Experienced teen parents - how to make the most of teen years?
November 1, 2024 7:52 AM Subscribe
My kid (who I’ve posted about before) is doing GREAT. I just love him to bits and think tween boys are hilarious, kind and funny. I want to make sure I make the most of the unthinkably few more years I have him at home, both to enjoy him and launch him successfully into young adulthood.
To that end, experienced parents, what are the things you wish you did more of with your teens? Less of? What stood out as your biggest wins and biggest mistakes?
Former teens - what do you remember positively that your parents did during your teen years?
To that end, experienced parents, what are the things you wish you did more of with your teens? Less of? What stood out as your biggest wins and biggest mistakes?
Former teens - what do you remember positively that your parents did during your teen years?
haptic_avenger: Former teens - what do you remember positively that your parents did during your teen years?
Easing me gently into independence. It was exciting to get dropped off at the mall or the subway or the main street of the neighboring town to explore with a friend or two. They also started trusting me to do my own homework and manage my own routines.
Encouraging my interests, everything from letting me plaster my bedroom walls floor-to-ceiling with posters of my favorite bands to sending me on a cultural exchange trip to the UK that is still a formative memory.
Keeping family traditions going that were still a little cheesy or youthful, like the increasingly battered Hanukkah-themed Bingo set we pull out every winter. I'm grateful for these both as an outlet for the part of teen!capricorn that still wanted to be a kid and as traditions we still maintain even though my siblings and I are now reaching our thirties.
posted by capricorn at 8:03 AM on November 1 [9 favorites]
Easing me gently into independence. It was exciting to get dropped off at the mall or the subway or the main street of the neighboring town to explore with a friend or two. They also started trusting me to do my own homework and manage my own routines.
Encouraging my interests, everything from letting me plaster my bedroom walls floor-to-ceiling with posters of my favorite bands to sending me on a cultural exchange trip to the UK that is still a formative memory.
Keeping family traditions going that were still a little cheesy or youthful, like the increasingly battered Hanukkah-themed Bingo set we pull out every winter. I'm grateful for these both as an outlet for the part of teen!capricorn that still wanted to be a kid and as traditions we still maintain even though my siblings and I are now reaching our thirties.
posted by capricorn at 8:03 AM on November 1 [9 favorites]
A friend and her husband took separate trips with their girls every other year and I wish I had done that with my kids. We always did family vacations, and they were great, but that one-on-one time would have been fantastic. One thing we did do, in regard to vacays, was to have each kid do some research into the destination with regard to their interests and then pick something to do related to that interest. Our son loves board games and gaming in general so he would often find like a really great board game store or a game museum, for example. Both kids (adults now) say they really appreciated that we recognized their interests and let them choose aspects of our family trips. They weren't just along for the ride, they were invested.
One of my parents' (many, many) mistakes was never really letting me have independence. I was controlled and sheltered and even when I went away to college I would come home and all the same rules would be in place from when I was under 18. It was incredibly frustrating and actually led to me not coming home much at all.
posted by cooker girl at 8:14 AM on November 1 [8 favorites]
One of my parents' (many, many) mistakes was never really letting me have independence. I was controlled and sheltered and even when I went away to college I would come home and all the same rules would be in place from when I was under 18. It was incredibly frustrating and actually led to me not coming home much at all.
posted by cooker girl at 8:14 AM on November 1 [8 favorites]
As a former teen I think one of the best things that my mom did was made our house a welcoming place for my friends. I hung out with some idiots and assholes, as I think we all do, and didn't ever invite some of my "friends" over, but the real ones are actually still friends of my mom's and we all do stuff together when I go home.
My best friend went on road trips (across borders!) with us, she stayed over whenever, she volunteered with us, and my mom encouraged it. Both because she knew I'd be less bored with some activities if a friend was there, but also because she felt like she could trust us to have each others' backs if we were doing something riskier. I think it kept us both safe.
This was never dependent on my mom socializing with my friends' parents, either. She knew many of them, but it's not like she had to like the parents in order for me to hang with their kids.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:36 AM on November 1 [10 favorites]
My best friend went on road trips (across borders!) with us, she stayed over whenever, she volunteered with us, and my mom encouraged it. Both because she knew I'd be less bored with some activities if a friend was there, but also because she felt like she could trust us to have each others' backs if we were doing something riskier. I think it kept us both safe.
