Your Parenting Experiences
I'd love to hear from everyone who has already parented a teenager (or is currently doing so). How did you make it through the emotional roller coaster of "everything is great/everything is horrible?" How were you able (if you were) to be able to separate yourself emotionally from it? What I mean is, when your child is going through teen turmoil, how did you not let it affect you, so that you could still help and be supportive, but not absorb all of the emotion that's coming at you?
I was just thinking about this when I saw the post. I have a 21 year old son and an almost 18 year old daughter. It is a roller coaster of emotions. Especially when you have brought them up to be expressive and to share what they are feeling. My son went through a variety of moods both in high school and college, but seems to have leveled out.
My daughter goes through more extremes. Often I try in my mind to compare their situation to things I went through at their age. When I do this, I am able to see that they are handling things better then I did and that can keep me more even. With my daughter, I try to listen often. I am a problem solver so this is difficult for me. I have to make the choice of do I answer the text or not? If I do can I make my reply short and sweet, but still show I care? All I can say is that it is not easy. You want to help them, but you want them to grow and learn on their own too. It's a fine line.
@rockym
I'm also a problem solver, but I know I can't be for everything. I can provide information and opinion, but even though I want to help solve a problem, I know I have to step back and let my son work through it. It's hard though. Especially when I know he's really struggling with something. I try to think back to when I was a teenager. I don't remember all the struggle, but perhaps I've just forgotten. Not that I wasn't unhappy at times, but it just seems not as intense as what I see my son going through. But maybe it's just the fact that I'm the parent now, so it seems worse to me because I don't like to see him frustrated or unhappy.
@thoughtfulmomma
What makes it really tough for me is that I feel what they feel. I don't think my parents even knew what I was feeling :--). I grew up in the late 70s and I had a friend to talk to, but mostly just kept things to myself. Of course it eventually did come out and I had a breakdown right before my 18th birthday.
My son is more like I was in that he would hold in his feelings, but I did eventually get him to share by just sometimes telling him I knew what he was feeling. It was loneliness and frustration when college wasn't what he thought it would be. He's worked through it and even attended group counseling at school. This semester when group wasn't available, he made an appointment for individual counseling. I was so proud since he really is a verbal kid. He realized that staying quiet and keeping his feelings in isn't healthy for him.
My daughter is more work. Like I said before, it is so hard not to say what I want to say. It is far more difficult to say, "That must have been rough" or "It stinks when so and so talks like that." When what I really want is to talk about everything in detail and talk about strategies on how to work things out next time, etc. Holding back is the toughest thing for me.
@rockym
I just want to say that it feels good to know there's another parent out there feeling the same way I feel. Sometimes I feel very alone - like either other parents aren't worried about their kids as much, or that everyone else is just happy and in a great place in life. My son and I have gotten to a good point where he feels comfortable talking with me about things that are bothering him. I really am thankful for that and should probably be able to find some relief in it, too, but I just want to help with creating a whole "plan of attack" for resolution, when really, all he wants is for me to listen. So I listen and support, and bite my tongue with the rest.
@thoughtfulmomma
I can tell you there are many, many parents that feel exactly like you. I hear from a few friends who have kids the same age and sometimes my husband will share with me about his co worker's children. I was just thinking the other day, why it is that every kid I hear about is dealing with some extreme emotions? Is it our society, is it that they have the freedom to share and express themselves? Who knows, but just when we thought parenting would get easier with kids maturing... nope.
I found with both my kids, they go through a period of stability and then there is something either exciting or frustrating and they have to learn to deal with it. I believe with social media today, it is difficult for them when all they may see is everyone posting their perfect selves. I have taught my daughter over and over that behind those pictures tends to be a lot of sadness, feeling Inadequate and hoping someone thinks they are unique or special.
It took her a bit, but she rarely posts pictures now and although it's hard to cognitively process something different than what she sees, she is much better at it now. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Our children see one thing, but in my daughter's case, she knows what she is seeing isn't always real. I can't imagine having to do that on a daily basis. As for my son, he participates in online groups, but not the typical social media. No pictures for him, very little sharing unless it's business related. He learned a long time ago that seeing everyone living the good life only made him more depressed so he deleted whatever accounts he had and opted out.
I know this added to his loneliness, but it did alleviate some of the depression. How old is your son? Is he introverted or extroverted?
@rockym
Technology is a strange thing. It can be both good and bad. We didn't have the internet and cell phones. We interacted with people. We went to movies and bowling. Kids now have everything at their fingertips practically. And sometimes I think it's bad. Go tent camping! Go fishing! Hang out with friends at the park!
