Teenagers…a strange new breed. Well, to me anyway. 

I’ve struggled at times with the various phases my children have gone through, like most parents I suspect.  I loved the newborn phase; the toddler phase nearly killed me. Twice. And now, I find myself being catapulted in to the teenage phase at a rate of knotts.

I don’t know how it happened – how my gorgeous, innocent, sweet little girl has morphed into this unfamiliar new breed.

I know that throughout time, parents have always struggled to understand teenage behaviour, and in my teenage years, it was no different. But now I find myself knee deep in teenage hormones and attitude, I can honestly say I really don’t know what the ‘rules’ are. 

When they are little, and they do something ‘naughty’, you sit them on the ‘naughty step’. Simples. But what about when they are as tall as you, and are throwing a teenage hissy fit because you won’t let them get their tongue pierced at 12 1/2 years old? (OK, I made that up. This hasn’t come up. Yet.)  One thing’s for sure – the naughty step isn’t going to work.

There obviously has to be different sanctions involved for this group of devil’s spawn little darlings. I’ve discovered one place you can really hit a teenager where it hurts is to take away their very point in existing phone. They don’t like this.  At all. Grounding them is an obvious one which they also don’t like. The reaction you get is like you’ve switched off the air/Wifi. THEY ARE JUST GOING TO DIE.

It’s fair to say that Hubby and I have stared blankly at each other on countless occasions as we try to decide if we’ll let her go to such and such place. There seems to be new requests coming at us on almost a daily basis. She seems in such a rush to grow up, and us, her ever-loving parents would walk over hot coals to stop the clocks, just for a bit.

But you try telling a teenager that.

Although a lot of the fears are the same as when I was a teenager; drugs, alcohol, boys etc., the obvious added extra is the minefield of social media. This is where the pressure on parents and young people is taken to a whole new level. It’s a scary world online. Apart from the obvious dangers of online predators, what’s scary about it all is the amount of influence over our children the Internet seems to have. Long gone are the days when all parents had to worry about was their children being influenced by MTV or such like. Nowadays, children hold the things they see online in such high regard and if you try to tell them otherwise, they think you’re an idiot.

So why am I saying all this? I don’t know really. Just that it’s all come as a bit of a shock. To me at least. And parenting a teenager is HARD. And I realise I’m only really just starting out. I’m still very much an amateur. 

The saddest thing, is that it doesn’t seem like 5 minutes ago that as her mum, I was her whole world. (Alright, her dad might feature somewhere in there too.). But now, there are times I feel more like the ‘fun police’ than ever.  It’s true what they say though, I’m not her friend. I am her parent and if she likes me, I’m doing it wrong.

I’ll just say this: for all other parents who are just entering the twilight zone teenage era, you are not alone. I don’t know what I’m doing either lol. But as long as I know that there are other parents out there like me who are doing the best they can for this strange breed of human, trying to raise them right, to be kind, honest and a good person, then I shall continue with my endeavours whether that makes me popular or not.

My advice to anyone who isn’t quite at this phase yet, is to cherish every moment with your pre-teen. Make the most of every hug, kiss and ‘I love you’. It’s not long at all until all you are to them is an embarrassment. 🙈 I asked my daughter the other day if she wanted to go over to the tennis courts for a knock about with me and she said, “no, someone might see us”.  My heart literally snapped in half. 😢 💔

But at the end of the day, this is just another phase that us parents get to negotiate our way through. It won’t last forever and one day I will probably miss this phase just as much as I miss the toddler phase. And if all else fails, I suppose I could consider this a practise run and have another crack at it with child 2 when she becomes an irrational walking hormone teenager.

Thanks for reading and good luck to other parents of this strange breed.

 

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