This was never dependent on my mom socializing with my friends' parents, either. She knew many of them, but it's not like she had to like the parents in order for me to hang with their kids.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:36 AM on November 1 [10 favorites]
My boss has 5 kids, and one of the things their family does is for the 16th birthday gift, that child gets a solo trip with their parents to anywhere they want in the contiguous US. It's special because with that many siblings, the solo time with parents and the getting to do whatever YOU want to do is huge. I think this is such a cool thing.
It sounds like your kid is an only child, so maybe the special thing could be solo with just one parent at a time, or a monthly outing of choice with just parent 1 this time and parent 2 the next. Gives you all a chance to get to know each other as individual people beyond your family relationship and really grow with each other.
posted by phunniemee at 8:59 AM on November 1 [4 favorites]
It sounds like your kid is an only child, so maybe the special thing could be solo with just one parent at a time, or a monthly outing of choice with just parent 1 this time and parent 2 the next. Gives you all a chance to get to know each other as individual people beyond your family relationship and really grow with each other.
posted by phunniemee at 8:59 AM on November 1 [4 favorites]
Looking back on my own young adulthood years, I wish I'd known to make more of an effort to understand my parents' life stories. I tried to do a good job of anticipating that (possible) future need, and I did it by taking the kids back to my important places, to meet my important people, to hear my important storoies, as often as I possibly could. I didn't make a show of what I was doing, I just made the experiences something that were kind of compulsorily integrated into our time together. I already get the sense that it's helping them navigate their own experiences learning about identity and self-story. I feel good that it also gave opportunities to introduce them to casual mentions of therapy-relevant words, like attachment styles, values, self-conception, etc. I wish I'd had that adult, inquisitive vocabulary as part of my relationship with my parents.
I think it's good to set up your "trust and disclosure laboratory" as early as possible. Are you making it clear that shame isn't part of your toolkit, so even if there are drugs or sex or taboo/illicit/unconventional things in store, you'd like to be invited in, not just to help but also to listen and be there alongside your kids' experiences and choices? This book helped me think about this sort of thing.
I hesitate to bring this up, but it's useful to ask yourself how prepared you are for the possibility that your dear one find themselves coping with the changes to come in adversarial ways (or perhaps being in relationships that invite in adversarial posturing)? My folks' deep love for my older brother, we all realized years later, ended up being what we now call enabling. It made his behaviors much, much worse, and taught him how good he was at exploiting goodwill before he had the ability to recognize it in himself. Those years rent our family asunder and, though the repair eventually came, it left marks that I sought to avoid repeating in my family. Which meant being open and honest about boundaries before they were enforced, and enforcing them when those boundaries were tested or violated. Above almost all other advice, I find the most value in the advice to help young adults hear and understand adult boundaries, adult expectations, adult consequences early enough that they don't seem like ad hoc inventions.
Enjoy these years dearly!
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 8:59 AM on November 1 [6 favorites]
I think it's good to set up your "trust and disclosure laboratory" as early as possible. Are you making it clear that shame isn't part of your toolkit, so even if there are drugs or sex or taboo/illicit/unconventional things in store, you'd like to be invited in, not just to help but also to listen and be there alongside your kids' experiences and choices? This book helped me think about this sort of thing.
I hesitate to bring this up, but it's useful to ask yourself how prepared you are for the possibility that your dear one find themselves coping with the changes to come in adversarial ways (or perhaps being in relationships that invite in adversarial posturing)? My folks' deep love for my older brother, we all realized years later, ended up being what we now call enabling. It made his behaviors much, much worse, and taught him how good he was at exploiting goodwill before he had the ability to recognize it in himself. Those years rent our family asunder and, though the repair eventually came, it left marks that I sought to avoid repeating in my family. Which meant being open and honest about boundaries before they were enforced, and enforcing them when those boundaries were tested or violated. Above almost all other advice, I find the most value in the advice to help young adults hear and understand adult boundaries, adult expectations, adult consequences early enough that they don't seem like ad hoc inventions.
Enjoy these years dearly!
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 8:59 AM on November 1 [6 favorites]
Here are a few specific school-related memories of things my parents did or said I have from my time as a teenager that stand out as having been positive:
- I was always busy, and often overwhelmed, with schoolwork, but my parents and I went grocery shopping multiple times a week, cooked together almost every night and ate dinner together almost every night, at a table, without a TV on. We didn’t always have a great conversation, and honestly we argued more than I think any of us are proud of, but just being part of making dinner together taught me the ins and outs of a home kitchen, showed me that we were literally responsible for nourishing each other, and that whatever happens, we’re going to have to spend time together each day anyway. It was also my one real time each day to relax with them.
