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

Saw this just thought and thought we could probably all relate...

www.facebook.com/reel/1202701266988416?s=yWDuG2&fs=e

🤣 love it!!!!

Yes!!! 100% spot on 😂

🥳🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sure I'm repeating a point I've made before - but stumped. How do you get a child you know is bright and has potential to focus at school? We had yet another email yesterday saying DD's attitude was poor. and she's mucking about a lot. She just doesn't see it as cool to work hard right now.

After our last big fight about homework I decided escalating it wasn't helping - plus where does it stop? Also doesn't seem to make any difference. So have decided to try giving her back the control - as in it's her future and she has to take responsibility for it. But what do we do if she doesn't?!?!

There has been progress. She was pretty foul at home for a fair while, but that's massively improved, so I'm hoping it will be the same at school. Won't it???

Mine usually step up when I back off and say well it’s your decision and your exams. Let me know if I can do anything to help. They usually then realise it is on them and put more effort in (for a short while at least)

AlwaysSomethingWithTeens

I am not sure that there is anything you can do really. And the more we push the more they kick back.
I know that mine were all horrible in year 8 and 9, this is sort of limbo land, no reason to do any work. They picked up in year 10 and 11, both age and the looming exams I think.

Ds did a really helpful thing in year 8 or 9 where they filled in a form about their lifestyle, and what they wanted eg
latest iphone
nice car less than 3 years old
4 bed detached house
take aways every week
holidays etc etc.
They coudl also specify which part of the country they lived in.

The programme then calculted their mortgage costs (that was quite an eye opener for a start) and then the monthly income they would need.

Then they coudl put in career choices and see how they matched up.

They could go back and change things, eg smaller house, car etc and see what the differences were.
It was a really good exercise for them to see what they needed to earn.

At the end, havign decided that he wanted these things and a career in eg banking, he then got told what A levels and what GCSE grades they would need.

I think it was a key moment for ds actually, made him realise why we were harping on about passing exams.

@AlwaysSomethingWithTeens I can relate to this from my teenage years (shame on me) and I think the answer is INSPIRATION.
I was told constantly by all teachers I could get much better results only if I put a bit of effort into it. I studied the last minute through secondary school because I could pass the exams. The issue is I couldn't see a future girlswillbegirls.
I do think this is the issue for many teens. Future is seing as something that will happen in another time and universe. They need inspiration from someone older but that they can relate to, someone they admire to find the link with effort and drive.
I have a good career now because I found the inspiration later in life, (mid- twenties) looked then for a career path, did a good masters etc. but would have been much better to do things right first time.

Now I'm dreading my kids making the same mistake, fingers crossed they won't.
PS. The program you mentioned is brilliant.

Teens can be foul can’t they. 13 year old came in tonight in a foul mood and declared she wish she had a normal family (she has two siblings with special needs. One is severely disabled) and we make sure she partakes in all her hobbies, take her out on her own, have loads of her friends for a sleepover and still she can be really unpleasant.

I feel very down today.

Cant get Chrissmassy at all this year.

I feel drained with worry stress frustration and the odd moment of hope.

Exhausted
Can anyone relate. 🍫🍷

I can totally relate HeBeaverandSheBeaver. I feel pretty grim about Christmas like I don't have it in me. Things had been going better with us but they have taken a nose dive again and I am just not sure I am up to playing happy families this year. I am going next week to get anti-depressants.

I don't blame my teens, draining though they are, because they are just doing what teens naturally do and are going through that very painful last part of chrysalis-shedding before they emerge with functioning wings.

But I feel sorely let down by my dh who has somehow set himself up as referee rather than support and ally. I find this cowardly and undermining and right at this moment I am uncertain whether our marriage will recover.

@AlwaysSomethingWithTeens This program sounds magnificent! Where can I find it? As I’m struggling with my DS who in his first year of A levels after doing so well in his GCSE’s he just not putting in enough effort with his A levels and has this nonchalant attitude to everything! I am tired of moaning at him or trying to motivate him to work harder and nothing working. He says he wants to go to uni and believe me he likes nice things so maybe this exercise would give him the kick up the @@@ that he needs because nothing I say seems to be working.

Hope no one minds me joining this thread after I accidentally hijacked another 😳 just about had enough today. Dd1 is pissed at me because despite the fact it was her dad that took her key to his off her and gave to her sister, despite the fact she very easily could have come home and gotten said key from her sister, I'm somehow the one in the wrong because I told her to come and get the key as opposed to enthusiastically dropping everything, ( I was actually in the middle of hoovering having had to remove a shelf and put it back up again after having my dryer delivered and was clearing up all the bits of packaging having just put everything back on the shelf so hardly sat around with a glass of wine doing fuck all) . And to top it all off because I didnt want dd2 to walk over there in the dark and the ice to deliver a key dd2 is now in a mood with me aswell. I've asked her multiple times today to put her duvet back on the bed amd she's refused to budge. Leapt at the chance to go help her sister though 🙄

So sick of this behaviour

I'm on an easy curve of the roller coaster today Had a lovely evening with kids watching football. I don't r care we lost. Was just nice to be together as a family for once.

