Teenage freedoms

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Interesting responses with lots of different rules and concerns, which is to be expected. There is no right answer is there. I have less problems with the big stuff in many ways, I've made mistakes I'm sure, I can see them but I recognise they are down to my shortcomings and I decided some time ago that I should not be afraid to point out my errors to them and what that means for them. In many ways it works, in other ways it leaves difficult situations more difficult, my reasoning is exposed, my rationale undermined at least in the short term but it's a long game is it not. I am wont to remind them of that famous Philip Larkin poem and then add that Larkin was a bit of a miserable twat so not to take it literally.

Funnily enough it's the small stuff I have more trouble with, the rule setting but then I've never been one for some rules. This thread was brought about by a simple, what time to be back from the social club where my oldest plays snooker and I think it was a rule borne from my own needs, that I simply didn't want to stay up late waiting for him to come in. The same logic raises me from my bed when my youngest does his wknd paper round.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Mine can come in after I go to bed but if they are going to be late into the night then I do like a simple text to say that they are going to be a lot later than they said. Even then they don't always remember that, then I just worry until they come in, at least if I'm asleep I don't know. I agree that you assume it gets easier but I suspect you just change what you worry about.
 
Having read a few threads this week on CC I have just informed my children that they need to make sure they have planning permission from the council before having a party, that they need to film everything and be upset when things don't go as expected, that it's much better to start an internet thread than deal with issues properly and that whatever happens to them in their lives @Mad Doug Biker will still "like" them :smile:
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Having read a few threads this week on CC I have just informed my children that they need to make sure they have planning permission from the council before having a party, that they need to film everything and be upset when things don't go as expected, that it's much better to start an internet thread than deal with issues properly and that whatever happens to them in their lives @Mad Doug Biker will still "like" them :smile:
You did tell them not to believe everything they read on the internet as well?:whistle:
 

Mad Doug Biker

Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
Location
Craggy Island
Having read a few threads this week on CC I have just informed my children that they need to make sure they have planning permission from the council before having a party, that they need to film everything and be upset when things don't go as expected, that it's much better to start an internet thread than deal with issues properly and that whatever happens to them in their lives @Mad Doug Biker will still "like" them :smile:

i cannae like that post then!!:whistle:
 

Monsieur

Senior member
Location
Lincolnshire
We went for trying to explain our reasoning for stuff that we were doing, or restrictions we were giving and not sweating the small stuff. They will be 20 in a week or two and I'm not sure either of us know if we got it right or not. In some ways they are fantastic, in others we despair with added despair on top. At the moment we're hoping all the money spent on Uni wasn't a complete waste (they are in the summer break between years 2 and 3) while it looks like they'll get a degree it also sounds like what the course has taught them is that they don't want to try and make a living in any way related to it.

I think the main thing we'd try and do differently is harder restrictions on 'stuff'. We've always been pretty soft touches on shelling out cash for this thing and that thing while trying to emphasise the value of what was being bought, but it would probably have been better if we'd gone the route of saying 'you want it, earn some money and buy it' a bit more often. Tough one as we don't live anywhere they could easily have got a job (without us taxiing them everywhere) and we didn't want them to spend time they should have been studying for school earning money for 'stuff'. But I think it's the big thing we'd have done differently. It's been something we've been doing during the Uni years quite a bit, especially during the summer. Although I think all it's done is get them an overdraft...

This sounds just as I would have written!
Mine are 20, 18 and 16 and I've done just as you have done above!

Currently sat at home watching flight radar24 for both girls' flights home from Corfu and Thailand!
 

Archie_tect

De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
Location
Northumberland
Yes, every child is different and there are no default parental skills. I've a 15 and a 19 year old, brought up exactly the same, yet are like chalk and cheese. Youngest has a big world, lots of friends (real ones) and is a busy straight ahead kid. His elder brother spends his time in bed, looking at his i-phone or making one calamitous life/work decision after another. The 15 year old is the 19 year old and vice versa, it's painful to watch it all play out.

Second children learn from their older sibling's mistakes... happens every time. The oldest not only has to find their own boundaries and cope with the pressure of first time parents but every aspect of their life is a new experience.... then the second one comes along and reaps the benefits of more relaxed parenting skills + sees how to have an easy life with relationships, school, friends and the rest. I was an only child but I've seen our two grow and thrive so it all works out, you just have to trust them.
 
OP
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Second children learn from their older sibling's mistakes... happens every time. The oldest not only has to find their own boundaries and cope with the pressure of first time parents but every aspect of their life is a new experience.... then the second one comes along and reaps the benefits of more relaxed parenting skills + sees how to have an easy life with relationships, school, friends and the rest. I was an only child but I've seen our two grow and thrive so it all works out, you just have to trust them.
Yeah but they get the hand me downs too.
 
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[QUOTE 3190654, member: 1314"]No, I give in. I have no constructive advice to offer.[/QUOTE]
In a funny way, that is constructive advice.
 

w00hoo_kent

One of the 64K
My wife and I both got a text out of the blue on Saturday, we were in different places at the time -

Hey, I just wanted to say I really love and care about you guys. It may feel a lot of the time like im a miserable shoot. But you do make me smile and laugh. Sometimes in ways that my friends never do. Im sorry im a bind this summer mooching off you. but im endlessly greatful that you are letting me have my last summer holiday and be a layabout. I love you guys and youre in the runnings probably the best people I could have hoped for as parents. I was just sitting on the train and it hit me I guess. See you when I get home tonight. Love you guys

Hit us both right in the feels. So I guess we're doing something right (although naturally while copying it here my first thought was "there is such a thing as an apostrophe you know!"). It's worth persevering I guess, sometimes you want to kill them, sometimes they do something great that you aren't expecting.
 
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