I knew raising teenagers wouldn’t be super easy but I had no idea it would be so lonely. I have a few friends who I knew would sympathize and offer support, but most of the time we kept that to ourselves. It seems like all we hear about from parent friends is the highlights reel and the ACT scores, and the athletic accomplishments and the cute girlfriends and maybe, “Oh, he overslept for 10 minutes and it was total chaos.” It’s dangerous to walk up to them on the football pitch and say, ‘So we stopped our kid smoking weed this week and we’re freaked out and worried and, oh, how are you? -you ?” How are the parents doing?
1. “Highlighted” parents either know their kids are up to things but don’t say it out loud, or are so obsessed that they shouldn’t be taken seriously as sources of information, or have kids aberrant so that they are not. helpful to you, or (rare cases) bullied their children into obedience. That’s not to say that all 16-year-olds get high, but that most rebel in one way or another because they’re wired.
2. If you want your children to be flesh-and-blood stress units, stay away and brag about their ACTs.
2a. I’m glad you found some parents to talk to. Don’t worry about others, unless you’re willing to say, “Am I the only one here with discipline headaches?” Please say no.
3. What were you doing at age __? Remember this when responding to everything your children do. If you’re all lucky, you’ll have that awesome dawn moment that you did X times worse when you were Y years younger. Calibrate your fears and responses accordingly.
3a. What did your parents do when they arrested you at age __? Did it work? Give your children parents as good as yours, if not better.
4. Experts are bargains. Pediatrician, therapist, former school counselor. Think of degrees and years of working with teenagers. The words of someone who has seen it all are like putting cold toes in a hot tub. That’s where I learned the distinction between disapproving of something and stopping it. They will find ways, but you can be unequivocal about its existence without your permission and against good judgment, and why.
5. Stay cool. Teenagers get restless and don’t need you.
6. Show your love. Still. Even when you are angry and upset.
I let other people complete your community:
- A “couple of friends” (and maybe your therapist) is a LOT. Teenagers deserve to not have their mistakes aired on every parent you know just so you can vent and bond.
- My parents locked me up as a teenager because I was a girl and could be knocked up or drunk or grow up as a human. I was in a hurry to leave the house. I found ways to have fun and that was precisely the type they were trying to prevent. And when I left the house, I went wild because I had been so repressed. It’s not healthy to raise children this way.
- Confronting and removing privileges seems completely punitive, with no apparent connection to behavior. No discussion, no collaboration on house rules? I don’t see how that will persuade him to quit.
- Kids experiment and do stupid stuff. They need to be fixed, but don’t make it the end of the world.
- The OP expects other parents to speak openly about their children’s struggles, but is unwilling to do so themselves. It’s not fair to complain that someone else should talk about heavier stuff first.
- I was a moderate rule breaker and thank goodness there were no serious injuries. I would suggest saying why you are against your child’s smoking and backing it up with evidence. Your child is too old to “just say no”, which never worked, even in the 80s.
