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

3 teens here also 🙄🙄 I thought parenting was a piece of cake until they all turned into demon teens. I actually really dislike my 18 year old DD, I started to dislike her when she turned about 16 and thought my warm loving feelings towards her would return but they haven't 🫢 at this rate I don't think they ever will.

Apart from the odd tantrum and hurling abuse at me every now and then, my 16 year old twin boys aren't the worst 🙈🙈

OMG I found my people!
I thought it was just us who had a spiky, shouty, rude one whose childhood was apparently dreadful and lurches from tears to tantrums and back.
I am reading through the thread but thank you to the poster who advised being a grey rock when it happens, it’s worth a try as nothing else is working for us.

On the point about privacy, I wasn’t talking about sex because my dh and I have a room that is on a different floor to everyone else 😄

I was talking more about personal space and time alone. My teen girls are in my bedroom, helping themselves to my clothes, my tights, beauty products. I don’t mind the borrowing of things so much, as long as they ask and wash and put things back, but the thing that gets me more is never knowing when I am going to have a good chunk of time alone.

And they are always hungry so I feel
I need to cook healthy food for them and they need driving to places and picking up late at night. Honestly, I never knew that parenting teens would be so time consuming and demanding. And they have strong opinions about what I do with my time, what I wear, my cooking, the decisions I make at work. I feel under observation all of the time! I also feel pressured that I need to live up to their gaze iyswim!

Well my almost teen is having a doozy of a week. I have had a call from school every day about her behaviour. My older 2 were no angels but she has had more detentions in the last 2 weeks (3) than either did added together their whole secondary education. I just can't talk to her. There is no breaking through

I have three teens too. It’s relentless. They need you more yet push you away. It’s all on their terms. They cost more. The worries are greater, more life changing. I’m looking forward to saying that they are all out the other side, yet I know when that happens I’ll be old!

My issue is how much do you push them to work to achieve their own goals and how much do you leave them to let them float by. Their mental health is better now for not being pushed but when they fail to see the goals they set themselves that they are perfectly able to achieve their mental health will take a hit then. It’s a constant decision re finding a balance. And I can so relate to them pp who says that when we are done with their current life changing worries we will be old!

Outburst this evening ;
you love my friend more than me !!!
storms out of car slamming door !

i was just asking how the friend was - just for conversation!!!!
😩😩😩

Lightattheendofthetunnel100
totally get what you are saying about privacy.
I have loads of programs on record, but do I ever get and evening when I can sit down with a cup of tea and watch something I want on TV?
No.

And when they are being arsey and shouty, I really want them to go to bed so I can have an hour of peace.

I can relate to you all.

If that helps you feel a bit less crap

I needed to see this today. My 14 year old is struggling big time - low mood, low self esteem, friendship issues, feels u worthy of being loved or having good things happen to her. She would tell you herself her life is good so she doesn’t know why she feels like this but spends every day waiting for it to fall apart. She has a lovely boyfriend and they are very committed to each other. But then she wonders if he’s faking it because she doesn’t deserve to be loved. She is so emotionally fragile. I think some form of ptsd from primary school bullying. We’ve got an appointment with a psychologist week after next - I’m wondering if she at actually need a bit of medication to help. Then there’s my 12 year old - totally pushed to the sidelines as I spend so much time trying to talk DD down from one of her moods. I feel guilty for that - and he’s one of the easiest kids alive. The teen years are hard - aren’t they!

Can I join - even if just for a placeholder please? I have a nearly 14 and nearly 13 year old. The nearly 14 year old is a type one diabetic which brings all the fun of the fair with it as well. I am just so frustrated with him with the amount of screens. The constant swiping does my head in - is this normal?! He is in other ways lovely and still comes for a dog walk each evening which I know is not normal, but I am glad.

DD is getting progressively more hormonal and moody and not loving her change to secondary school, is getting hugely anxious about everything and told me the other day she was worried about getting fat 😣

So this thread resonates so much. It’s amazing just to feel that it’s normal and it’s not just me.

DS has just started year 12 and has been moody, grumpy and shouty for a good few years. We’ve had some epic shouts and I’ve had to work really hard not to lose my temper - grey rock is the way forward. They won’t listen so it just escalates and in our house leads to throwing… So we’ve gone with calm consequences (no xbox etc.) for really poor behaviour and let a lot of small stuff slide.

BUT, he is starting to show moments of maturity and self control. We’ve had moments of adult-like bonding over younger DD. Yesterday he bought me a packet of maltesers. With my money but it’s the thought that counts! It gives me hope.

And then I have an almost teen. Who has anxiety. And needs a completely different parenting style. Aaaaarrrrggghhh

It's heartening to read others tales of woe.

I'm scared my teen daughter will think I was a shitty mum - she can be so vindictive.

I never felt that way towards my mum: or at least I don't recall the same sense of malice towards her.

