r/parentingteenagers

I am at my wits' end with my oldest. He's going to be 17 at the beginning of November, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I literally can't say ANYTHING to him. He's always been a very emotional, stubborn kid - glass half-empty, easily upset, and even if he's happy he can turn to pissed on a dime. It got better for a while when he was around 8th grade, he learned how to control his anger a bit better. But I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around him.

He doesn't talk to me at all, and I can't even ask him logistical questions that I literally need the answers to without him yelling at me that I'm "constantly on his ass." (Example: Do you have the link to register for your SATs so I can take care of that?) He has friends, gets decent grades, holds down a job, and is involved in the lift club at school. I realized he may be slipping through my fingers about 1.5 years ago, so I started randomly taking him out to dinner just the two of us here and there. We'd enjoy our time together and he'd let his guard down and start talking on those outings. But he's really busy this school year and doesn't have the time anymore. I have a daughter who is 15 and a son who is 11, and I get along with them so easily. My oldest is far and away my most challenging and I am worried that he's going to hate me forever or that I'm failing him.

ETA: I think a major reason I'm struggling is because my parents were extremely strict and authoritarian with me, and I've tried really hard to break that cycle with my kids, so I feel like I'm flying blind. I'm close with my parents and they'll try to advise me occasionally, but I don't know which advice to take and which to discard since I am raising my kids differently from how they did it.

I'm not sure if I should let this go or not. I have two thoughts about this.

I have a freshman daughter who's always been a good student. Currently in all honors classes. She was always in advanced placings and small groups in elementary school. In middle school she was mostly a straight A student. I think she got one B in three years. I've always told her that I don't care about straight A's, just that she does the work and tries her best. I've always emphasized mental health, not getting burnt out. She has dropped classes or made things easier to not make things easier. She tends to score really high on tests, teachers say she's a delight in class, great with other students and a few always tell us how awesome she is.

Well we went to parent teacher conferences recently and were told how great she's doing, all A's BUT her biology teacher said she was missing a few small assignments that they are supposed to do daily and she has room to correct a quiz that she didn't do great on (But got 100% for the actual test.)

So I told my daughter how proud of her we were and that the teachers had great things to say, but she has a few things to do for Biology that the teacher said should take 15 minutes.

My daughter was so dismissive of these little tasks. She said "She purposely didn't do them, sometimes she doesn't feel like it and what's the point of she has an A? Why does the Teacher care?" She also thinks we are expecting too much from her.

Part of me maybe agrees with her but her teacher surely assigned these for a reason. And part of me thinks better a hard earned B or C with full effort, than a lackluster A with minimal effort? I don't know though.

I know teens need to rebel and I feel this is a mild rebellion and asserting herself. I feel like it's such a small thing, especially since she does have all A's. But that could change. And I just hate this to become a habit.

Again, I don't feel that her dad and I expect straight A's or anything. I just want her to apply herself accordingly.

Thoughts? She's my only daughter and first teen!

Editing to add: so far, it does not seem like her classes are too hard or too much work for her. She has minimal homework to do after school, has down time, friends and has hobbies (low time commitment) that she enjoys.

I’m at a loss of what to do. My teen (15YO boy) started randomly skipping classes last year in the second half of 9th grade. What was interesting is that he would be at school the whole day, just not attending classes.

School staff eventually found out he was hiding and sometimes sleeping in hiding spots. We really put focus into sleep hygiene, believing that was the main issue.

The behavior continued and after many attempts to open up, part of what we realized is that he fell behind, didn’t do his part for a group project and had anxiety about accountability so was avoiding the social fallout.

I got him in for behavioral therapy and his therapist wasn’t convinced he has social anxiety or any other disorder, if anything was too smart. That wasn’t entirely helpful.

We had many meetings with a number of teachers, his counselor, the assistant principal, etc. Progress would be touch and go. His teachers were as at loss, because on paper, he appeared very ahead of his peers (he took advanced classes in middle school and had met his language and math credits upon entering high school).

He had to make up one class over the summer and with school starting early September, has already missed 60 classes between then and now. I just received two emails that he missed classes three days in row this week.

Idk what to do. Has anyone experienced this? Any advice? Has anyone been able to change the behavior?

I am a single, 41 female. Became a mom last year to an 18 year old foster son. I am looking for charts that breakdown age appropriate expectations / chores / responsibilities for teenagers. Foster training is great for learning to "regulate, relate and reason" or looking for "the behavior behind the need". I am learning those skills.

But I am still unable to get good guidance on what expectations are reasonable for a 14 year old, 16 year old, 18 year old, etc. Just for normal, everyday teens in the US. How are we giving them chores and expectations per age?

