What teens hear...

Well, ‘worse’ is probably a bit extreme. But to all you parents of toddlers who think life is difficult, just wait till they’re teens.

I work with a lot of parent bloggers, and many of them are new or newish parents. Their blog posts about their children vary in theme from pride over a new developmental stage to disgruntled over endless lack of sleep. Every now and then I read a version of ‘I don’t wish time away, but life will be so much easier when they’re older!’ That’s the part where I usually choke on my coffee and spit it all over the keyboard.

We’ve had four teens grow up in the house, and we’ve now moved on to the fifth, so I figure I have something to say about this.

You know how if your little ones don’t get enough sleep, or eat at the right time they can be grumpy and difficult? You know how if you forget the pack of entertainment for when you go out to a restaurant or over to a friend’s your child becomes bored and impatient? You know how if you forget the nappy bag you have to go home again? You know how important you believe it is to get enrolled in baby swim—and to be on time, fitting it in between a nap and lunch?

Read on…

Sleep

With teens you still need to make sure they get enough sleep–but that means about an hour of this every evening:

‘It’s time for bed now.’

‘You know how hard it is to wake up in the morning if you don’t get enough sleep.’

‘It’s 11.30 I am not doing this again. You’ve gone to bed late every night this week—and last week for that matter. I’m tired too, you know.’

‘Upstairs NOW.’ 

‘Right. I’m turning the Internet off. BED. NOW.’

‘I do have to shout because you don’t pay attention unless I do. Yes, I am in a mood. Now I am, but I wasn’t when we started this an hour ago. And no, I can’t just go to bed when I want to because I need to wait up to get you to bed.’

My theory is that like Ginger the dog, all the teen hears is ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah’. Or probably more accurately, ‘Nag, nag, nag, nag.’

Feeding time

The first time we went on holiday as a blended family I made a picnic lunch for the beach. Sandwiches, crisps, cookies, and some fresh stuff like apples. And drinks. In the first half an hour all the food was gone and we only brought enough money for ice creams so for the next five hours the faces became more and more sour and kids grew more quiet as they tried to be polite to me but were actually really starving.

The next day I made everyone two sandwiches each, brought double crisps, double cookies, and more apples etc. It took about 2.5 hours for everything to be consumed but I brought more money the second day so they got ice creams AND pasties (yes, we were in Devon but they still sold pasties on the beach. Thankfully.).

I think the third day I got it right.

Think biblical locusts and you will know the nature of a teen appetite. And just when you have it figured out they go off something, or become vegetarian, or decide they may have a nut allergy.

Entertainment when out

An impatient, bored baby is difficult but if distracted returns to happiness fairly easily. Unless ill or teething of course.

An impatient, bored teen fills a room with a chemical that makes everyone feel snappy and moody. It takes a while to get it out of your system once released; even opening the windows wide doesn’t help.

Forgetting the nappy bag

Although you don’t need to worry about forgetting the nappy bag for teens, this essential item is replaced by different things on different days, taxing even the most organised parent: Mondays and Wednesdays is PE, but sometimes it’s swimming and one Monday a month it’s lifesaving so add shorts and t-shirt to the swim bag on those days, and Fridays is club so it’s a pack lunch day. If you want to get to cello on time after ballet you have to remember to pack away the cello the night before so it can be put in the boot before the school run because of the extra orchestra practice on Tuesdays. Then Thursday afternoons is late day, but this has to be changed to some Wednesdays so if that’s the case make sure there’s an extra bag for…for… what was it for? I’m sure I wrote it down somewhere…

And yes, just like forgetting a nappy bag, you have to go home again if you forget anything.

Getting to baby swim on time

Many kids move on from baby swim to the multitude of other Classes to Prepare them for (you can tick more than one):

• Future Entrance Exams—hopefully a scholarship
• Future Stardom, ‘my child might just be the next (delete as appropriate) Yo-yo Ma/Darcey Bussell/Daniel Radcliffe’
• Keeping them out of trouble
• Keeping up with the Joneses—’everyone else has their child in this class, I don’t want my child to feel disadvantaged’

This is one reason why I promote quiet time reading a good book so much.

So there you have it.

Teens are like toddlers but much larger and way more complicated in every way: more tired but not able to take naps, more hungry but with bottomless pits instead of stomachs, more wilful and with a greater lexicon for arguing back, and busier in every way but without the experience or ability to manage it all themselves.

The teens wake, go to school, do clubs, come home, do homework, eat, do homework, then want some time to themselves and so they collapse in front of the TV or Facebook and finally get nagged by parents to get to bed on time. If we think this is a busy, difficult time, can you imagine what they’re thinking? (Do you remember your teen years?)

It’s not all bad.

There’s a lot to recommend teens as well. The best part about having teens around compared to toddlers is that you can have conversations with them. At last, you can really get to know your child, and they you. If you work on developing a dialogue with them, you can talk about strategies for helping your teens get more sleep, or you can stay up-to-date on their current food likes/dislikes, or check that they actually enjoy doing all those activities you’ve signed them up for.

Enjoy your toddlers, and consider this your training ground for the future–they won’t get easier when they’re older, just bigger. And more interesting.

It’s Family Week on The American Resident, and tomorrow I have a little Emma Bridgewater giveaway!

Image: Gary Larson