What age do they get a bit more polite?

[Flyhigher]

My DD16 is getting a bit better.
I think 13/14 was the crescendo of rudeness.
It's still pretty bad. My boundaries have e been well and truly broken. I think it's 10/20% better.
Some odd flashes of actual niceness.
So how was it for you guys?
Give me ages and %.

And those of you with perfect polite girls please don't comment. I'm too jealous!

If someone starts a thread because they have an issue with their teen ie. rudeness - wtf is the need to come on it and say 'mine are totally polite you are a shit parent'

in what way is that helpful on a parenting website?

even if not ALL teens are rude - clearly it's within the normal range of behaviour for a fair amount of teens so it has a place on a parenting board

its just smug irritating comments made to make a parent feel shit

also - the worst comment here is 'you should have been a better parent when they were younger - just please go away! wht a nasty comment.

DS is 13, and is not so much rude as uncommunicative. Teachers all love him, friends’ parents are full of praise at how chatty and giggly he is, but we struggle to get much out of him. I advocate a teenager exchange programme between the ages of 13-16 as they’re always lovely to other people!

I think that the transition years of maybe 12-14 are the hardest. They're not children anymore but not quite adults either. Lots of big emotions but not a lot of life experience.
We've had 3 teens and none were rude. Bit selfish occasionally and preoccupied/stressed but receptive to a reminder about respect.
I think the points people are making about peer influence is very true though - teens do have to live in their own world and school behaviour is unfortunately often very toxic.
I think a lot of the poor behaviour at home could be partly because it's the safest place to decompress.

It's only on MN where people claim to have perfectly behaved teenagers who never put a foot wrong or speak rudely to anyone.

It's also only on MN that people blame the parents for "tolerating" it.

In reality, I don't know a single parent of teenagers who doesn't struggle with manners or attitude or grumpiness. The teenage "phase" is well recognised both in humans and other animals so I'm not sure why so many people are keen to deny it.

Of course all children are different and I'm sure some cope with their teenage years better than others, but to say it's all down to parenting is really unfair IMO. It's also very easy to say "it's about parenting" when you have an easy teenager 😉

OP, to answer your question, I was at my worst between about 12-15. Things definitely improved from there!

I think with DD 14 to 16 were the worst years. Shes 19 now and much more polite - although still has her moments. I was told the other day that I can't tell her what to do. She's right, I can't, but perhaps going out to McDonalds at 3am was not the best choice.

DS is 15 and it varies. He has days where he is rude and obnoxious. Other days he's much more polite - I think these days outweigh the bad ones.

My DC 18 and 20 have never ever been rude to me. No arguing, no stomping, no slammed doors. They've just never done anything like it.

I did put in a lot of 'groundwork' (!) when they were little. They knew very early on what boundaries they had and also knew not to over step them.

Maybe it was that. Maybe it's because it's just the 3 of us and we're very close.

Or maybe I just got very very lucky!!!

As you don't have a son I'm not sure how you can say that. I think boys needs parenting as much as girls do and I have both.

People, even teenagers, are all individuals. I have 3 sons, I'd say two have never been rude and one certainly was. If I'd only had the two I would have said my kids have never been rude because it is true. Both in 40s now and still never rude to me, the other one grew out of it.

I find the opposite. My teenagers, all my friends teenagers and my teenagers friends are all lovely.
They work hard, help out at home, are active and sociable.
This doesn't mean they're perfect. It just means the arguments are manageable because it's not constant and the teens are still part of normal family life.

but you have tolerated it . You have just said "no we don't hit" and "can you say that again in a nicer way". If that is the sum total of you "not tolerating" then I am not surprised it had no effect

There is no reason for anyone to accept any rudeness from a normal teen. If they have SEND then that can be different, but most teens are lovely, and manageable at home.

Well, at the age of 2 I was hardly going to lock him in a cupboard or hit him back was I! Did you miss the bit where I said I put him in time out for hitting? Every. Single. Time. For two years....🙄

yes, sorry I missed that, I thought you had just said things

It’s something about taking the credit for well behaved kids, like you are superior and have parented better. It is, in the main, bollocks, of course.

My DD is 13 almost 14 and she is never rude, she is lovely and polite, she would hate to come across as rude (sorry I'm just being completely honest)

DS 1 is 18 and he is very polite and lovely, so helpful and honestly a breath of fresh air.

DS 2 is 17, he isn't rude but can be a little bit moody at times.

but it's just irrelevant that some teens are not rude - it's literally totally not relevant to the question.

