Is life with a teenager inevitably hideous?

[Winnie]

Hi everyone, it is good to see this discussion on teenagers... what I'd like to ask other parents is 'is life with a teenager inevitably hideous?'
My daughter is eleven-going on fifteen(at least). She has always been a great kid (but I would say that wouldn't I?) but thankfully everywhere we go people say this too. Since my daughter was a toddler my mother has said, with an air of wishful thinking,'wait until she is a teenager!' I was a hideous teenager (although not by todays standards) but I had a terrible relationship with my parents. My daughter and I have a good relationship which I dread loosing, is teenager angst inevitable? What are your experiences?

[doormat]

plus you can pinch their clothes and make-up

[chenin]

There is nothing like having teenagers in the house - on the whole I love it! I have 2 DDs, one 14 in 2weeks, and the other 17 next Jan. They keep you young - you have no choice if yu want to be involved in their lives!
BUT, they are soooooo selfish - life revolves around them - they will only do anything for you if it is in their interests - we spend a lot of time bargaining! They can be evil tempered, moody, sulky and just plain mean!
Having said that, both mine can also be a delight. My idea of bliss is going clothes shopping with them - they love it, I love it. I love their fearlessness, their strong opinions on the world and what goes on in it. I love their ambition and their ideals.
My DD1's social life means everything to her and I love hearing about the latest gossip at what goes on!
On the whole, the good outweighs the bad, by far, but it is really hard work!!!

[doormat]

winnie teenagers imo can be hideous yet loveable

the bad points imo experience is that they can be trumped up know it all little beggars

hormones raging from one day to the next-ya afraid to open up your mouth sometimes

secretive behaviour-but they dont realise you were young once and did what they are now up to

backchatting-arggh winds me up

but the good points are
you can have a laugh and a joke

tell them the boring old fart stories of your yester year-which they find interesting

help you out around the house

and most important of all is you can advise them were you went wrong in life and hopefully listen to you

i love them to bits hormones and all

[ggglimpopo]

Message withdrawn

[mumeeee]

I have 3 teenage girls aged 13, 15 and 18. Although they can be very trying at times and often argue we do also nave some great times and they do usually get on with each other.
My 18 year old has left home and is living in halls. She often texts me and recently asked if I could meet her for coffee.
We have just taken the younger 2 to New York ( eldest is having some money to go towards a unu trip to Kenya) and have had a great time they both enjoyrd spending time with us( although of course we stil had a bit of grumpiness mainly due to jet lag). Befoer you all think we are very rich wer're not this trip was funded buy money frpm my father in law he wanted to give ti to us now instead ogf leaving it to us in his will.
We aso do have some nice ordainary days with all 3 girls.

[Tortington]

and we do tend to post about the rotten stuff. i dont gloat about how he painted the lobby for me or how he gets up at 6.30am to go to a job in the holidays. how they all run out to the car to bring the shopping in or go to the shop on demand. i dont talk about how lovely it is just to have a conversation with my 15 year old or tell them about stuff - like the vietnam war - that they have no idea about.

how utterly delightful they can be in general. am a lucky person to have such aloving family.

sure i wanted social services to take him away a few months back but essentially they're great.


and the funniest things come at the most serious moments - like a 5 ft 2 woman looking upwards with wagging finger at her 15 year old son and 12 year old daughter.

its great to swap jokes. i get called a poisened dwarf shorty and such by my ginger hubby and also my kids- thats just begging for it - and he gets it off the kids too!
farting competitions. highly exvcellent. is good sometimes

[motheroftwoboys]

No, I work with teenagers as well as having two and they can be lovely! they can be foul as well but can't we all. Try to remember what you felt like at a couple of years older (imagine your 16 year old brain in your 14 year olds body) and you get something like what they are. That's what the head at our boys school told us and it seems tomake sense. They can be so mature one minute and so vulnerable the next. They can be wonderfully idealistic - our 15 year old won't use any nescafe products at the moment. And they are just wonderful to talk to. Wonderful to keep up to date with current music. In my small experience I think boys seem a bit easier than girls. My son's boy friends come and talk to me but when girls are round they just seem to disappear. Talking to mothers of girls this seems to be standard. Apparently parents are embarassing! And it's great just seeing them grow physically. My little boy now has a 6 pack! It's great. (Most of the time!) Honest!!!

[Donbean]

I had a most horrific 2 years with a teenage niece who came to live with us.
Now i have a 2 year old and i have resigned myself to the fact that all teanagers are horrors, uncontrollable, rebellious, with no self control, no morals, no personal ethic and a taste for drink and what ever drug comes thier way.
My stomach churns at the thought of my boy hitting teenage years.
For me this is a foregone conclusion...however, its not a fair assumption is it.
My hubby is a college lecturer and he has to teach the "unteachables" who no one else wants or can control and it has opened up a whole new perspective on teenagers for me.
He argues that i am wrong in my assumptions, that the kids he works with are not essentially bad but need direction, some one to have confidence in them and encouragement.
I am converted, still apprehensive though.

[noddyholder]

My ds is 11 and has just started secondary school.He is getting a bit lippy so this is probably the start I will watch this thread with interest for tips on keeping a cool head

[doormat]

in my experience teenage girls have their moments
they can be gobby and opinionated
they can be helpful and good
they can be secretive yet trustworth
they can be demanding but they
are all still loveable

[PottytheVampireSlayer]

Lol winnie - you still sound pretty sane though so you must've done OK

[winnie]

4 years later I can answer my own question: sometimes it is hideous having a teenager in the house!!!!!!

