Just a friendly hand hold for any other mums of teens

[Pleasegivemeyourwisdom]

I've 3.

It's a 'journey'.

Just in case anyone wants to know another trying her best mum is thinking of them

Could I join please?

sighed wistfully at the mention of boarding school. DD doesn’t go to school full stop :( Supposed to be doing homeschooling, I’ve spent a fortune on online courses, but most of the time not much gets done unless I’m literally sitting in the same room with her. Undiagnosed autism, plus adhd, anxiety, ocd, depression - it’s a barrel of laughs 24/7.

shes the last of my 3 to go through the teenage years and I’m a shell of the person I was. Nobody tells you this stuff when you have a baby, do they?

Christ it’s hard. I hear you.

”I hate school and don’t want to go”. I have gone tough love this morning - “running away doesn’t solve anything”.

I agree we have invested so much in parenting. Is that why we find this big so hard? My mum didn’t give a toss about this stuff and I knew I had to battle on.

also found my DD was self harming again last week. Not badly but enough.

Just had my daily bout of emails from the school with a long list of DS2’s behavioural issues today, plus a phone call from DS2 from the toilets at school where he was calling me after being excluded from class (again). This shit is just exhausting me. I’ve dumped some of it on to DH to deal with but then I feel guilty that I’m shirking my responsibilities and washing my hands of it all. Just feel like I’m lurching from one day to the next with no respite.

It’s all so difficult! Such big issues to navigate…my dd has self harmed and once they’ve done it for a period of time you’re always worrying about it happening again! I wish I was a man…does anyone think husbands have it much easier? I’d love to be able switch off! Maybe it’s just my H…
I find it’s such a hard balance between supporting the teens when they need it and giving them the freedom to sit with their feelings…you’re right Beethovenninth…our parents wouldn’t have been bothered!!

🍫🍰🍷💐
To all of us that have to wake up to this hell of uncertainty every day

And no, men don't seem to worry as much 😥😡

Can I join too? Single parent of three teens (well eldest is 20 but autistic so still feels like a teen).

This past year has been really hard .

If mums of toddlers think they have it rough ....

I am another one who feels that the issues that have affected my DS this year have left me broken at times . Just distraught and an anxious wreck .
Absolutely not through my fault of his own.

Its such a hard time - for them and for us.

Breakupgate is still ongoing here...she did say yesterday that I'm not doing anything wrong but everything presses her buttons atm and she can't control how she reacts.

XH gave her a pep talk on Wednesday and thought she seemed OK, but she came back in dementor mode. She had a chat with her cousin last night which perked her up a bit very briefly and has asked when her Godmother is next coming round...apparently I'm only good for taking her mood out on.

I've cooked her favourite meals this week, popped some flowers in her room, bought her favourite ice cream, had her sleeping in my bed for 2 nights and done everything I can to be supportive without expressing my opinion that he's a selfish, immature twat who was showing signs of controlling and abusive behavior and realised he was punching well above his weight so let her go before she saw the light

Not particularly expecting effusive thanks or recognition but not being used as a metaphorical punchbag would be nice.

So first some good news (with a view to giving us all a bit of hope!). DH has been away this week and DD has been lovely with me - genuinely seemed to like hanging out with just me and barely spent any time in her room.

But school still definitely a work in progress. There's one teacher she obviously has a real issue with - and despite me saying again don't answer back, yet again there's an email from school. Argh!

Two steps forwards etc etc...Solidarity with you all.

@AlwaysSomethingWithTeens celebrate your relationship with DD this week and keep it up
@MintyCedricHereWeGoAgain I am following the story of DD and I think you need to give the credit you deserve. You are doing really well and doing all the right things. They want to talk to friends/cousins about their stuff, fair enough. The main thing is to make her feel loved at home, so she doesn't come back to that horrible ex-boyfriend. Bit your tongue about how lucky she is she got rid of him, she can't see that atm. And keep your fingers crossed he won't come back to her any time soon!

My DD is doing her exams and I am absolutely exhausted with all the helicoptering around her. I think (or maybe I'm too positive today) she finally got the notion she needs to PLAN in advance her studying better next time and not to panic at the last minute. Very emotional and exhausting week.

PS: Yes, men don't give a shit or at least they don't feel responsible for everything as we do.

• apologies for the essay I sent and all the grammatical mistakes.

DS is 13, but actually believes he's mid 40's knows everything and is invincible!

He's had a cold recently- who hasn't. It's not covid. To make himself better, he had a hot shower, then put some shorts on and went outside, in the dark, while still soaking wet to play football, I mean - WTF?

He's an A+ (9's or whatever they are) student across the board, with absolutely no common sense whatsoever!!! 🙄🤯

Last few days dd been fine but ds has been Moaning as I booked theatre tix for us and he doesn't want to go. This is absolutely the last time I book anything for him until he matures!!!

@girlswillbegirls thank you!