Next week I'll
Be back in the white knuckle bends again no doubt 😢

Good luck all

DD has seemed pretty cheerful for a few weeks, despite exams and some social things at school which would normally be stressful. Happy shopping and lunch with me today, and did Christmas tree altogether.

But I have noticed some deliberate, very small but definite, scratches/ cuts on her hand. I have told her that I have seen them, and I held her hands and said that I wanted her to stop hurting them, and to talk instead. What is anyone’s advice for this please?

Been reading this thread aloud to DH for weeks. So good to know we aren't alone with the whiplash - are we in the good books or not? Which one of us has caused offence this time?

We've spent £45 this week facilitating DS1 going on two dates. He's 15. Quiet. Doesn't go out. That's a fair bit of £ for us. Pleased he's doing it, going out of the house, socialising!

But good grief... is your phone charged? Have you got the booster? Where's your spare cash? Have you checked the bus timetable - no, I am not driving you into town but I will collect you in the dark. Yes, you can borrow my AirPods.

By the time he left, I was On High Alert. I sat down and breathed deeply in an effort to reset myself! ;))

parrotonmyshoulder I’m so sorry, that’s a tough one. I have no personal experience of this but Young Minds has good info on self harm:

www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/my-feelings/self-harm/

Maybe you could use that as a conversation starter?

Glad to hear things were a bit better for you today HeBeaverandSheBeaver.

Same here (for the moment). As a family we seem to be engaged in an uneasy truce until the next falling out!

It sounds over-dramatic but every time this roller-coaster cycle of “I love you” - “I hate you” takes place, I wonder if we can possibly survive another one?

Whereas the dds seem energised by all of the drama, I feel as though it is draining something from me I’ll never get back. Maybe that is just nature’s way? Harsh though it sounds, I’ve already stepped back in order to detach my mental well-being from theirs (as far as that is ever possible as a mother) but I need to step back even more I think.

Good luck to everyone for the week ahead!

Thanks for the link to Young Minds. I knew I’d seen something helpful before but couldn’t remember where. It’s a good resource. However, it’s really difficult isn’t it when advice is to ‘see CAMHS’ when we know that (in my area at least) this is not available.
DD had a short period of counselling (private) last year but really doesn’t want it at present. She is having a bit of mentoring at school.

Yeah you are not wrong parrotonmyshoulder this entire rhetoric of “reach out and ask for help” is totally undermined by there being virtually no services in place to reach out to! Not a great message to be sending to adolescents either.

Hi - just checking in, I hope that's OK. It is so helpful to know others are on the same journey. All my friends seem to have high achieving kids who do loads of extra-curricular activities. I have a very bright but unmotivated 14 year old child and it's driving me crazy. All he wants to do is game or watch his phone. It's such a waste.

@Libre2

I felt like that a few years back. Everyone seemed to have easy teens.

A few years in and now they have issues in one way or another so it's absolutely not set in stone that paths they take.

I know - nothing is set in stone - DH keeps quoting stuff back at me (“parent the child you’ve got, not the one you want” “comparison is the thief of joy”) which he thinks is helpful and supportive but just makes me want to scream. He is an amazing dad though so I can’t complain.

I think our teen journey has been hugely complicated by a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at the beginning of year 8. DS has to take account of that all the time which is really hard. It also means we can never remove his phone as it monitors his blood glucose.

I have to give him some credit, he is generally kind and compassionate and funny and engaging but he has just lost motivation which saddens me. He is also unbelievably rude sometimes but maybe that is par for the course.

Thank you so much for this thread. I too had 2 very easy teens but having a very hard time now with my 13 year old. I feel constantly on edge trying to work out how to deal with her behaviour. She has changed so much in the last six months, it is like she is a different person. So secretive, in her room a lot listening to darker / emo music, lying to my face. I know she is struggling with her sexuality but will not talk to me. We were so close but now she won't hug / take a hug, come places with me so I am grieving this too. I'm so worried about her - losing sleep, constantly thinking about her. I've seen her diary a few times ( which she found about and is very angry with me) and she talks of feeling sad, depressed etc. i spoke to my Doctor about my daughter and am waiting on counselling for her. I feel so sad and lost.