[tinkabell]

If someone had of told me my son would be out of near control when he became 14+ I would never have believed it...As I brought him up with strong boundries, I taught him manners etc,...FORGET IT!!! But its all returning slowely but surley hes 18..

[Janh]

cam, you sound like me...my mother, did she but know it, almost made me rebellious by being such a daft bat. on one occasion, "tidying my room", she came across a letter i had written to a friend about a really quite mild snogging session; i was on a french exchange and she sent me an APPALLING letter calling me a slut. i was 16!!! this was 1967!!!! (and she kept it, hidden in her stockings drawer - i wonder now if she was planning to blackmail me!)
i learnt a lot from that though. i do occasionally find out things i might prefer not to know but i do keep quiet about them. and both my daughters tell me things i would never have told my mother, both about themselves and their friends. tigermoth - keep the channels of communication open at all times - if poss!!!

i have 2 boys too - 8 and nearly 13. currently we all have a pretty good relationship, apart from normal daily niggles. i so hope it lasts!

[Tigermoth]

If my sons ever keep diaries I will be just so pleased they are putting old-fashioned pen to paper in their own free time that I would be happy with whatever they wrote.

Seriously though and something all teenage diary-keepers and their parents could bear in mind,
all diaries run the risk of being read eventually. I have all my late mother's teenage diaries. She didn't choose to dispose of them, and she crossed bits out, so I assume what remains I can read. Very funny some of it, I can tell you. I was amazed at what she got up to - and so young!

So, if my worry was really gigantic, I'd read my son's diaries and as others have said, never, ever tell.

As for all the comments on bringing up teenagers, Janh, Chairmum, Tiktok and others with more grown up children, don't go away now will you? I can see myself asking you lots of questions. Have no experience whatsoever of teenage sons. Am stressed just thinking about it.

[Cam]

Dear Bloss
Your upbringing sounds ideal - I think I must be much older than you (I am pretty old as I have a 28 year old and a 4 year old) but when I was a teenager it was obligatory to rebel as hard as possible! At least it gave me the ability not be shocked or "impressed" by anything that my eldest daughter subsequently did. She was nowhere near as wild as I had been. However, in reality I was rebelling in a very self-controlled way and always knew I would never make it a "lifestyle". It was a specific phase with a lot of peer pressure involved. By the time my 4 year old enters those difficult years, I will be far too old to care and probably collecting my pension (if there is any by then!). Anyway 4 year olds today already think they are teenagers and have "makeup" to play with,etc, don't they.

[Rachel1969]

Winnie - I know ... my mum didn't learn either. Ten years on she did the same with my baby sister and then rang me in tears over what she'd found. That was my chance to tell her why she shouldn't have done it to either of us in the first place - except a bit more articulately than screaming I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I WISH I WAS DEAD at her!!!!!
In all honesty though I think it would be very hard not to read your child's diary - it would be such an insight into the way they think and how they feel about the world we've brought them into. And maybe what they think about us. But it's just fraught with danger ...

[Winnie]

Rachel1969, probably around the same time judging by your nickname, my mother read my diary and found out things she'd rather not have known, and like you it did not help our relationship a bit. In fact I still keep a diary and although I don't hide it from partner or children (we all respect eachothers privacy) when my mother came to babysit this weekend, asusual, I hid it!!!

Only read the diary if you really, really feel there is no alternative and be prepared to learn things you really, really don't want to learn and never, never, admit it. (I can't believe I have just written the last 4 words my policy is always honesty at all times!

[Rachel1969]

My mum read my diary when I was a teenager and discovered things that she really didn't need to know about me - we had a blazing row and I felt like my privacy had been utterly violated. It marked the beginning of the love/hate period in our relationship which lasted years.
However ... I think I'd read my daughters diaries but only if we were having problems with them at the time. If everything was rosy then it would be too much of an intrusion - I think it's one of those extreme measures you take if you don't have any alternative.
If you do without damn good reason then I think you only have yourself to blame for what you discover - as long as your kids are happy don't you have to trust them to be doing the right thing (or what they believe is the right thing for them)?
Omigod - am now imagining my sweet little girls being teenagers and getting up to all the exciting but awful things that I got up to. Am going to have to go for a little lie down...
Can we talk about something else - like secret ways of stopping time?

[Janh]

gracie, you are undoubtedly right. i just asked my 16-yr-old if she was aware of any of the lads at her school ever having kept a diary - she might have heard a rumour! - and she said she didn't think so...mind you if they did they wouldn't advertise it, would they, lads being what they are (one of their friends would find it and THEY would advertise it!) but she is good friends with some of them and would probably know.

[Gracie]

Aren't they just a LOT more likely to keep a diary than boys??

[Janh]

bugsy, i replied earlier but obviously forgot to post...
no criticism intended - i just thought it interesting that you assumed a daughter because i did too, thinking about s.e.x. probably, but it could be drugs or bullying or school and could just as likely be a boy. i think we just feel teenage girls are more vulnerable.

[Bugsy]

Apologies, for the daughter assumption - no offence intended.

[Janh]

bugsy - she didn't say it was a daughter....

[Bugsy]

Robbie, I think if you are worried about your daughter you should do anything you can to find out what is wrong. If something did happen to her, reading her diary would seem a very trivial thing to have done.
However, don't tell her that you did this. It is undoubtedly a violation of her privacy and she will not understand or respect you for having done it at this stage in her life.
Good luck - I hope you get it all sorted out.