My son is 17. He's both an introvert and extrovert. He's happy doing his own thing, but he really enjoys getting out and doing things. I know I did as a teen, even if it was just going to a friend's house, which was most of the time because we weren't working so we had no cash! Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of kids don't want to get out and that frustrates him. They're content to sit at home and just text and post on social media. (Maybe because it's easy and they don't have to put any effort into it.) I actually look forward to him attending college so that he can be surrounded by people that are always doing something around campus.
Im so glad to see this. Im a parent of 18 yr old daughter and 17 yr old son and I never thought it would be this difficult. They are growing up so different than me in these times and it seems so hard to identify. All the social media, the affect it has on them and hardly a way at this age to stop or combat it. I notice we are definitely growing apart as it seems theyre valuing it and its messages more than ours. Its tough to compete and shouting matches always ensue when we intervene. I feel very distant from when they were younger. We were such involved parents and now trying to step back but when I see them going down a wrong path its hard to intervene without pushing them away. Guessing none of us knew when we had kids the tightrope wed walk. And it just feels like there is so much more working against us these days than what our own parents had to deal with. Social media controlling their minds as monitored tv has morphed into streaming internet -whatever gets ratings risky is now accepted and advertised, technology instead of fresh air, political unrest and a true fear of tomorrow with all the aspects related to it. Substances that were illegal now legal, vaping and stores to buy it all making it ok. It seems our job is tougher. And were supposed to let go..especially when they roll their eyes at us and shut down we risk losing them further into the oblivion. It seems no wonder parents are coddling. If they let go there is no other good influence the kids can rely on. I never thought Id even say such a thing but even since the year 2000 risks have changed so much in raising kids. No wonder so few even want to have kids anymore. I definitely wouldnt want to start again now..
@creativeMelon4785
I feel your struggle. It's so difficult to go from being close with your kids when they're young, to desperately trying to find out everything you can in their high school years. And especially at 18 - legally an adult, how much do they have to tell you? Nothing, really. Everyone always said having a baby was hard. No - those baby years were pretty darn easy compared to now!
I am the parent of a 16 year old girl. What I find difficult is that she doesn't want to share with me and keeps her feelings to herself. She has been like this for a very long time. It is difficult to have connection when someone will not talk to you. I am a stay at home mom and I feel like she doesn't have respect for me because I do not have a job at this time. I decided to become a full time mom when she was born and quite often I feel like it may have been the wrong choice. Now that the kids are not going back to school this semester I am wondering how to plan for an interesting summer for her in this current world of uncertainty. Will it be safe to send the kids to camp or for them to have a job? How can I keep her engaged and continue learning new things? She is very interested in psychology and helping others. If anyone has any ideas I would welcome them.
@Openheart101
One of the things that I have stressed with my son (17) is that he can always talk to me about anything. And I have always asked him how his day was. I know the names of his teachers, I ask about his friends. In the beginning, he did not want to tell me anything. But I made it clear that I would be asking every day. :)
Over time, he has offered up more information. Sometimes he doesn't want to talk - I can see that he's hurt, or angry, or irritated. He'll tell me nothing is wrong, and I'll say - it kind of looks like it - and then he gets more irritated, but then starts to open up.
I think the most important thing to do is to not react - well, to not over react. There are times when he's said something and I just want to freak out, but I can't. Because if I do, he's going to pull away from me and these conversations. And he needs them. Over the past six months or so, we've really been able to have deeper discussions. He opens up about more. He offers up information and starts conversations.
It's important to listen. Even if what your daughter is saying is making you scream on the inside, just listen. We all need to dump out our frustrations to someone else (thank you, 7 Cups for being here!), and kids definitely need that, too. It's not something that happens immediately or is easy. My husband does not have the same communication relationship with our son as I do. But I'm here all the time (also stay at home) so I'm constantly working on the relationship.
I would ask your daughter what she'd like to do with the remainder of school (whatever that is looking like where you are) and what she'd like to accomplish over summer. Rather than telling her what she'll be doing, definitely get her involved in the planning and choosing. Allow her some control over her activities, even though you'll be the one ultimately deciding. She might have some amazing ideas but she might be scared to bring them up for fear of being told no automatically.
I am glad to see there is a bit more discussion on this topic. My daughter will be 18 soon and I have always allowed her to say what she will with little repercussions. She is adventurous so this was a struggle for me between punishment and acceptance. Technology made things better for me keeping track of her using google location and following her posts, but it was also difficult since I wasnt supposed to know these things. I would have to balance if I wanted to bring something up and how I knew. If I ever felt she was doing things she shouldnt, I would check my sources and then decide how to proceed. Sometimes I just let things go and waited to see if they happened again. All and all it was very difficult to not get in her face and yell and at the same time emotional separate from the situation.
I think we have become closer because she knows she can talk to me, rarely got into trouble from her behavior other than the natural consequences that come with things. Little ones are exhausting when you are trying to keep up with them, but I also dont think its even close to rising young adults. I have been a stay at home mom for 20+ years, but my children know what I did before and how my husband and I came to this discussion. Now, at 55 (husband is 62) I just say Im retired. It sounds like a better label.
