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

You jest, but my podiatrist did this. Sent her teenage daughter to a boarding school in the same postcode as where she lives, says they get on much better now that someone else is telling her to put on something that actually covers her bum cheeks.

@MytummydontjigglejiggleItfolds - "Four puberties and a menopause" - absolutely brilliant - made me laugh out loud 😀😂

16yo seems determined to fight every time he sees me.

Every single thing I do is wrong.

And the small things broken in our house are is proving we don't care about him.

His list of complaints:

Piano is out of tune. Tuner cancelled when he had covid a couple of months ago and rescheduling isn't proving easy. It's also in tune enough that a 9pm curfew on playing is unreasonable (we have a 10yo too) - child has full size electric keyboard in his room so this is not a whinge I care to hear about.

Freezer plays up when over- full so there's never anything to eat. Tbh according to him we starve him and always have

He has to (temporarily) go through a parent bedroom to access a shower while we wait for a new screen on the upstairs kids shower.

He insists on sitting on the same chair at the kitchen table claimed by his autistic 12yo sister.

He 'forgot' that he was asked not to walk on the grass which has just been seeded.

He needs new white shirts. I should be able to guess his size and buy them without input.

He hates his laundry being mixed with other peoples, but can't put loads on when it's convenient for others. Or empty to dryer etc.

He expects parents to drop everything to drive him around.

He shouts at someone every day then says our house is stressing him because of the shouting.

Every time he doesn't like something he calls my mother to complain about us. He wants to live there - I'm not ok with that for all sorts of reasons. Am pretty sure he's deliberately being obnoxious to try and make me kick him out.

14yo has literally missed a term of school due to an ongoing headache that started when he had covid. He was started on a migraine med last week and is feeling better - giving him more energy to tell me that he can't put things away as empty spaces make him stressed. He agrees with 16yo that our (lovely, large, conveniently located) house is a terrible place to live.

Neither seem to think that they should consider my feelings ever.

12yo is almost 13. Only girl. She's incredibly hard to like at the moment.

My dd is 13 and it's definitely a journey, 😵‍💫

I really hate this too.
I see it as they need to get it out and you are the safe place.
So I don't react to it (grey rock) and wait until it has all come out, thenI ignore it and go back to whatever I need to talk about so, let her rant and then say - thanks for your input, the dishwasher needs emptying in the next half an hour before I start cooking dinner.

Also, it is often a sign of hunger, tiredness or stress, just like when they were toddlers. But they are so bloody articulate.

The key thing is are there times when you have normal coversations or not?

(see my post from this morning about dd ranting at me over socks and the cutlery drawer....)

Oh, wow. So this kind of shouting doesn't just happen at ours then.

What do you do when the act like this?? Like you are the lowliest servant who hasn't done their job well.

I worry that ignoring it will enable dd to grow up to be rude, entitled and even abusive.

Ignore or challenge?

@steppemum x post! That is incredibly helpful, I will try this. 💟

The key thing is are there times when you have normal coversations or not?

Yes definitely, she can be insightful, apologetic, kind and lovely as well as entitled, angry, ranty, oppositional, critical, unreasonable.

I need to work on my patience. I just don't want to endorse rudeness but you are so right @steppemum it can be an expression of hunger, tiredness and stress.

*apologetic after being rude.

ds is 19. he was brilliant at the rude rants and I really worried that he would turn into an entitled little s**t.

He hasn't.
So I suppose it is easier to have patience with dd2, as we've been here before.
Mostly I wait it out and then move on. Sometimes, (liek this morning) I shout back. Occasionally dh will say - don't speak to your mother like that (to be fair they would rant at him too)
Often I will wait until it is all over, and then make a firm comment about how I don't appreciate being shouted at, and no they are not going to get whatever it is they are demanding.
On my best days, I can turn it into a joke, and the very best days they stop and start laughing (yeah and pigs fly)

I have 4 teenagers plus my eldest girlfriend stays at least 4 nights a week so have 5 teenagers here most of the week.

Here's me congratulating myself on getting all the sleepless nights/toilet training/toddler tantrums done in a short space;no one tells you about hitting the teen years.The sheer expense and lack of privacy are awful for a start.

I am perversely comforted by the knowledge that so much of the crap that I'm facing with mine - appears to be universal!!!

I have 3.
the lack if sleep & lack of privacy hit you hard just as you have recovered from the toddler hell.

not to mention all the appointments (we seem to pay for the orthodontist's county retreat singlehandidly).

at least they are able to do chores and can reach that shelf.

but but but
they are so cute when they come to you for a cuddle to ask for money

bah.
dd2 came and sat next to me where I was doing online shop on computer, then played a loud tiktok video on a topic that we disagree on. (quite a serious topic)
I commented.
She went into full blown melt down, with every conversation over the last 4 months thrown at me, at full on scream mode.
Words were had. She has stormed off.
I win the crown for the worst mother yet again. It has been awarded by my kids so many times that I think it is wearing out.