- Any stated desire I had made to be left alone when I needed or wanted to be left alone was always, always respected, and if they wanted to come talk to me in my room, they always, always knocked first. This was because my parents knew they would see me every day anyway and also because of their early, open and repeated acknowledgement that my schoolwork and homework load was, at a certain point in high school, leading me to have longer, more physically intense and more mentally taxing days than they had had at that age and than they usually had at their own jobs.
- They never compared my problems or stress to theirs in negative or demeaning ways, perhaps because they could see that my school-dominated life was, actually, very difficult. For multiple years I was off to school at 6:35 for a 7:00 start and finished at 3:00, with a shorter lunch break than they had at work, and then on arriving home began multiple hours of homework — while also doing activities like travelling to Model United Nations conferences or doing required community-service hours or going to a local university library to research something our local library or school library didn’t have any information on, all of which took up weekends and vacations. My parents were not hands-off; instead, they really learned to listen to me on topics of school life and helped me to manage it when I could show them what I needed to do. Notably, my school gave me, not them, the vast majority of the documentation and resources to demonstrate what was necessary for me to go to college, often in the form of handouts with flowcharts and diagrams. This institutional-derived material helped them see how I, personally, could indeed do what I was doing and expect to get into a public, in-state college with both reasonable tuition and a strong reputation to study what I wanted to study, but also see that I wasn’t going to make it unless I had the right combination of classes and activities that the paperwork said I needed to do, whatever their own opinions were. Once they got that message, which was happily before my freshman year of high school, things got much easier.
- Relatedly, my parents never made me work a weekend, evening or summer job, and also didn’t push me to take driving lessons at 15 or 16, because they saw how drained I was by school, not just by the academics and extracurricular activities but by the social load, too. Of course, they certainly asked about whether I thought I had time to learn to drive so I would “feel more independent”, or do a few hours of work a week “for some extra money”, but I was pretty obsessively dedicated to maximizing my college-admissions chances and once found myself asking them to look at the work I had to do and put it in a calendar and see where in the week a job would fit; they couldn’t do it. By my senior year, with the vast majority of my pre-college required classes and exams done, I did learn to drive, but I didn’t work for a wage until college; I asked for their permission to co-enroll in regular community-college summer and evening classes as a high-school junior and senior to knock out more prerequisites that would transfer to my state’s university systems.
- I never had a curfew; my family just asked me to call them whenever I was ready to come home, and my life was so school-focused that I don’t think I was out after 9:00 or 10:00 until college.
- Because I was allowed to lead my own academic life, I never worried that my parents wouldn't have my back 100% whenever my school dropped the ball. In one memorable instance, my biology teacher in my senior year refused to sign off on an alternative study contract I was getting from the school district because some of my classmates and I were going to a school-sponsored Model United Nations conference overseas. I was going to miss his lecture about something in the textbook, he told me, in front of the whole class, that ”a student like me”, whatever that meant, “wouldn't understand without it”. I was confused by this, and when I got home I told my parents what he had said. My mom called the principal (who was also going on the trip!) and met her the next morning unbeknownst to me, and that same day during biology class the principal came to the classroom, greeted the teacher by his first name, said hello to me, asked me for the contract, handed it to him and told him to sign it there and then, and then said I was all set for the trip and took it with her. Plenty of parents, of course, would have done something similar, but perhaps would have tried calling the teacher first, or tried to set up a meeting between them, the teacher and me to negotiate something; my parents opted to solve the problem rather than entertain anything less than that, and I’m really grateful for those no-nonsense actions they took as adults with power to unblock pathways I couldn’t navigate myself.
posted by mdonley at 9:12 AM on November 1 [11 favorites]
- I was always busy, and often overwhelmed, with schoolwork, but my parents and I went grocery shopping multiple times a week, cooked together almost every night and ate dinner together almost every night, at a table, without a TV on. We didn’t always have a great conversation, and honestly we argued more than I think any of us are proud of, but just being part of making dinner together taught me the ins and outs of a home kitchen, showed me that we were literally responsible for nourishing each other, and that whatever happens, we’re going to have to spend time together each day anyway. It was also my one real time each day to relax with them.