We started this evening with more tears and strops, followed by an apology...followed by her deciding that they only broke up because it was what everyone else thought she should do and she's going to return his last resident sweatshirt next week and see if they can get back together...🙄

I. Have. No. Words...

...which is probably just as well.

got home from activity with dd1 last night at 10:30 to find dd2 distraught because she had not been able to do homework while I was out. 2 big pieces pending. Dh is away.
One is online maths homework. She is good at maths and she can easily do it, but it takes an hour. She hadn't done it because she was panicking about the other one, a drama piece.

dd1 bless her, doing A level maths, just said - shall I do the maths?
I am a teacher, so no, I don't agree with it, but the balance is so fine. If she didn't do it (and that wasn't likely as it was already so late) then she gets negative points, and mentally once she has got negatives there is 'no point anymore' in doing any homework. It is her clean record which makes her get anything finished at all.
So dd1 did the maths for her, and I sat next to her and talked her through the drama step by step so that she could do it. And we both went to bed at 11:45.

And the reason she was so unable to do it is that I will be away next week. The whole week has been carefully planned, she was all on board and planned and ready. But then they announced a train strike for Monday. They go to school on the train. If there is a strike I take them. She was in catastrophe mode. She could cope with me being away, but not with this added stress of train strike. The strike just tipped her over the edge.
I have now found them both lifts so that she will get to and from school just fine. But that 24 hours while we had the details of which lines weren't running but I didn't yet have a solution tipped the balance.

I just don't remember it all being so finely balanced as a teen. Were we more resilient? More able to cope? They seem just so fragile.

@steppemum

At my school in the mid 80s if homework wasn't done you got a bollocking and that was it.

There were no expectations. Bright kids stayed to do a levels

No ofsted reports. No pressure to get in the best schools. We just went to the local or were our friends went.

Not to bright went to college or got jobs. But there was not real push from teachers or parents either way.

Jobs were easy to get
Uni was free. If you didn't like the course. No biggie just party and get a 2:2

It really was a freer time then

And no social
Media ramming the good
Life down your throat every 5 seconds.

Teens just have too much pressure now.

I don’t want to be the understanding, empathetic, considerate grown up today. I don’t want to hear her victim mindset, rants about how I ignore her feelings, blaming and criticism of everyone else.
I don’t want to rise above it, see it from her point of view, apply my understanding of teenage brains and her likely ASC and definite anxiety.
I don’t want to spend time helping her feel okay, planning every part of yet another weekend to make it easier for her.
I don’t want her 10 year old brother to have to leave events early (this is what happened today), to be made to feel that everything he does or says is wrong, to have to join in the eggshell treading.

DH and I are both stressed to the limits with jobs that we can’t escape and I don’t have the extra capacity this weekend.

Sorry to sound so shit. I know this is a safer space than most to express what I’m actually feeling. She’s sending me manipulative texts telling me what an awful parent I am.

parrotonmyshoulder
massive handhold.
I totally understand the feeling.
It is so exhausting and effects the whoel of the rest of the family.
It is shit.

and it is sometimes OK to tell them that too and that you are not going to do it her way.
or
whatever works
x x

I completely COMPLETELY understand.

sometimes it feels like you’re in the biggest co dependent relationship of your life. And if the abuse was so bad from another, you’d walk away …..

In the 80s to mid 90s (when I finished my LC) if I didn't do my homework nobody at home would even notice.
Literally the morning of my LC I announced with a serious face "I am not ready for the LC" and my mother said with disapproval "You are doing it and that's it". And that was it. I did it, went to college, got my degree. No celebrations. The past twenty odd years with zero encouragement or any academic supervision/ interest paid off.
My mother focused exclusively in the happiness of my dad. School and academic achievement of your kids wasn't on the agenda, and even less their MH, friendships, and love dramas. Very common same approach in many other families around.

No doubt we are now killing ourselves, how did we get here.

@MintyCedricHereWeGoAgain if yoir DD goes back to him, I read some advice in MN of applying reverse psychology: put the pic of your DD and boyfriend on the mantelpiece. It seems that once she doesn't feel in a Romeo and a Juliet situation, she might be able to see him as he actually is. I wish you the very best. Its admirable how well you are coping. Keep it up, you are doing great!

How's everyone on this thread.
Dd is 17 this week. I hope it heralds a new era of a less volatile girl 🙏❤️

My DD age 15
is disengaging from an extracurricular activity -
she’s been seeing a boyfriend for 6 months -
she says she’s fed up with the activity
but I think it’s more to do with seeing him -

im so frustrated -
since beginning of sept I have managed to get her to the class most weeks
im fed up with the battle
but I don’t want her to drop an activity she previously enjoyed to faff about with a boyfriend -
me and her dad have spoke to her at length, often about the value of out of school activities, the value of being able to show commitment etc
…
but each week it’s the same,
she goes, after a scene,
messages me from the class that she’s bored / hates it and next week repeat …. 🥲

Name changed for this. My son is 15 and he will not open his mouth. Apart from morning and that's it. I am at my wits end. Big headache. Then I googled the stuff. They say it's normal. I say insanity has reached my house. Super sad this morning and late. Will have to make up for it.

Sorry things are crap.😞

my Daighter was vile again last night. No phone this morning for her. Which will enrage her further that we are hideous parents no doubt.

Messages from dd aged 15 from school toilets today many times

friendship issues
i hate it here
come get me
I’ve cried all my make up off
i look ugly

year 10
should be in lesson getting an education
and she’s crying in the toilets
im so FED UP with this