Bloody pissed off actually.

Grey rock has definitely worked for me. I used to shout back and tell DS not to be so rude and it was a disaster. I now walk away and tell him I will talk to him when he is calmer. About 30mins later he will apologise. Before using grey rock he hadn't apologised to me for anything...for 2 years!!

Grey rock you say?

Off to Google!

Mine has had a few emotional outbursts recently about her looks -
fuelled by the social media / selfie obsession thing
we had a BIG outburst before school yesterday-
i went to work with a sore head with the pressure of staying calm and getting her to school with her in tears, yelling I’m so FUGLY etc..
I know she gets irate if I try to talk to her about looks / being realistic / impact of judging herself harshly etc
so I wrote her a letter and left it on her bed with a chocolate treat -
explaining what it’s like watching her go into self destruct mode about her looks
and how whatever people say about how lovely she is, she doesn’t take that in, if she is bullying herself that is what impacts strongest
that she needs to start self acceptance
that people are won’t like her more if she was prettier / thinner
but they will find it difficult to be around her if she is constantly criticising herself, asking for reassurance, not believing what people say etc
well she read it, was very quiet and then came and said it really helped her see that she is constantly seeking reassurance but the only reassurance that would actually make the difference is how she treats herself !!!

I’lol take that as a win … for now !!!

Poor thing.

My daughter wrote in her notebook, why can't I just be pretty. Im going to limit my eating etc etc.

The irony is she's a size 4 and stunning, bloody social media 😡

Oh, wow. So this kind of shouting doesn't just happen at ours then

What do you do when the act like this?? Like you are the lowliest servant who hasn't done their job well

I worry that ignoring it will enable dd to grow up to be rude, entitled and even abusive

Ignore or challenge?

No not just your house! I have two and let's just say it's been "interesting" 😀

My youngest is nineteen and things are slowly improving but she used to have these terrible rants about the way I run the house whilst making a huge mess and never lifting a finger herself. Part of it I attributed to hanger, part taking frustration with herself out on me, and part bloody Instagram where everyone's home, parents, food, clothes, lifestyle are picture perfect. The frequency and intensity of these rants have diminished thankfully but have been replaced by her subjecting me to a kind of "performance review" at the end of each day🙄It is, shall we say, intensely draining.

My advice is keep calm and never raise your voice if you can help it. [Sometimes I couldn't help myself.] But it's generally best to stay calm and not be drawn in to a tit for tat argument. If you can handle it with humour then do so. If not, just ignore until the worst is over and then say "I don't appreciate being shouted at, let's discuss this when you've calmed down". When it's too heated to even do that, then physically walk away. I have been known to actually leave the house with the dog on occasion

Just try though not to take it personally and remind yourself that it's a phase and "this too shall pass".

Yeah that's because few people talk about the problems of raising teens like they do do about toddlers! We're supposed to have a handle on the parenting by now! And there is your teen's confidentiality to consider too.

And I am so interested in pp comments about lack of privacy when parenting teens! This is so true! And something I never considered either.

We have had a squeaky bed for years. Never bothered us. But when ds got older, and his bedroom wall is against ours, I insisted that dh did something about it.
He did, all fine.

A few years later we were having a conversation and ds dropped something in which made it clear that he could hear the bed, until it was fixed.
😳

Ah well, good for them to know that old people can still have sex!

I feel a bit like Ab Fab's Edina, but I worry about my son not being teen enough!! that's not a humble-brag, I promise. He's just started the school 6th form, is a small, August-born boy and seems so very young. He's glued to one other boy (has been throughout school) and, for the 50 billionth time a teacher is telling me he's "very quiet", "blood out of a stone" etc. He comes home from school during the day when he can- just on his own- other boys play xbox together at their various houses (the teacher complains about this but i'd give anything for my son to socialise with others!!). He's quite sporty but will not join any teams- instead he expects his friend to play basketball etc with him, but friend not sporty (fair enough, he's got his own academic thing going on), so my son doesn't bother. Ditto skateboarding. All he does is play sea of bloody thieves with said friend at night. it's so frustrating. he does his school work and doesn't seem unhappy per se (not that he'd tell us). He just seems so young. I think he's a bit of a late-bloomer even without the summer-born thing being a problem. Hopefully one day he'll mature and put himself out there a bit more. I totally understand being shy, but it does upset me that he won't do anything other than sodding computer games. Of course, he's different at home but I suspect he clams up at school and no-one really knows him. I'm not sending him to university right after 6th form if this continues- dunno what I'll have him do- citizen course/part time jobs maybe- just want him to feel like he fits in and i'm not sure he does at the moment. I have a 13 year old daughter who is the exact opposite which shines a big light on my son's behaviour, I guess. Sorry, that was quite long- think I needed to get it out, been bottling it up last few days!