The OP is asking for responses from people who have experience of what she is describing not smug comments from people with perfect children.

ie. if you posted - my baby wakes 10 times a night and lots of people say 'my baby sleeps perfectly sorry to share that with you'

The difference is pattern of baby waking is totally outside of your control, but pattern of rudeness in teens depends on what parents have done in the past and are doing now, in 99% of cases

Agree with you fieldsofbutterflies

Three cheers to all the “perfect” parents on here who enjoy pointing out where the rest of us went wrong 😀😀

We have what most people call a “normal” stable family home and our teens were absolutely lovely outside of it; they were prefects at school, volunteered, did wholesome extra curricular activities like rock climbing and tennis, played happily with family babies, kind to animals, studied well, had lovely friends etc.

But inside the home I don’t mind admitting they were moody, rude, truculent, sometimes uncooperative and they had temper tantrums too. It was a really, really challenging time for my dh and me. And I found that not many people spoke about it in rl but you only need to take a look at the teenagers board on here to know that some teens and parents are really going through it.

We count ourselves lucky because our teens did not drink or take drugs and never disappeared without letting us know. But they were still a handful. It was the emotional ups and downs that were the hardest to negotiate. And their sheer selfishness during that time. They have now reverted back in to lovely young adults.

I gather this is a totally natural period of development involving massive brain plasticity where they withdraw and look inwards. Their defensiveness is apparently a protective mechanism that kicks in to keep them safe, which stems from the time when we all lived in tribes and puberty was the period when they left the protection of the home to seek pastures new.

That’s not to say that parenting isn’t important as teens are very adept at sniffing out hypocrisy and any whiff of “do what I say and not what I do” and they will reassess who you are with rather unforgiving newly mature eyes and we have to be worthy of that scrutiny.

But, if it’s any consolation to those on here who are struggling, a psychologist friend who I cried to at the time, says the teens she worries about the most are those that are too passive, quiet, and compliant as that could indicate that they are not individuating properly in to independent adults.

So I assume you returned the trainers then because you said you would if he wouldn't be grateful and polite. Or did he get the trainers?

In your first bit where he grunts and heavy sighs I would not have accepted that. There would be talking first about how it is unacceptable and if it continued then there would be consequences but we also made it very clear how we expected the children to behave.

They could not do that to a teacher, if a teacher asked them something, they grunted and walked out of the room there would be consequences which is why @MrsTerryPratchett asked the question, rude to you or rude to everyone?

Sorry but my observations are can’t help but notice that parents that let their NT kids talk to them like shit in the primary years then this pattern continues into the teen years. Finally the teens wise up late teen and start treating their parents better. If you get in early and set patterns of what is acceptable they broadly follow it when they are teens. ND different im talking about your average kid.

@AloeVerity "plastics" is from the film Mean Girls, they are an exclusive group of girls led by queen bee Regina George, who are depicted as shallow, arrogant, and thoughtless.

So why did I have one lovely teen and then a surly, ignorant one, when they’d both been raised exactly the same way?

The irony that PPs come onto this thread to brag that their DCs were wonderful teens because they’d been taught perfectly how not to be rude. It is the height of rudeness to rub someone’s nose in it when that person is struggling. Maybe they don’t have the astounding levels of politeness they all think they do.

we are answering the question asked - when will teens stop being rude? When you teach them to. Although most of the teaching has to be before teen years.

I did all those things for years, again and again. I didn’t return the trainers but I’d keep hold of them until he could be civil to me. One time he walked out of the house in his bare feet in the snow just to make a point.

We had a million discussions about acceptable behaviour. He lost privileges (phone, X-box) and was grounded lots of times. I’m not a wet lettuce that would just accept it!

As I’d previously said he was good in school, polite and hard working. It was just me that he hated. He was quite grumpy with DH and his siblings but not to the levels he was with me. He was lovely outside the house. I’d often be complimented on his good manners by other people (and still am). I’m always being told what a lovely lad he is. He’s lovely to me now too!

I think before disparaging and stereotyping girls, people need to see what an average female teenager goes through at secondary school. Add hormones into the equation, and societal expectations of what women should be and look like and then remember what you were like at that age. No wonder they’re monosyllabic and unhappy.

That’s not an excuse to be rude of course, but I think if you’re the safe space for them to decompress, as a parent of teens you can’t expect them to be perfect all the time. I would ignore them and just be a quiet support in the background while they navigate secondary school.