Someone please tell me the best way to deal with teenagers!?

Tiglath

Sympathies - you could be describing my niece who is the same age. For the past 6 months I haven't heard a sentence from her that hasn't been a raging shout and hasn't contained F or C or both. Horrendous brat.

They do grow out of it - my two stepchildren are thriving lovely adults now, despite my occasional resolutions to drown them in their younger years

ALIBOBSY

Read you next post and its seems he is where DS was about 18 months ago, suddenly he will want all the body sprays etc.

BTW other poster is completely right, definately wind him up a bit. I try to wait till he is on one of his online games chatting on the mike and try to shout something embarassing so his mates hear it rofl. A good way to get them up when they just try to laze in bed I have found is to go and give them a load of kisses and hugs and generally annoy them in bed-they some jump up and stomp off to the bathroom .

TBH OH and I are more worried about the 3 younger girls when they hit teenager years-yikes!!!

Ali x

FrugalFranny

Hard as it is with him being all over the place emotionally, the only real thing you can do is be patient. Give him lots of space/time/thinking room to himself, remain calm when he flies of the handle, and remind him that although you seem like the wicked witch (or worse) at the moment, that you are doing what any responsible parent has to do when you hand out punishments, that you love him no matter how angry he or you get or what horrible things you may say to each other in the heat of the moment, and that you're the only person he'll be able to truely rely on when push comes to shove through out his life.
Also let him know that even when he is being punished that if he can maintain a cool head, give a sincere 'sorry' and displaying a clear understanding of why he's being punished, he might be able to reduce 'the sentence' on a first 'offence', but that repeating the same 'offence' will lead to increased levels of punishment and no 'time off for good behavior'.
Most of this will be ignored and won't really help much now, but when he's a little older and the fog begins to clear he'll be able to see you are firm but fair.

As people have said above, about 3-4 years are rough seas ahead.

SmallL

Brilliant advice.
One bug-bear of mine is parents stopping their childrens 'technology' (usually, with boys).
My OH's parents always used the 'we will cut your internet' card as punishment, they did cut the internet, but usually with no communication with their children. you MUST communicate, lack of communication breeds resent.

Not every negative trait in your child is due to excessive playing of video games!!!

Im female but have always played video games since i was little, i was never banned from playing games *shrugs*, i think my dad found it endearing that i enjoyed a 'lads' pasttime.

WantToBeSE

Thanks everyone for your help.
He has just been downstairs saying how unfair it is that he cant play his xbox and can he please play it now as 'its been an hour since i was horrible to you and i am sorry'.
Well, i then (calmly) told him that i appreciated that he was sorry, and i am also sorry for shouting, however the punishment still stands. No xbox for the rest of the day.
So then cue the "i f***ing hate this house, you t**t".
Nice.

His behaviour just makes me feel so useless as a parent.

Tiglath

It's not you, it's him

Kevin becomes a teenager:

http://youtu.be/dLuEY6jN6gY

WantToBeSE

Thanks Tiglath
God, why on earth dont they warn you about this at prenatal classes!

sarymclary

As the mother of 4 boys, I feel your pain

I have two who have now come through the teen years, and are just about coming out the other side (although it did take one leaving at 17, who is now 19 and able to appreciate us again).

What SeaNymph wrote above I totally agree with.

Pick your battles wisely. Dig your heels in for the big sh*t, and let the little sh*t go, you'll become tired of hearing your own voice nagging otherwise, and it really does feel like the only way you communicate is to complain, reprimand or nag sometimes.

Kids always think their friends' houses are more relaxed, parents cooler, more understanding, more generous, blah, blah. Whilst I'm sure it might be the case with some, it definitely isn't the case with all, and they're suffering the same teenage demons with their own kids. Think Kevin & Perry from the Harry Enfield sketch, and remember 'Yes Mrs. Patterson, fankyou Mrs. Patterson...'

Set the boundaries for your family, and your home. Stick to them.

If they won't keep their room tidy, like mine, there's no food in rooms. I stopped ironing for them when I found the neat piles shoved in the bottom of the wardrobe. If they refuse to sort out their rooms, we scoop all their stuff up, and dump it all on their bed. If they don't deal with it, we bag it up in bin bags. We confiscate chargers if they're left plugged in too... that's a killer, and they've learnt not to do it pretty quickly but we've also saved £'s on the electric bill.

We have had several different reward/sanction schemes. Some work better than others. We found removing the xbox/Tv privileges for too long worked in the short-term, but not in the long-term. So, if their room is a tip, they lose the xbox/PC for that night, giving them the opportunity to get it done, and win it back again for the next night. We do find that some games are more frustrating than others, and that definitely affects their moods, especially if they can't get through a level, their players won't win a footie game, they can't finish a campaign battle on Halo, etc. If they keep 'raging', I do threaten, and if necessary confiscate the game for a set period of time, or limit their time playing it.

We do not tolerate raised voices, any bad language, or generally flouncing around the house. The grown ups in the house do not do it, so they can't either.

We ground them for major misdemeanors. My 19 y/o was grounded for 5 months out of 12 one year (he was a little beggar though, and this involved smoking, alcohol and petty theft)!

