Finding your way back

[Zara82]

Anyone else?

After finding parenting fairly easy up until now finding themselves now they have teenagers back on parenting forums for advice and support?

Yup! I’m with you.

Yes, I have the same experience.
I feel like every day I resolve not to shout, and then the day ends in another battle of wills. My 14 year old is not particularly out of the ordinary, I don't think, but the strategies that worked when she was younger no longer do and her natural stubbornness and tendency to think she knows everything, mixed with teenage rebellion leads to choices that I fear might be damaging in the future.
I hate fighting, always have, and I hate taking things away. But I'm frankly at a loss as to how I should let all of this play out while preserving our relationship while steering her.

I would just say that we have been through hell with both of ours (now 14 and 15). The last 3 years have been a complete nightmare between them arguing with us and each other, recurrent mental health problems and just a generally awful atmosphere in the house (obviously all made much worse by the pandemic). I would never have believed it was going to get any better and have really felt grief for the family we thought we had built. People said 'they will come back' but it was impossible to believe. In the past 6 months things have definitely changed for the better - we aren't through the woods, but I do feel like we are a little team again and that both kids now bring their own skills and perspectives to whatever is happening in a way that is really different from when they were children. I just wanted to say that it does get better (even though that is hard to believe). I know mine are young but they are very close in age and the younger is very precocious so we just went into it all much earlier than everyone around us (which was also particularly awful as ours felt like little monsters next to everyone else's 11 and 12 year olds) but I do feel like we have come out of it earlier than some of our friends too.

One on One time has been quite important for us as well as trying to build a bit of self awareness in everyone about how their behaviour affects others (me and my husband included in the self awareness - I can be a bit melodramatic at times (for example!) so validating their perception of that whilst then sharing my own perception of their behaviour in turn has led to some quite interesting conversations that would otherwise have been massive rows x