When you were a teenager....

[tatt]

did you have a good relationship with your parents? (Have just been to a talk about maintaining good relationships with your teenagers and felt it was totally naive.)

[peacockparty]

I was a teenager not so very long ago and had (have) a great relationship with my parents. They never really set boundaries, so I suppose I never felt I had to push them. I knew how they'd like me to behave, but it was never a case of 'this is our rule, you will stick to it' more 'we'd rather you didn't come in pissed every night or sleep around, but in the end it's your life.' Equally I told them some of what was going on, but spared them the gory details! I'm sure they know that when I rocked in at 1am and dropped the teapot on the floor I wasn't totally sober, but they never made a huge deal out of drinking a bit with friends or sleepovers with boys, so they never turned into things that were big deals. I'd still just as happily hang out with my mum and dad as my friends.

[ShinyAndNew]

I asked my mum to put me in care when I was 15 and left home at 17, so that'd be a no from me.

[ilovemy2babies]

I had a good relationship with both my parents up until i was 16. My parents split up then. I grew closer to my mum because i saw the pain she went through with the divorce and also she got ill not long after so i helped nurse her through her illness.

Sadly with my dad i dont have any contact with him hes not been in my life since i was 16 but as a teenager i guess i got on pretty well with them both

[tatt]

the impression I am getting is those who saw the relationship as good are mainly those allowed to do what they wanted. Also that those who now see the relationship as good still think they had their moments at the time?

[bigTillyMint]

Yes Otter, I know loads of people who had an alcoholic parent.

Oh Claire2009, poor you - at least one of my parents was OK.

[Marne]

Yes and no, i could talk openly to my mum but didn't always agree with what she was saying.

I was a good teenager apart from getting together with a bad boy, i rarely drank, i smoked a bit of pot (which my mum knew about) and i never got in trouble with the police or at school.

[MrsJohnDeere]

No. Awful relationship with my mother from as young as I can remember (3 years ish) to present day. Very fond of my father but my mother got jealous if he spent 'quality time' with me; wasn't really allowed to get close to him.

Very controlling mother. Wasn't allowed to have friends, do normal teenage things.

[ABetaDad]

Parents didn't do teenagers. They sent me to boarding school instead. I hated going home.

[redclover79]

no, but if you asked my mother she'd say we had a great relationship...

[Slimcognito]

Christ no, it was terrible. My parents (mum and step dad) were a combination of ultra strict and yet neglectful (it was all about their terms, what was good for them, controlling opposition to their rule of iron, no back chat etc).

So for example they would obsessively quiz me about whether I was smoking (I wasn't) whether I'd had underage sex (I hadn't) whether I'd lied about taking the last chocolate digestive (who knows, who cares?) and they read my diary, but they didn't notice (or care) when I being sexually abused under their noses by a family member, or that I was seriously depressed and stressed when all contact with my natural dad was cut off (I remember crying guiltily at night in bed every night because I missed my grandma and aunty and felt responsible).

Possibly my situation was so outside the norm in that I now see that my parents (esp my mum) were emotional abusers, but even despite the difficulties I think that having a same sex mentor outside of the family would have been a helpful, positive role model, some freedoms and allowances but with boundaries and small responsibilities.

Fostering a sense of self and sense of inherent goodness and self worth in teens is essential, I think with me it was very much a case of "give a dog a bad name".

[branflake81]

I wasn't particulary unruly (never smoked, got pissed or disappeared etc etc) but I was very rude, argumentative, grumpy and probably a right PITA to live with.

I get on with them much better now.

To be honest, I think it's luck of the draw whether you get on with your teen. It all depends how "nice" they are regardless of anything you do or don't do as a parent.