What worries me also sometimes is that I can do grey rock; but I also feel kind of grey rock.

Pleasegivemeyourwisdom What is “grey rock”? Please give me your wisdom 😀

I don’t know the answer to this, I wish I did as it was something we struggled with massively!

Grey rock is not reacting to them when they are shouting, ranting, anxious. Just really calm and not saying anything. it’s bloody hard but you have to understand that they don’t have control of their emotions and not see it as bad behaviour that needs correcting.

Often on these thread someone with small kids will come on and say “I’d never left my kids be so disrespectful”. Once mine were teenagers I had to let go of that and choose a line (for me it’s physical violence) which is way beyond anything I would have taken previously. Before i did that it was constant arguing and it made no difference to them and exhausted me.

For DS I remove myself as then he would stomp off and calm down. For DD i stay but just don’t say anything until she’s winding down and then I can comfort her but she’s more anxiety driven.

I can’t tell you how glad I was to find this thread in the middle of my sleepless night. DD is 13. I’m struggling to understand what is ‘normal’ hormonal and developmental change (as many of you have described above), what is personality or temperament (she’s always tended to the negative and is very anxious) or if she is depressed.

Had to move schools last year due to bullying. Finds it impossible to let her barriers down now I think. But also very resistant to anything that could help. Won’t speak to any adults at school about anything other than very surface level stuff.

She won’t engage at the minute in things that she usually enjoys eg dog walks, swimming, cooking together. I do get an hour or so most evenings when she’ll sit in the kitchen while I cook (and give me a lengthy ranting monologue for me to practise my skills of patience and tongue biting), or she will sit on my bed and talk. She does open up sometimes I guess.

This all sounds familiar. Agree with someone upthread it’s so hard to know how much to do in terms of encouraging their interests. Sometimes I have to just about push them out the door for eg swim training. But they come back buzzing and happy when finished. But I feel so mean forcing them to go

Lightattheendofthetunnel I absolutely get the privacy issue. All my make up is now in a make up case with a luggage lock on as it was continually being pilfered. And DD can run through a whole bottle of foundation in a week. She puts it on with a flipping trowel! The cupboards look like a plague of locusts have been through but she will take a few bites and then put the remainder of what she’s prepared in the bin. I find it very hard not lose my, um, sense of perspective to put it tactfully then. I have worked bloody hard to buy/ grow (allotment), earn a wage to pay for this food and she knows it. She will also use my phone to call her friends when she’s out of data and hang out in my bedroom taking selfies but if I so much as touch her phone or go into her bedroom she screeches like a wounded owl. I do remember my own teenage years and none too fondly but I think hers must be very hard to be acting out this much!

I sometimes feel my role is to be a sitting target or a sponge for all of my dd’s negative emotions when she can’t handle them.

Just this afternoon she came out of her room cranky after a nap, basically started to rant at me about what are, in her eyes, all of my inadequacies and after a massive rant of about seven minutes in which I tried to remain calm, it was evident she felt better.

I will try and talk to her later about this, as I don’t think it’s a good idea that she routinely manages her emotions by dumping them on someone else, but again it’s about learning where you set the boundary.

I was very proud of myself this afternoon for grey rocking during a walk which clearly made her feel a lot better. Ended up with having some actual fun for a bit. And then I ruined it after arriving back home when she said that ‘being in the same room as everyone’ (i.e her dad and me) made her ‘feel horrible’. I pointed out that rephrasing that to something like ‘I’d like to be on my own for a while’ would be preferable, and was treated to a rant about ‘okay, I’ll try to protect your feelings next time I want to express my emotions’….

Aaaaaghhh! I’ve been protecting her all weekend. Then I get it wrong.

@parrotonmyshoulder the one thing I think we can all take from this thread is that we will AWAYS be wrong whatever we do. Well done for keeping calm for so long.

Someone did tell me it’s like having toddlers. Remember you’d never have a good day with a toddler, more like good moments so hold onto the good bits. They are unpredictable, unreasonable and prone to tantrums. And you have to pick your battles. Best of all, they will grow out of it!!

I think that in between the grey rock moments, our teens do need us to say - actually that hurts, how about phrasing it this way.

Because they do still need to learn about communicating emotions.
So don't worry about her ranting back. the good afternoon isn't in vain, and I bet theat next time you might just hear a difference in how she expresses it. Just remember no to notice it or she'll never do it again 😂

I've only got one! But it's rare a day goes by without crying. Still, alive fed and still speaking to me!

Just found this thread can I join??
I was one of those annoying teen mums who thought I was breezing through with ds 17 and dd 14 BUT ds turned 17 and out came the attitude/eye rolling etc
Dd still currently 'nice' but only because the activity she is obsessed with is a 5 Mike drive away with no public transport links and she knows my car keys don't work if she has a shitty attitude!!
Just had Covid now being investigated for potential long Covid and really dont have the energy to deal with them turning into arseholes right now!!