Any resources would be appreciated! Thanks! (this post was removed from r/parenting, due to asking for medical advice. Lets hope the tough teen parents here can handle it!)

I'm hurting them on purpose, I don't care, I'm cold and unfeeling, I minimize their emotions, on and on and on.

I can promise I am not intentionally doing any of this and try my best to openly communicate and hear them. Half the time they tell me so much they stop themselves and say, "Idk why I tell you everything! I guess because you're such a good listener."

Is this just a normal part of the development process?? I AM EXHAUSTED.

I'm (37f) at a loss for what to do about my son (16). I don't really know where to start so I'll just start with some info about him. He has autism, but he is so high functioning that I wasn't able to get a definitive diagnosis until he was in 6th grade. I've known there was something going on since he was 3, but his father fought me on getting him tested and even when we did bring him in they claimed there were no issues.

Years of issues at school, with him arguing with other kids and running away, even had the school call the police one time, and we finally got him placed in an alternative school for 5th-8th grade. He finally realized he needed to stop getting into physical alterations, running away, and refusing to do work if he wanted to get back into the regular classroom. Because he's smart. Like, insanely smart. He was reading at a high school level in 5th grade. He could do math in his head since he was 3.

So when he finally managed to get back into the regular classroom for high school he flourished. He's a straight A student. He's worked his way up into all Honors and AP classes. He's even been taken an extra class the past 2 years. And this is where the new problem began.

I offered to drive him to school in the morning because he starts so early and he hates the bus. In the beginning it worked out fine, but then he slowly started staying up later into the night and was getting out late. I want to leave the house by 6:45 so I can drop him off as soon as the school opens and I can still beat the morning traffic. Most mornings he doesn't get out to the car until 6:55 or 7. He doesn't care because he doesn't actually have to be to school until 7:10.

Leaving him at home doesn't work because then he just won't go to school (it's a 20 minute walk, just slightly over a mile). Taking his computer away and turning the internet off at 11:30 pm has done nothing to get him to go to bed on time, he just waits until then to shower and make his lunch. My next step is going to be to turn the water off as well, maybe? When I nag him to get up and get moving in the morning he tells me to "shut up" or "fuck off".

It doesn't matter what time I wake him up. Whether I get him extra early or let him sleep until the last minute he still keeps me waiting. His argument is that he gets good grades and "does everything he needs to do" and that its "only 10 minutes" so why do I care so much. He has zero respect for my time. I'm a teacher, and I use the 75 minutes before school starts to prep my class and make my copies. Because he keeps me waiting I now only have 30 minutes at most.

Tonight broke me. I went to pick him up from his dad's house at 7:30 pm just like I have done every Sunday for most of his life. When I arrived his dad called and said he was still in the shower. I was annoyed but said OK. 30 minutes go by and I call him back and he is STILL in the shower. He's doing this on purpose. After talking to his dad for another 10 minutes, him pounding on the bathroom door to my son responding "shut up", I decided to leave. His dad lives an hour away from the school. Either my son will have to wake up extra early for school, or he'll throw a temper tantrum and his dad will cave in a call him in sick.

My husband (step dad) has been having to step in at night because I go to bed early. So my husband and son have been getting into fights at night about my son still being awake. Most recently was when my son tried to do a load of laundry at 2:30 in the morning. Mind you, my son had had a half day that day so he had like 10 hours to do his laundry.

He just doesn't seem to care about me or respect my time. He'll expect us to drive him back to school for things he wants to go to, but makes no effort to go to bed on time or get out of the house on time in the morning. I know for a fact he lays in bed until the last minute. He claims we're treating him like an animal, or that we're tormenting him. When, literally, all I've been wanting him to do is go to bed at a decent hour, and get out to the car by 6:45. That is it. And he just won't do it, and is actively retaliating against me for taking his things away in an attempt to make him do it. I don't know what else I can do.

15 year old has had a crush for a few years. Feelings have been shared (over a year ago) but the crush doesn’t feel the same way. Oh man emotions are high over this. I listen and try to be understanding while also explaining that’s it’s probably time to let it go but I’m told the feelings are too strong and letting go seems impossible right now. How do we help them through this? I’m afraid my teen is missing out on friendships and other fun teen things because of this.

So today was his first day back in 4 weeks (he had the last two weeks off his school term and then the last two weeks have been school holidays). Absolutely no luck - even drove him there and the wellbeing officer and house leader tried, no go.

I really can't do this for the next 10 weeks so we're going to have to try him on their in school program which is mostly online school.

He's started with a psych, he's been on lexapro for a few weeks (seen some improvement), there's only so much I can do I think.

He's in year 9 and is 15.

The school was hesitant to put him on this program but I think it's the best idea for now.