Openheart, at 16 I feel every teenager should have a job. They need their own money, responsibility, interviewing, paychecks with a bank account, etc. There is a lot of uncertainty right now, but there are many jobs for a 16 year old. Fast food and grocery stores are always big for a first time job. This would be the direction I would go.
Thoughtfulmomma, its been over a month since you first posted and here we are. I also think many of us are dealing with seniors in high school that will not have an end of the year with dances, graduation, events as planned. This is another tough thing to deal with. My daughters schedule is now 12:00p to 1:00a with online homework/exams at her convenience. Its a huge change from the beginning of March when life was more typical.
@rockym
It's extremely tough to balance what you should say and what you should let go. I can hear some things my son says when he's in his room talking to his friends. And it's tough. I try to ignore it because that is his private time and I shouldn't be listening. If it's something really critical (it was once) then I bring it up. It's a hard line to walk.
I hate that all the seniors are missing out on so much. I'm waiting to hear what our school is going to be doing for them. Luckily my son is just a junior, so hopefully by next year he'll actually have a graduation to attend.
@thoughtfulmomma
I think parenting young adults has helped me not be as impulsive as I would like to be. Since I am a problem solver, I like to get to the point and solve it ASAP, but it's our kids who have to solve a lot of their own problems with less guidance and of course IF they ask for an opinion. I also see and hear things my daughter says and then I have to decide when am I going to speak up.
Yes, the senior situation is cruddy, but I try to point out the good aspects to her. She mentions not having to deal with the drama of certain people and getting ready for college and I tell her she went to prom last year and had many experiences. I know she really wanted her choir concert and grad. night, but hopefully there will be a lesson she can take from all this in the future.
We use technology too to help understand where are kids are at both physically and emotionally at times. It does help to hone in on what to discuss when theyre not sharing much. And can get them to then open up. We are thinking jobs too for our kids. Our son has sports but is weaning off of them and we are trying to think of something to steer him to in the way of jobs. Fast food/grocery/trade work to keep his mind focused on. Our daughter is different. Shes supposed to intern this summer, well see. But her attitude is changing. Maybe its because its her first year in college too but shes extremely affected with all the political unrest with the virus. Its really affecting her. So much negativity in social media I know is the contributor and its all our kids are doing with so much idle time on their hands. Shes started to become very negative and angry which is scary. Finally after a heated discussion she broke down saying how helpless she felt thru all of this. The best thing I could think of was to emphasize getting off of social media and instead of being angry, try to do something to help. So we both signed up to donate blood tomorrow and are making sandwiches to drop off at a local shelter. Hopefully this will help her to see that being actively positive in the real world is better than spending time getting angry and wrapped up in the negativity on social media.
I would say that jobs for both my kids were #1 on the growing up stage. My son is much more of an introvert and his job helped his self confidence leaps and bounds. It also gave him something to do when others were hanging with friends or out drinking, he had responsibilities. Also, when he got a promotion, he was all about his resume and future employment, etc. He also had an internship this summer and they have told him it's still up in the air. He knows he can keep his university job if the internship doesn't work so that helps.
My daughter is the younger one and is a graduating high school senior :--(. She is so different from my son (and that is a good thing), but the parenting game is completely different for her. creativeMelon, it's good to hear you are trying to help her move away from the negativity. Volunteering and helping others has always been a healthy outlet. I'm not sure how my daughter is affected (other than high school stuff), but if I ever talk politics she now cuts me off :--).
So Im wondering how everyone is spending this quarantine time we have? Im basically a stay at home mom but have wondered in the past if Im in my kids business too much. Now with all this time we are trying to keep everyone busy and off of screen time. Constant balance. How much has everyone been dealing with in that regard? My kids have always kept their phones/iPads etc in their rooms at night and Im beginning to question that now. Im feeling its too late to tell them to change tho since they are 18-17. Did I miss my window? They dont come downstairs until after 12/1 pm. I know their up earlier tho. Thinking its bc their online. Unless I push we would only see them when they come down for food. Then its back upstairs again. I make dinner basically to see my kids. Hes worse than she, but wow Im definitely feeling a bit lonely in this house full of people.. Whats everyone else doing? Any ideas?
@creativeMelon4785
You're not alone with this new schedule teens have. My son stays up until 2-3am some nights talking with friends. If this was a normal school year, that wouldn't be allowed. The weekends - sure. School nights - no. And he's good with that anyway.
But now he goes to bed late most nights and sleeps in until the afternoon. Part of me is okay with that. I don't want to shut down his only means of communicating with his friends. He can't see them at school because there's no school. He can't go over to their houses because we're on lockdown. If I tell him he has to shut down at night, he's not going to be able to talk to anyone, and I think that would really hurt his mental well-being.