We've put off getting them TV's in their own rooms, which means PC's and consoles are all downstairs, around the rest of the family. It can be infuriating for us sometimes when we have to listen to them waffle on, and even shout at people they're playing Fifa online with, but at least we know what's going on, and they do seem to like being around us. It also means when I catch my 12 y/o watching Family Guy on the PC I can tell him to pack it in!

We've just introduced a pocket money scheme. We sat the boys down (aged 14 and 12) and we discussed what chores they would do, when they would be done, how they would be done, etc., and made it clear they had the responsibility to remember to do them, and to do them right. As a reward, they would earn £5 each a week (this is a huge amount out of my family budget), but I've pointed out it's like any job, they'll only get paid for doing it. Since we've had a lower income, they've obviously felt the impact, so this is a way of changing that, but not having to take them out on treats all the time. To earn the £5 each they have to do the following:

Empty the bins
keep their room tidy
empty the dishwasher
Bring down the laundry
Mow the lawn and trim the edges (spring/summer)
Take the wheelie bins out each week
Keep the family room/dining room tidy (where their xbox/PC are) daily

This began with the new year, they didn't get their £5 last week due to messy rooms, and 12 y/o has come home today to find the washing (dirty & clean) he'd hidden under his duvet on the floor, and with a PC/xbox ban for the night. He was in tears because he realised he'd jeopardised his £5 this week, so I've told him he's not getting the full amount, but if he mends his ways, and gets his room done tonight, he won't have lost all of it.

We make time to play board games with them, which they love doing, and try to keep them involved in family life.

Teenagers need sleep, even if they don't realise it. We let them have later nights during school holidays, but in term-time we insist it's lights out at 10pm (phones and ipods left outside the bedroom door)... learnt our lesson on the smaller gadgets when finding them still wide awake, surrounded by fairy lights in their room at 11.30pm one night playing games and posting on facebook on them! We don't trust them to be sensible anymore.

Kids invariably don't even know why they behave the way they do sometimes, so don't rise to the bait everytime. Take a step back, and ask yourself 'what's actually going on here?' Are they tired, stressed out at school, growing? Going through a growth spurt definitely affected them more, but then we just kept measuring them to prove what was going on, and they seemed to understand.

Keep talking, keep laughing. Through humour, you can often get a serious message across. Be silly with them. I've not sat through all the Ice Age movies, a couple of Madagascars, several Christmas movies and umpteen rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes this past school holidays for nothing, I saw it as time well spent, and i hope they did too.

Hang in there, it does get better.:T

DevilsAdvocate1

sarymclary wrote: »

Teenagers need sleep, even if they don't realise it. We let them have later nights during school holidays, but in term-time we insist it's lights out at 10pm (phones and ipods left outside the bedroom door)... learnt our lesson on the smaller gadgets when finding them still wide awake, surrounded by fairy lights in their room at 11.30pm one night playing games and posting on facebook on them! We don't trust them to be sensible anymore.

I was on Facebook in the early hours of the morning on a school day when I noticed that my 14 year old had posted a message on his wall. I sent him a private message which read "Get off Facebook and go to SLEEP - love mum". He saw the message straight away and got the shock of his life. He came down the next morning looking very sheepish :rotfl:

easy

Seanymph wrote: »

Hang tough.

Pick your fights - make his room his room, you are not responsible for it - but don't let him take food or drink in there.

Set your boundaries, and think about them - does he bring his clothes down to the washing machine? Does he strip his bed? Does he have his towels in a certain colour?

Set your rules so it makes your life bearable. Decide what you will and will not tolerate. Then stick to it.

I found an allowance helped, I worked out what I would pay for and what I wouldn't and he had to budget (or not).

I didn't go into his room - his room, his squalor - once he found girls liked boys better who didn't smell bad he started washing things more frequently

Nag over tooth brushing (it's important) don't nag about a design on a t shirt - when he's 20 that won't have affected his development and future life.

Make curfews count. Know that all parties he is invited to will involve alcohol, and make sure you pick him up and know where he is. Only buy cheap phones, he'll lose them, or drop them in water. You'll mind less if it wasn't expensive (see allowance above).

Make him get up every day at a time you can stand (my latest ever is 11am, this morning I dragged all of mine out at 9am).

Spend time with him - doing things you know he'll like. Keep teasing him, it'll drive him nuts - get to know his friends.

He will shrug you off, ignore you, be rude, drive you mad........ but if you hang in there, keep hugging him regardless, tease him, sit next to him, try and understand the x box game, say 'am I annoying' whilst leaning over his shoulder when he's on his computer - eventually he'll start talking again.

My Step son is 16, and has just started speaking again. It's a joy. I even got an unsolicited hug the other day.

We have been through some head-against-the-wall-banging times, so I have no solutions, but as I type he is in the kitchen he cleaned, cooking our dinner. It passes. (or he wants something )

Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU for this post.

Our DS is 13, and in this stage now. I've spent the last 6 months slowly working out what you have just said, coming to about the same conclusion. But my dear hubby is still trying to fight against the behaviour, and making himself very distressed (and me pretty stressed I have to say) in the process.

Seanymph, I will show DH your post tonight. I hope it might help.