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?
@justme-
wow Im grateful to hear from you, you seem so in tune understanding the raising of children. Im grateful for this thread and everyone posting. Makes me feel better to know Im not the only one with all these same emotions. I have a freshman in college and a junior in high school here at home now. Weve run out of things to do. Games, movies, baking, yard work, and projects from painting and redecorating to making sandwiches for the homeless and donating blood. My daughter is freshman in college. Shes abt as nervous as they come with the corona pandemic. She stresses so when anyone leaves the house for any reason. My son in highschool is practically jumping for joy that the rest of the year just went online. Hes been on his pc constantly. And the screen time for both of them has been ridiculous. I decided its too late to take my daughters phone at nite-as shes using it up until the morning with social media etc.. but shes supposed to start an internship in three weeks and so shell be leaving soon. No point in me throwing a fit now. I felt like I could take the phone in the evenings with him, but then the resentment would build that Im doing it with one and not the other, ugh... Im feeling so tired at trying to stay on top of making sure this doesnt adversely affect either of them too much. But I think about what you said -justme. And I think about the movie Spanglish where Cloris Leachmen tells the other mom how she raised her daughter, and then how her own daughter deliberately raised her kids differently as she wanted a better outcome. But she says in the end none of it works. So much of it is based on your kids nature anyway..so its so interesting to hear you say the same. We all bust our butts so much to try and do the right thing. And hope they recognize it, appreciate it, and someday want to continue with it.. so we can feel like we made some kind of positive difference. If not then what?? Because life goes on.. Where do we go then? Time to start the next phase in our lives?.. Maybe some travel when this whole pandemic is over..hmm
