Sunday 14 February 2010

Growing up with Teenagers

There are loads of blogs out there on being a parent with young children. 'Is smacking wrong?' 'How much TV is too much?' and what drives me mad more than anything else are the 'Aren't I just the perfect mummy' blogs.
I had my eldest child when I was 6 weeks short of my 21st Birthday, maybe I was too young? who knows...it doesn't matter now my baby boy is 18 and in May and I have two other boys aged 15 and nearly 11.
When my children were little none of my friends had kids and could never understand why I was tired, too busy or just preferred to stay in. As my kids got older my friends started having theirs. One or two friends have young teens but most of them have children in primary school and here's the problem. They seem to think that 1. I have the answer to every bloody problem and 2. I understand every issue they face and am willinging to drop everything to offer advice, support and help. 3. My kids are independent now and lucky me I have more free time.PAH!!
Do you know what my kids still pose me problems. Having two step kids I am now on my 3rd lot of GCSE's can I get the 15 year old to study/behave/spend less time on the Xbox/tidy his room? No. Where do I go for advice and help? I don't I just grow/develop/change with my kids and accept that each one will do things differently and pile the stress on anyway they see fit.

5 comments:

  1. Woohoo someone else who can relate to where I'm coming from. I have a 16yr old girl and 13yr old boy and just like from when they were born just as you think you've got them sussed their needs and routines change again. Families need to adopt flexibility and grow and adapt with each other. Yet others see me as the 'experienced' mum and Children's nurse as their own personal help manual and I just don't have all the answers.

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  2. I don't know what blogs you are reading. The ones I read talk about mothers coping with the grief of losing a baby, or strain of not being able to have one. If not, they are talking about the lack of sleep, their illness depression and inability to cope because of it. And interspersed with that are a bunch of very amusing anecdotes to lighten the mood up.

    There really isn't much about teenagers, I agree but that doesn't make the blogs that are out there any less interesting. Maybe we have a totally different blog list?

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  3. I agree with you. I had my first baby at 21, just barely 21. He will be 18 in April and I have a son who will be 12 in April. I also am a step mother to 5 children ranging in age from 22 to 7. Two of them are currently teenagers and the 8 year old has ADHD and ODD. I will agree that you learn as you grow and there isn't much out there and it takes a lot of humor some days. I truly enjoy your posts. I have a blog as well, I am not very good at updating it. It was going to be my outlet for the stresses of teenagers, being married to A national Guard member who has been deployed and is back but lets face it, I am lucky to survive the day without one or more of the kids trying to take over, much less get close enough to the computer during daylight hours to put two ramdom thoughts together! By the end of the day I am exhausted and wishing my kids were all still little enough that they hung on to every word I said, went t bed brofre I did and still wanted to help with chores. I so look forward to reading more of your posts. Have a great day - since I have the computer I should try and get a blog done - LOL!!!

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  4. I just came across your blog via britmums, although this is a post from a little while back, just thought i would comment. It is funny how little there is out there about teens and parents with teenagers compared to "mummy bloggers" with little ones.
    Have a look at my blog all about the terrible teens! www.mumonhomework.wordpress.com

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  5. sorry for delay in responding something to do with comment moderation, i'll check your blog out now

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