[JesusChristOtterStar]

my mum was an alcoholic seems like there were a lot of us with this parental issue

claire 2009 i hope all is good for you now

[frakkinaround]

I don't think so although on the surface it probably looked like it. I couldn't talk to them - they're just not the talking type, they didn't really give me anything to rebel against because there were never any consequences to the minor things I delibrately did wrong to tick them off and I just ended up not talking to them, being well behaved and sulking about it. I did have 2 very attention-seeking, demanding, time-consuming, younger siblings though so I can see why they didn't bother so much about the stuff I was trying to make a big deal of and failing miserably! But then my attempts were pathetic anyway...mostly not doing homework/music practice. I was very non-rebellious because it didn't get a reaction. I never wanted to go down the excess alcohol, drugs, sleeping around route some people went down. In fact for a while I went completely the opposite way and was very religious.

On the writing pornography theme I did write erotica, in my mid-teens, and won a prize for it which sort of defeated the purpose of doing it for the shock value! I never let them read it though.

[notnowbernard]

Tatt you asked what made me feel safe talking to my parents

My Mum was always quite honest about things, 'tricky' subjects weren't brushed under the carpet etc

I remember being told from an early age that I could always tell them ANYTHING, no matter what it was, even if I thought it would make them furious... of course I didn't blabber my deepest secrets to them or anything, but I suppose I always knew that if the shit really hit the fan I would be alright, they'd be there

I also knew that although my Dad (bless 'im) was a bit naive wrt teenage girl angst and all that comes with it, NOTHING would escape my Mother

She found out bloody everything

[treaclespongeofdeath]

Yes, I did, although in retrospect I realise that I can't have been that easy to live with. I did all the usual stupid teenage things like sleeping around, drinking, taking drugs etc and thought that my parents had no idea what I was up to, but they must have done really. They were divorced at this point but I could swap between their houses when I liked as they lived so close together, which was probably a relief for both of them at times!

I always thought of myself as a 'good' teenager because I never really argued much with my parents, and certainly never shouted at them, but then they never shouted at me. I think my mum probably just bit her lip and let me get on with it, and although I used to lie about where I was going and so forth, I wouldn't stay out later than I said I would be out. We still have an excellent relationship now.

[dinster]

Yes. I was sulky and a bit uncommunicative but always very close to my mum as my dad was an alcoholic, which completely put me off ever wanting to rebel in that way and cause her more angst.

I was also terribly bothered back then about being a cliche and overcompensated by being super-responsible! Was a cliche in the sense of being surly and unenthusiastic about things though...

It worries me for the future that rebelling, hiding things from parents, drugs/drink etc are so much seen as being the norm for teenagerhood. They weren't for me and I feel very unprepared for dealing with that in the future.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Nope.

Was not allowed to see mum (was raised by my gran, called my gran mum and had to refer to my mum as my sister, even though contact was forbidden). My gran was a violent and nasty woman. Looking back she must have had severe mental problems, but at the time I was just scared of her, to be honest. Gran is dead now, started to get to know my mother when I was 18, we have a fractious relationship now, as I have periods of not understanding why she left me to be raised by a violent and disturbed woman.

Never met my father. He didn't know I existed when I was a child anyway, found out about me whenI was in my early 20s.

Very close to 13 year old dd and hope that the closeness can be maintained. I love her to bits (obv) and hope that I am managing to bring her up to be confident, happy and to feel secure and very much loved and cared for.

[StephHaydock]

Not with my dad. Hardly saw him, really. Parents split up when I was 6 yrs old and although my dad was always about (lived locally, made some effort to see us weekly when we were kids), once I became a teenager I had no real interest in spending time with him and saw him less than monthly.

Always had a very close relationship with my mum, although fraught with the usual 'I hate you, mum!'-type arguments.

As an adult I am extremely close to my mum and have a much closer and happier relationship with my dad.

[cyteen]

No, although I think I would have if my mum had lived. Her suicide, as well as obviously removing one half of the parental equation, totally fucked up my dad and sent the family dynamic into chaos. The result was that I made sure he knew as little about my real life as possible and maintained a good girl exterior of school success etc. while I was dying inside.