He's up for his online classes during the week, and sometimes he's up on his own early. I have talked with other parents around the states, and all the kids are the same way. They literally have nothing to do right now, cannot go anywhere, so the computer and phone is their lifeline to some type of connection to their world and friends.
We do have dinner together, and actually my son and I schedule times to get out of the house (like go through a drive through) or we play a video game together. I think it's important to schedule something fun to do together. Even just once a week. It's not going to take over their lives, not going to impose anything horrid on them - just a time where you can all be together for a little while and just chat about - anything. Whatever they'd like to talk about.
@thoughtfulmomma
I should have mentioned that my daughter has shifted her schedule too. Bed is at 12:00a or 1:00a and she sleeps until 11 or 12 the next day. I am okay with that as it fits their body clocks anyway. She seems to be getting her school work done (with a bit of supervision from me) and because she has ADHD and dyslexia, I get to finally see where she is at since she is going to college (hopefully covid-19 mellows out) in August.
Her socialization tends to be with a few friends and they are all here in our Neighborhood. Her boyfriend is long distance so those calls remain the same. I do understand that some kids use social media as their connection and that may be late at night. If she fell into that pattern during this covid-19 situation, I would be okay with it since she is getting her work done and is almost 18. I am just glad we all do the phones away around 9 to 10. It's better for all our mental health.
I'm doing the same things I have always done. Keeping our finances in check, fixing things around the house and making sure my kids are on track. My son lives at college, but it's nearby so he comes home for dinner a couple fo times a week. He was never into social media so when he did live here it was computer off at 10:00p (if I recall). In fact, I think I set up my router to shut off at that time so I didn't have to monitor. My daughter has a 9:30p rule for her phone. It has to be plugged in outside of her room. She is allowed to watch tv on her computer, but no interaction. I am pretty big on the world is off after 9:30p She is almost 18, he is almost 22. I would say you may have missed your window, but if you feel it's not right in your house... you make the rules.
We have always sat down for dinner and that is my husband's gig. He never deals with the house/money and I never deal with cooking. I will say that with all this togetherness lately, it's been sort of nice for the most part. We also tend to play a card game when all 4 of us are here and that keeps the family a little like a family :--).
Reading through these, I would like to comment on 2 themes ...
Right now ... my youngest child is 17. This is his senior year. It is tough on him (as well as me) to miss out on what would have been graduation events and trips. Like several of you, curfews on phone calls and other outlets are pretty much relaxed. His only social options are talking on the phone and playing video games with friends online ... or even watching the same movie while on the phone to comment to each other. I'm good with that ... although that has never been the case until now. I'll even stay up to watch a late night movie with him. In fact, I enjoy that as "our" time.
I am 64. Rather aged for the parent of a teen ... but that is because after my first three children left the nest ... we were led to adopt 6 children from the foster care system (2 months to 8 years old). So, mine currently range from 17-47. Having said that, and having dealt with 9 different teenagers (there should be a law against 4 teens in the household at the same time), I have come to a conclusion. In my experience, it is more about nature than nurture.
You can do everything "right", or to the best of your ability. Each child has the personality that they are born with. Each one will be different. They may be open with you. They may be secretive. They may be loving ... or cause you to sleep with one eye open. Some are more receptive and moldable than others. Some make your heart sing, and others make it bleed. My purpose in saying this is ... be easier on yourself. Stand strong by your values; be there when they need or want you; recognize these concerning changes are in preparation for them being away from you; and (sadly) you will most likely go from being their hero and confidant to the nemesis ... and a dumb one at that. I think that is how both sides get prepared for the inevitable flight from the nest.
In no way am I saying that I've "got this". I still get hurt, frustrated, and lose sleep. And it doesn't end when they turn 18. In fact, that is when it gets even harder.
@Justme1225
Thanks for your insight. It's such a stressful time and everything my son says or does I think about too deeply, and honestly, it's overwhelming me. Even moreso now that we're in the house together 24 hours a day.
Hi, everyone, I am so glad for this discussion as it hits the nail on the head as to some of the things I have been thinking and trying to make space for with my young adults in my life.
It means a lot to me that there are others who are also trying to balance their own needs and perhaps the needs of their partner, with the needs of their adult children. It's hard. The adult children deserve so much freedom and respect, and yet, with covid-19, there's so little of that around in real time. So we co-exist. And some of us do that better than others. I have my room, my office, to conduct my online learning experiences for my students. What do my adult children have? One is in another state, so she has her own computer and room. The other is here in the house, and has walks with us, the computer as much as he wants. It's complicated. Life is complicated. I appreciate that.
Looking outside the window, today is a sunny and absolutely gorgeous day, and I'm going to take full advantage of it with a walk. Take care everyone. Godspeed!
