parents who do not have to try and their children just get it and are calm and even tempered and just behave just because they do and would if parented by Atlila the Hun. I honestly have worked harder over the years than these so called perfect parents.

Some children are just HARD. Teenage and tofdler years are notorious for that. Why does it have to always be someone's fault? And comi5from someone experienced with working with families its depreßing and you can see why people dont seek support because of course they wont be understood.

Still, when mine laugh with me and want to spend time with me and come to me when something is wrong, i know I have got something right . I don't have to be perfect and neither do they

It's a mixed bag and depends on how you define "good" kid. And sometimes, you just have to wait them out and not give up.

For me, I think of dd1 16-yo as a good kid. But from 12-14, she hung out with a group of nasty girls who relentlessly bullied other girls and each other. DD was herself extremely rude and defiant and fought with us every day. Then late 14, she started competing in her sports, made new friends and began to take her studies seriously. Her attitude towards us also improved dramatically. It's like a miracle! Like she just woke up one day and decided that she's had enough of the shenanigans!

These days, she continues to be her sweet self and is doing near the top of her grade at school, holding down a part time job, and is captain of her sports team at school. But she is also having sex with her (lovely & accomplished) boyfriend of 8 months, going to parties and drinking occasionally. I don't think she is doing drugs, but I could be wrong.

So of course, I still worry a lot about her.