- Any stated desire I had made to be left alone when I needed or wanted to be left alone was always, always respected, and if they wanted to come talk to me in my room, they always, always knocked first. This was because my parents knew they would see me every day anyway and also because of their early, open and repeated acknowledgement that my schoolwork and homework load was, at a certain point in high school, leading me to have longer, more physically intense and more mentally taxing days than they had had at that age and than they usually had at their own jobs.
- They never compared my problems or stress to theirs in negative or demeaning ways, perhaps because they could see that my school-dominated life was, actually, very difficult. For multiple years I was off to school at 6:35 for a 7:00 start and finished at 3:00, with a shorter lunch break than they had at work, and then on arriving home began multiple hours of homework — while also doing activities like travelling to Model United Nations conferences or doing required community-service hours or going to a local university library to research something our local library or school library didn’t have any information on, all of which took up weekends and vacations. My parents were not hands-off; instead, they really learned to listen to me on topics of school life and helped me to manage it when I could show them what I needed to do. Notably, my school gave me, not them, the vast majority of the documentation and resources to demonstrate what was necessary for me to go to college, often in the form of handouts with flowcharts and diagrams. This institutional-derived material helped them see how I, personally, could indeed do what I was doing and expect to get into a public, in-state college with both reasonable tuition and a strong reputation to study what I wanted to study, but also see that I wasn’t going to make it unless I had the right combination of classes and activities that the paperwork said I needed to do, whatever their own opinions were. Once they got that message, which was happily before my freshman year of high school, things got much easier.
- Relatedly, my parents never made me work a weekend, evening or summer job, and also didn’t push me to take driving lessons at 15 or 16, because they saw how drained I was by school, not just by the academics and extracurricular activities but by the social load, too. Of course, they certainly asked about whether I thought I had time to learn to drive so I would “feel more independent”, or do a few hours of work a week “for some extra money”, but I was pretty obsessively dedicated to maximizing my college-admissions chances and once found myself asking them to look at the work I had to do and put it in a calendar and see where in the week a job would fit; they couldn’t do it. By my senior year, with the vast majority of my pre-college required classes and exams done, I did learn to drive, but I didn’t work for a wage until college; I asked for their permission to co-enroll in regular community-college summer and evening classes as a high-school junior and senior to knock out more prerequisites that would transfer to my state’s university systems.
- I never had a curfew; my family just asked me to call them whenever I was ready to come home, and my life was so school-focused that I don’t think I was out after 9:00 or 10:00 until college.
- Because I was allowed to lead my own academic life, I never worried that my parents wouldn't have my back 100% whenever my school dropped the ball. In one memorable instance, my biology teacher in my senior year refused to sign off on an alternative study contract I was getting from the school district because some of my classmates and I were going to a school-sponsored Model United Nations conference overseas. I was going to miss his lecture about something in the textbook, he told me, in front of the whole class, that ”a student like me”, whatever that meant, “wouldn't understand without it”. I was confused by this, and when I got home I told my parents what he had said. My mom called the principal (who was also going on the trip!) and met her the next morning unbeknownst to me, and that same day during biology class the principal came to the classroom, greeted the teacher by his first name, said hello to me, asked me for the contract, handed it to him and told him to sign it there and then, and then said I was all set for the trip and took it with her. Plenty of parents, of course, would have done something similar, but perhaps would have tried calling the teacher first, or tried to set up a meeting between them, the teacher and me to negotiate something; my parents opted to solve the problem rather than entertain anything less than that, and I’m really grateful for those no-nonsense actions they took as adults with power to unblock pathways I couldn’t navigate myself.
posted by mdonley at 9:12 AM on November 1 [11 favorites]
You might enjoy It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly
Fair warning: it is written in the NPR authorial voice (as you would expect given the author), which is not everyone's cup of tea.
posted by caek at 9:29 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Fair warning: it is written in the NPR authorial voice (as you would expect given the author), which is not everyone's cup of tea.
posted by caek at 9:29 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Solo time is good, and so is time with just one parent: we have four kids, and that was rarer than pearls around our house. A similar thing is when the teen sets the agenda for the whole family: just an evening (board game, movie, bowling...?), or a vacation, or just what's for dinner. Some of these choices will be Fails, but see them through!
My parents let me go on some wild adventures as a teen, which none of the older kids in my family did. It made me -- suddenly -- confident in my independence, which may not have been their plan: I then went away to college and never came home for more than two weeks since. :7) But the feeling that they trusted me not to totally blow it was a wholly new thing to me.
