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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Thread Four: Holding on to the end of the rope

479 replies

Pegsinarow · 07/02/2020 15:35

Hello PoTs!

I am so very sorry to have been absent from the second half of thread three. I've been a overwhelmed by rl: some good, some bad and some a bit ugly!
I hope you are all doing as well as possible in the circumstances.

I saw thread three was on 998 posts and thought I had better start up thread four here!

I'll catch up in a bit but for now the previous threads were as follows:

Thread one here

Thread two here

Thread three here

Welcome back and feel free to vent here! And I'll try to stick around a bit more ... .

OP posts:

WonderingFree · 07/12/2020 22:35

@plumbuddle thank you thank you for saying this. I no longer have any idea what is normal. The police officer yesterday just said DD sounded like a hormonal teenager and I kept saying that no it’s more than that. It’s not an easy thing to call the police on your own child- it’s heartbreaking, Where is my baby girl? CAMHS just keep saying to put in the boundaries but we are all spiralling. Will step it up.

ODFOx · 07/12/2020 22:36

DD (16) texted me from school last week to tell me not to freak out but she had really bad stomach pains and she'd taken loads of paracetamol the night before. Cue me 'overreacting ffs!' by calling 111, getting her from school and taking her to a and e where they took blood and then put her on a drip. She called the very pleasant and helpful crisis person from CAMHS who drove for an hour to get to us 'a fucking dickhead' and refused to speak to him after he'd said she seemed very casual about the whole thing.

This week she's in isolation for disturbing all the classes where she doesn't like the teacher.

The whole family is on eggshells all the time. She is the youngest; so angry, so volatile. It's exhausting.

Others struggling with daughters, and especially how they speak to you, have you seen a tv drama called Better Things? It's on iPlayer. The star is asleep the writer and it is loosely based on her own life. She's a single mother with 3 daughters and a mother who lives s across the road. The teens treat her dreadfully and yet there isn't a single thing that they do that mine hasn't done or said to me. I found it reassuring tbh. Someone else has gone through this. She copes better than me. I let DD really upset me and an hour later she's forgotten but I'm still beaten down. I'd be interested if it is as reflective of other's experience.

ODFOx · 07/12/2020 22:39

@WonderingFree It sounds like you are really under the josh here. I have no advice: my last teen is running rings round me, but didn't want to read and run.

Soopermum1 · 08/12/2020 08:59

@Plumbuddle thanks for the link. That service looks really good. I've done a bit of research before but autism is such a wide thing, what they described on the website seems to fit DS pretty well.

We've done the initial screeners already. The family therapist for myself and his form tutor to fill them out. Mine was borderline, the form tutor's was off the scale 😳

The therapist is pretty convinced he has ASD and DS seemed to have a flicker of recognition when she presented her thoughts to him, he seemed to understand and agree that there was something now quite right.

That was about a year ago, she requested a full diagnosis and we're still waiting. I have the money to get him diagnosed privately but I suppose I've needed this time to get my head around it. Like others have said, I'm scared about a label but as he approaches 18 I've come to the conclusion that this is (potentially) his label, his condition and his behaviour that he will need to manage himself, and, as his Mum all I can do is to pay to get him to that point more quickly.

Trouble is, we're not speaking at all. I don't know how I can broach the subject. It would need to be done with his full consent.

Newhome321 · 08/12/2020 21:19

Can I please join as my 13 years old daughter is so addicted to everything about Hetalia to the point that I find very unhealthy but dont know what to do. Should I tell her to stop( she wont). Ahwggg!!! First child!

Plumbuddle · 08/12/2020 23:46

@newhome322 hetalia? Had to Google that! It sounds like an obscure but harmless anime form? What is the issue, just too obsessed?

billybagpuss · 09/12/2020 06:30

I let DD really upset me and an hour later she's forgotten but I'm still beaten down. I'd be interested if it is as reflective of other's experience.

I’ve been in this thread on and off from the beginning and this has been a recurring theme. They dump everything on you, you take it all to heart and spend most of the day dwelling on it feeling worse and they just brush it off and move on. I guess it’s the hormonal surges but it certainly doesn’t help us deal with it.

Andi2020 · 09/12/2020 13:03

@billybagpuss I just do the same as my dd brush it off now. They go around in circles and us running after them and we feel worse than they do.

Andi2020 · 24/12/2020 15:01

Happy xmas to all the posters on this page over the year.

Hope your teenagers give you a peaceful day🎅🌲🥰

billybagpuss · 24/12/2020 15:08

@Andi2020

Happy xmas to all the posters on this page over the year.

Hope your teenagers give you a peaceful day🎅🌲🥰

And merry Christmas to you too, all peace and love here at the moment, long may it continue.

Plumbuddle · 24/12/2020 16:04

And to everyone a lovely weekend, all quiet over here too, DS is a child at heart so all the comforting rituals are keeping him becalmed. Enjoy your Xmas all.

Original poster

Pegsinarow · 24/12/2020 19:59

Hello everyone! (Your errant thread leader here.)