[leamac]

Had a terrible relationship with my mum from age 14, I decided one day not to speak to her and didn't, i just went around the house ignoring her, however in my defence her only form of discipling her kids was to smack them rapidly around the head, however at 16 my dad died and it brought us closer then 3 months after that I fell pregnant and had to get on with her, quite close now but it took years to heal

[OmniDroid]

I'm obv in a complete minority here, but yes, we had a good relationship throughout my teens.

I wasn't rebellious (if that makes anyone worry about me, fine), was focused on O and A levels, had a curfew which I understood and respected, only drank any silly amount at 17th and 18th birthday parties and was generally fine, if a little uncommunicative and hormonal. As far as I know, most of my friends had similar relationships in their own families.

I like my parents as well as loving them - I liked them then, I like them now. I guess I always understood that I didn't want to hurt or worry them, and they were clear about what the ground rules were in the family. And they gave me a decent amount of freedom and autonomy - I first went on holiday with just friends at 14, but never had any inclination to take the piss beyond smoking a few fags.

I don't understand the 'all teens do this that and the other' that I see on here. Maybe most do, but not all.

[serenity]

I was a complete bitch to my Mum from the age of about 13 to about 15, but it was generally caused by a mixture of depression (mine, godawful hormonal/PMT crap) and following my emotionally abusive Dad's lead. She says I wasn't as bad as I thought I was though Most of my younger sisters friends were terrified of me apparently, so I think I must have been quite shitty.

I know I just took everything anyone ever said to me completely the wrong way - it was all a personal attack, and I essentially lived in my room the entire time. It only improved when I discovered a sense of empathy and realised how out of order my Dad was, and basically switched sides.

[bigTillyMint]

Erm, I dunno!

My dad was an alcoholic - my mum finally divorced him when I was 10 and I didn't ever see him again. I think I was a pretty sensible teen on the whole, though I did all the usual stuff like boys/pubs/clubs,etc.

My mum was a bit of a doormat in the relationship, which I hated, and did turn to me for my opinion / advice - i sometimes felt like I was the adult. But she was always there for me and not critical.... She pretty much let me do what I liked, but she was / is SO naive.

It was a bit suffocating just being her and me and I couldn't wait to go to uni.

I don't know if she thought I was a PITA, but I often thought she was{grin]

[BertieBotts]

Sort of. I have always had a good relationship with my mum and have always been able to talk to her about stuff but it was the years from 14-18 that were difficult because I started doing things or feeling things I didn't necessarily want to share with her because she was too close.

We clashed from about 14 onwards because my friends were beginning to be allowed more freedom and I wasn't, or wasn't allowed as much. My sister (3 years younger) was still wanting to play childish games with me and more often I just wanted to be alone/be with my friends/write really bad goth poetry and listen to music There were also all the mood swings which didn't help with the above, and school work steps up a bit in the GCSE years with coursework etc so I felt a lot of pressure there because I was never very good at organising myself.

There are also a lot of big issues it is common to encounter for the first time as a teenager, if not personally then definitely through friends - boyfriend/girlfriend issues, pregnancy scares, alcohol, drugs, sexuality, death. There were things I would be told and sworn to secrecy on which I didn't feel I could tell my mum about because she knew my friends, but would really want to tell her. I did tell her some things in the end and it was fine.

I do remember I was very angry at times and I think it must have been hormonal or frustration because I'm not an angry person at all and never have been (apart from my teenage years!) - I did probably say some horrible stuff, I remember one time I made my mum cry And that made me stop and think and I ended up crying too because I didn't realise I had been upsetting her so much and I hadn't meant to. I think it got a little bit better after that but really our relationship improved the most when I left home and we had some space from each other. I do consider her a friend now and we can chat about anything, I see her about once or twice a week, we could chat every day on the phone and it would be fine but I do think the teenage years are about breaking away and growing up and needing that space.