My parents also talked to my high school friends like they were people -- and not down to them -- and it showed me what good conversations can be.
Talk to your kid about money, and even let him see some of the family finances. My parents were good with money, and I had a job, but I really only saw a kid's budget until I went away to college -- at which point I had to hit the ground running. Let him make money, let him waste some of it, and then talk about both of those things with him.
Talk to him about the hard things in your life, as well as the events & issues in his life. It shows him what the future has in store for him, and also shows you being vulnerable and honest. Too often we talk to our teens about school and (their) work and food and chores, but not about family health issues/history, or regrets, or what we find frustrating.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:00 AM on November 1 [3 favorites]
My parents let me go on some wild adventures as a teen, which none of the older kids in my family did. It made me -- suddenly -- confident in my independence, which may not have been their plan: I then went away to college and never came home for more than two weeks since. :7) But the feeling that they trusted me not to totally blow it was a wholly new thing to me.
My parents also talked to my high school friends like they were people -- and not down to them -- and it showed me what good conversations can be.
Talk to your kid about money, and even let him see some of the family finances. My parents were good with money, and I had a job, but I really only saw a kid's budget until I went away to college -- at which point I had to hit the ground running. Let him make money, let him waste some of it, and then talk about both of those things with him.
Talk to him about the hard things in your life, as well as the events & issues in his life. It shows him what the future has in store for him, and also shows you being vulnerable and honest. Too often we talk to our teens about school and (their) work and food and chores, but not about family health issues/history, or regrets, or what we find frustrating.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:00 AM on November 1 [3 favorites]
I came to make the money suggestion. it's not too early to teach some financial savvy. I really wish my parents had taught me some, but they had none to give. I made so many mistakes as a young adult. get them a bank account so they can save babysitting money. teach them about budgeting and delayed gratification. good financial skills can be a fine source of pride in adulthood.
posted by supermedusa at 10:13 AM on November 1 [4 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 10:13 AM on November 1 [4 favorites]
Biggest wins: standing outside near the garage while my son smoked cigarettes and we chatted about his life, challenges, future, etc. I gave him space by not harping on him about smoking, and he did eventually quit after he moved out. We also served as a crash landing for one of his best friends who was having problems at his home and needed to be somewhere safe until that was all resolved. We also supported him when he decided to go into the military.
Biggest losses: my son actually thought I wouldn't be happy about him going into the military, it must have been something thoughtless I said at some point because neither of us can quite recall how he got the impression. Also one time when we heard him being sick as a dog at night we thought it was too much drinking and ended up being that he needed an emergency appendectomy.
We are proud of both our son and daughter, the above stories about my son just stand out because my daughter seemed to raise herself. She now has a masters degree and teaches high school Art .
posted by forthright at 11:36 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Biggest losses: my son actually thought I wouldn't be happy about him going into the military, it must have been something thoughtless I said at some point because neither of us can quite recall how he got the impression. Also one time when we heard him being sick as a dog at night we thought it was too much drinking and ended up being that he needed an emergency appendectomy.
We are proud of both our son and daughter, the above stories about my son just stand out because my daughter seemed to raise herself. She now has a masters degree and teaches high school Art .
posted by forthright at 11:36 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Couple of suggestions
- be as transparent as possible about what support, if any, can be provided to pay for post secondary education, and if there are terms/conditions/constraints around that ie. we can pay for your tuition/room/board for 4 years, you fail a class that's on you, pocket $ is on you to earn etc.
- negotiate expectations around use of family vehicles if/when they learn to drive
- be age appropriately transparent about health concerns you are navigating and older family members are navigating, especially if these are hereditary and something they should keep in the back of their mind
- start to figure out what home life will look like, what you will expect if 'launching' is a challenge for them, many kids are moving out later than previous generations
posted by walkinginsunshine at 11:40 AM on November 1 [2 favorites]
- be as transparent as possible about what support, if any, can be provided to pay for post secondary education, and if there are terms/conditions/constraints around that ie. we can pay for your tuition/room/board for 4 years, you fail a class that's on you, pocket $ is on you to earn etc.