I am so sorry that I have been utterly crap at keeping up with this thread. I'm afraid I haven't dealt very well with lockdown (which has been very strict where I live) and it's been challenging having my dh wfh and teen has been very up and down tbh and there have been a hundred and one other things going on such as renovations and ill health, Brexit issues etc, that has kept me away. So huge apologies to everyone!

But I just wanted to say that it's lovely to come back to deliver Christmas greetings and read how everyone on here has been supporting one another. (Although I know the circumstances that bring people to this thread are not always happy ones.)

Special thanks, as ever, to the "old-stalwarts" such as Andi2020 and Billbagpuss and others, for providing a listening ear, reassurance and great advice throughout 2020

Here's hoping for a less challenging 2021!

And for all of our teens too! They may be downright hideous and putting us all through the mill atm, but this year has been far from easy and we love the mangy buggers and they (and us hopefully) will emerge through to the other side at some point ....!

Keep holding on to the end of the rope POTs! Happy Christmas!
xxxx

OP posts:

billybagpuss · 24/12/2020 20:05

Hello @Pegsinarow 😀

FranKubelik · 24/12/2020 22:47

Merry Christmas to everyone on this thread. I haven’t posted but I’ve returned to this thread (and the previous ones) during some difficult times this year and it’s really helped. Thank you for the advice and making me feel less alone.

Staywithmemyblood · 25/12/2020 00:38

Merry Christmas everyone 🎄🎁🍷

Aramox · 26/12/2020 07:34

Hope everyone survived ok. My 15 y o has been deliberately pleasant and it makes life so easy! Tho begs the question why he can’t do that the rest of the time...

Andi2020 · 27/01/2021 22:37

How is everyone doing
My house is much more peaceful in lockdown 3 as dd1 not partying like summer time.

Plumbuddle · 28/01/2021 00:11

How funny you posted, I was just thinking of everyone on the thread. In our case developments all happened at once. CAMHS suddenly offered an asd and add assessment after doing nothing for 4 years, just when we had booked and paid for a pda assessment from help for psychology. We were part way through both and I already know they are both going to say autism (CAMHS) and pda (hfp). So whilst partly I feel they are just pigeonholing kids according to their own little hobby horses, at least there may be some new professional guidance for our son to try to get a grip on and take responsibility for his own condition. So it will mean some reflection and some movement. And after that I am just leaving him alone and letting him do his own thing around the house, one thing the help for psychology person said was that if he self sabotages and ruins all his own chances in life then I have to let that happen and not take it to heart. So that's the homework for 2021! Quite a project, - gulp.

stucki · 28/01/2021 13:11

Glad you have finally been receiving support. Thank you for sharing the good advice from the psychologist, hard as it is for us parents to see them floundering without feeling guilty and wanting to intervene.

Plumbuddle · 28/01/2021 13:32

@stucki

Well it's just about ok emotionally to give up on all hope of a nice household vibe, but then you have to think, when will they ever live independently or earn a wage? We're not young in the Plumbuddle household and the prospect of being at the mercy of later adult behaviour, when we're really old, is not fun. So if any of you are in the same boat as us, I do advocate getting diagnoses where you can as you can then shunt the young person toward external support and finance systems for later.

Waydugo · 30/01/2021 22:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

aramox · 02/02/2021 07:04

That's good news. I felt quite positive with school being in all autumn but another lockdown is crushing. Our main battle is over doing the minimum, as so often! Hw always gets done, school too, just not really engaged.

Andi2020 · 17/02/2021 22:30

Hope everyone is doing well.
Half way through mid term

Plumbuddle · 17/02/2021 23:40

All ok here. Just learning to have lower expectations. Got an ASD diagnosis that I did not expect from CAMHS and don't even agree it on the basis they gave it. However, having said that, it's our get out of jail free card for DS17, who had just got a letter at half term telling him they would boot him out of college or make us pay the fees ourselves if he continued to be late to class. What a thing to do when a young person is right in the middle of the UCAS application system! The college have clearly washed their hands of him. But the point is that having the diagnosis prevents them from being allowed to do that, because it would effectively be discriminatory. Never been so glad of a diagnosis and highly recommend it to others. In fact the Help for Psychology person told us that if the child flunks school at this age and messes up GCSEs, BTEC or A levels, then you can use these diagnoses to go for an education and healthcare plan with all the professional assistance that may command, until they are 25. So plan B, if booted out, would be to sort that out and gain him a longer period of childhood. Groan for us! But probably better for him. I think all our children on this thread are late developers who are in fact 7 year olds in an older body, with hormones to boot.
The moral for me is to look for help outside our own parental circle. That has the added benefit of reassuring us that we do not have the skills or even the job of having to deal with this in a completely isolated fashion.

Lacrossefan1 · 06/01/2022 19:36

Trying to resurrect an old thread
Going through a difficult time with my dd15
Would love to hear how people have been getting on, and whether any of yours have come out the other end

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