- negotiate expectations around use of family vehicles if/when they learn to drive
- be age appropriately transparent about health concerns you are navigating and older family members are navigating, especially if these are hereditary and something they should keep in the back of their mind
- start to figure out what home life will look like, what you will expect if 'launching' is a challenge for them, many kids are moving out later than previous generations
posted by walkinginsunshine at 11:40 AM on November 1 [2 favorites]
When my mom knew (well, hoped) she'd be recovering from surgery and unable to do many of the usual household tasks, she began teaching me and my siblings how to cook, clean, etc. We made a schedule for the recovery period where we each had our tasks that we were responsible for for quite a while. Mom was still present for questions, though. Even though it was rooted in a health issue, I experienced this 'apprenticeship' as a really positive thing. There was enough support not to be overwhelming, but it was clear that our contributions were useful, maybe even essential. (And of course the skills came in handy later when I moved out.)
posted by demi-octopus at 11:59 AM on November 1
posted by demi-octopus at 11:59 AM on November 1
My parents were mostly great, but one of their major missteps was not allowing me very much independence when I was a teen. My mom in particular was very anxious about safety, which is understandable, but she dealt with that by not allowing me to go out and do much of anything on my own (or with my friends without adults present), which was...not great. It really hampered my growth both practically (in terms of learning how to deal with lots of different normal life situations on my own) and socially (in terms of having a chance to really bond with my friends). There was also never any discussion about these decisions and the rationale behind them, or an opportunity to negotiate a compromise. It was just a "because I said so" sort of situation.
So, make sure to let him have an appropriate amount of independence. Obviously do your best to keep him safe and prevent egregiously risky stuff, but when possible let him start doing things on his own. It will help him start building skills and confidence he'll benefit from for the rest of his life. And if/when there are conflicts between what he wants to do and what you're comfortable with, be open to having an honest discussion about it with him, and working out some kind of compromise when possible.
He sounds like a great kid. Enjoy this time! :)
posted by peperomia at 12:20 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
So, make sure to let him have an appropriate amount of independence. Obviously do your best to keep him safe and prevent egregiously risky stuff, but when possible let him start doing things on his own. It will help him start building skills and confidence he'll benefit from for the rest of his life. And if/when there are conflicts between what he wants to do and what you're comfortable with, be open to having an honest discussion about it with him, and working out some kind of compromise when possible.
He sounds like a great kid. Enjoy this time! :)
posted by peperomia at 12:20 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Until high school, my parents insisted that we all play at least one sport and learn at least one instrument (I think this is good policy, if you can make it work time- and money-wise; these were things offered by our schools). In high school you could drop stuff provided you were doing something else (like, I didn't play tennis after freshman year, but I joined the debate team; my sister quit basketball and wrote for the school paper; etc.) This was good -- it kept us participating in stuff but was a lot less restrictive.
We all had jobs. I guess this probably wasn't like, required, but they didn't give us money for fun stuff anymore, so: jobs! This, too, was good for us. It gave us a lot of independence -- we got to spend the money how we wanted, though given the realities of mall jobs, most of it went toward paying for the cars we drove to work. We all have various feelings about capitalism as adults, but it is the system we live in, and it was good to get some practice. We are all very good with money.
Though it maybe doesn't sound like it, my parents were really pretty hands-off. They didn't dictate what we did or who we hung out with socially; our curfew was what was imposed by the law; we picked our own classes and extracurriculars and jobs with no unasked-for input from them. By the time I was fifteen I would just tell them I was going out for the day and then...I would go! Sometimes that was taking a day trip with friends to a city two hours away, and I'd tell them about it later. I'm from a big family so some of this is just like, practical, but again: we all grew up to be functional adults who contribute to society and our families, and I've got to imagine some of it is having had a lot of autonomy from a young age.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:38 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
We all had jobs. I guess this probably wasn't like, required, but they didn't give us money for fun stuff anymore, so: jobs! This, too, was good for us. It gave us a lot of independence -- we got to spend the money how we wanted, though given the realities of mall jobs, most of it went toward paying for the cars we drove to work. We all have various feelings about capitalism as adults, but it is the system we live in, and it was good to get some practice. We are all very good with money.
Though it maybe doesn't sound like it, my parents were really pretty hands-off. They didn't dictate what we did or who we hung out with socially; our curfew was what was imposed by the law; we picked our own classes and extracurriculars and jobs with no unasked-for input from them. By the time I was fifteen I would just tell them I was going out for the day and then...I would go! Sometimes that was taking a day trip with friends to a city two hours away, and I'd tell them about it later. I'm from a big family so some of this is just like, practical, but again: we all grew up to be functional adults who contribute to society and our families, and I've got to imagine some of it is having had a lot of autonomy from a young age.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:38 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
OH and we were all in the cooking and laundry rotations in high school. Don't let your kid go to college not knowing how to cook or do laundry!!
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:39 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:39 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
Oh gosh, one more. My house was absolutely the "go-to" house for many of my friends. My mom was happy to let us eat her food (sometimes she even made us snacks!) and hang around in her basement all the time, sometimes in very large groups at odd hours. Again, this may not be possible for you -- but if it is, I know that I appreciated it, and my friends did too. Still do! My 20th reunion was a few weeks ago, and all my old friends were back in my mom's basement :)
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:42 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]
posted by goodbyewaffles at 12:42 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]
Delegate some chore to him -- and them let him do it.
Don't micromanage, don't nit-pick, don't complain. If he misses a spot, point it out, but for God's sake, don't harp on his style or whatever. If he cooks dinner on Tuesdays, eat it and find something to compliment.
This will let him get good enough at it that, when he is off on his own, it will be one less thing to have to learn.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:47 PM on November 1
Don't micromanage, don't nit-pick, don't complain. If he misses a spot, point it out, but for God's sake, don't harp on his style or whatever. If he cooks dinner on Tuesdays, eat it and find something to compliment.
This will let him get good enough at it that, when he is off on his own, it will be one less thing to have to learn.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:47 PM on November 1
Our youngest is 16, and here's a thing: my experiences will not be her experiences, so I share them freely but I'm humble about the possibility that I'm not a representative sample.
In other words, don't ever say that you have to so such-and such, like "you'll meet your spouse/best friend in college" or "you're a great speller like me" or "you're no good at math" or "you have to study abroad" -- or a million other things that felt inevitable to us, but just may not be their life, you know?
It's hard. Good luck, and bless you for wanting to raise him well!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:53 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]
In other words, don't ever say that you have to so such-and such, like "you'll meet your spouse/best friend in college" or "you're a great speller like me" or "you're no good at math" or "you have to study abroad" -- or a million other things that felt inevitable to us, but just may not be their life, you know?
It's hard. Good luck, and bless you for wanting to raise him well!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:53 PM on November 1 [2 favorites]
Starting in middle school, with my younger kid, our house became the sleepover/hang out house. I have commented on here before about this is likely partly because of my kid, but also because I made it really easy for the kids to hang out here. I essentially gave over the TV area to them, let them play video games and eat junk food and sleep sprawling in that room or my kid's room. I was able to sleep through it all, but it did involve a pretty big tolerance of tween and early teen boy behavior, including staying up late and being boisterous.
I also gave my kids a lot of space to manage their own lives.
I might have seemed especially permissive to some parents because of all this. It also meant that my kids have been pretty open with me about many things over the following years, around substance use and mistakes made and problems.
In high school or so, I tried to adjust my thinking as being someone on their team, their most committed cheerleader/coach.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:33 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
I also gave my kids a lot of space to manage their own lives.
I might have seemed especially permissive to some parents because of all this. It also meant that my kids have been pretty open with me about many things over the following years, around substance use and mistakes made and problems.
In high school or so, I tried to adjust my thinking as being someone on their team, their most committed cheerleader/coach.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:33 PM on November 1 [1 favorite]
We did pretty well, three have made it past teenhood, one coming soon.
But they were mostly all "club sport" athletes, (Swimming and water polo), so much of their time was spent at practice. None of them had the kind of time for just "hanging out" with friends that I grew up with. And certainly didn't give them time to get up to all the shit I did as a teen. They just want to get on their computers and play video games.
Make sure you let your son figure out who they are. Make sure you let them know that you are proud of them for the good person you see in them. And enjoy the time with them. Things might get weird...
But it is nice to see your boys make it through all the shit going on now, and coming out the other side being awesome people.
posted by Windopaene at 7:58 PM on November 1
But they were mostly all "club sport" athletes, (Swimming and water polo), so much of their time was spent at practice. None of them had the kind of time for just "hanging out" with friends that I grew up with. And certainly didn't give them time to get up to all the shit I did as a teen. They just want to get on their computers and play video games.
Make sure you let your son figure out who they are. Make sure you let them know that you are proud of them for the good person you see in them. And enjoy the time with them. Things might get weird...
But it is nice to see your boys make it through all the shit going on now, and coming out the other side being awesome people.
posted by Windopaene at 7:58 PM on November 1
I've recently heard about the "potted plant" parenting style, and while I'm positive my parents did not think about what style of parenting they did, it's basically that. They were very present in my life, which I didn't know was such a blessing until I grew older and made friends with very different home lives.
They also explained their reasons for things. For example, they would always say that if I knew I'd miss (my pretty generous) curfew, all I had to do was call and let them know. Because otherwise, if they woke up and saw I wasn't home, they'd immediately start worrying. That made a lot of sense to me, and giving them a call was easy enough. So there were very few "because I said so" situations. And they gave my sister and I tons of privacy and respect for when we clearly wanted to be alone doing whatever.
I have a newly-minted teen at home, and I hope to continue to have a solid, open relationship with her – and I've been laying that groundwork for years. She knows that she's my favorite person. She knows (and has already done this) that she can talk to me about difficult things, even if it takes me allowing her the time to stew about it for a bit before she does. She knows that she can tell me that something I'm doing is bothering her without me getting defensive or angry. But the main thing? I'm Here. I'm Present in Her Life. I know there will be missteps, but I also know that me being a consistent and positive presence is the best thing I can do.
posted by Molasses808 at 9:47 PM on November 1
They also explained their reasons for things. For example, they would always say that if I knew I'd miss (my pretty generous) curfew, all I had to do was call and let them know. Because otherwise, if they woke up and saw I wasn't home, they'd immediately start worrying. That made a lot of sense to me, and giving them a call was easy enough. So there were very few "because I said so" situations. And they gave my sister and I tons of privacy and respect for when we clearly wanted to be alone doing whatever.
I have a newly-minted teen at home, and I hope to continue to have a solid, open relationship with her – and I've been laying that groundwork for years. She knows that she's my favorite person. She knows (and has already done this) that she can talk to me about difficult things, even if it takes me allowing her the time to stew about it for a bit before she does. She knows that she can tell me that something I'm doing is bothering her without me getting defensive or angry. But the main thing? I'm Here. I'm Present in Her Life. I know there will be missteps, but I also know that me being a consistent and positive presence is the best thing I can do.
posted by Molasses808 at 9:47 PM on November 1
One of mine: we let my two very intelligent (not just me bragging) kids be "kids", we didn't only do educational games, or be rigid on homework or some of the other things some of the other parents of "gifted" kids did. Normal "kid" activities went on, and I think they were better-balanced for it.
One of my parents' (although this one specifically came from Dad, and I was told from his Dad): explain clearly that lying should not happen; AND that if they can be trusted not to lie you will have their back whenever someone accuses them of whatever and they tell you they didn't do it. This was ALSO extended to smoking and drinking. My dad did NOT drink and he didn't condone us doing it, but he said "if you want to try smoking or drinking, you try the first one with me. And then you won't have to lie to me about it ". This worked very very well, our level of trust in each other never wavered. It also had an amusing side effect: my Dad, at the time, smoked those plastic tipped cigars. So, when I wanted to try smoking, that is what I tried, and what I smoked for a little while at 16. You can't imagine how much fun it was when I'd be leaning against the VW talking with my friends, Dad would come how and walk over to joke with us, and I'd light a cigar. My friends would practically crap their pants an after Dad went in the house it was a chorus of "I can't _believe_ you just lit up in front of your Dad!!"
posted by TimHare at 9:01 PM on November 2
One of my parents' (although this one specifically came from Dad, and I was told from his Dad): explain clearly that lying should not happen; AND that if they can be trusted not to lie you will have their back whenever someone accuses them of whatever and they tell you they didn't do it. This was ALSO extended to smoking and drinking. My dad did NOT drink and he didn't condone us doing it, but he said "if you want to try smoking or drinking, you try the first one with me. And then you won't have to lie to me about it ". This worked very very well, our level of trust in each other never wavered. It also had an amusing side effect: my Dad, at the time, smoked those plastic tipped cigars. So, when I wanted to try smoking, that is what I tried, and what I smoked for a little while at 16. You can't imagine how much fun it was when I'd be leaning against the VW talking with my friends, Dad would come how and walk over to joke with us, and I'd light a cigar. My friends would practically crap their pants an after Dad went in the house it was a chorus of "I can't _believe_ you just lit up in front of your Dad!!"
posted by TimHare at 9:01 PM on November 2
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posted by haptic_avenger at 7:53 AM on November 1 [1 favorite]