Teen attitude

[Anonymous]

Is it normal to struggle with it as a parent? Yesterday ds who is nearly 17 comes home, I ask about homework, he says he has none. Then he goes to the gym and library with friends for hours. Comes home at 8.30, has hours of homework left. He starts ranting very loudly about how much work he has, how he never has time to do anything, gets mad at me for saying he had hours after school to do all this. He is a good student but could be much better if he tried harder, and he has the most horrendous attitude.

[Anonymous]

ya, welcome to teen hood. I have two teens: one is great about this kind of stuff; the other, not so much

This is one area I do not want to allow for natural consequences. Grades are too important for college, but as long as their grades aren't suffering, then you just have to tune out their whining and blowups.

I try as much as possible to speak calmly to them and not blow up myself. Hard for me to do because I'm pretty high strung myself. Having kids has definitely made me try to be calmer.

I also find it really hard to not say, "I told you so" every 30minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ya, welcome to teen hood. I have two teens: one is great about this kind of stuff; the other, not so much

This is one area I do not want to allow for natural consequences. Grades are too important for college, but as long as their grades aren't suffering, then you just have to tune out their whining and blowups.

I try as much as possible to speak calmly to them and not blow up myself. Hard for me to do because I'm pretty high strung myself. Having kids has definitely made me try to be calmer.

I also find it really hard to not say, "I told you so" every 30minutes.

My big issue with him is he is constantly pushing, testing, saying things like why does it matter, I don’t care…. I am patient generally but sometimes after a string of incidents I can’t take it anymore, like his tantruming yesterday about something so avoidable. It tends to ruin quiet moments a lot. We were peacefully watching a show with dd who did all her work and he truly explodes over this. It feels unfair of him to impose his moods and mistakes on everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

Not the OP, but I think you are misreading this. Hours at the library with friends means not doing his work. He probably doesn't have hours of homework a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

Not the OP, but I think you are misreading this. Hours at the library with friends means not doing his work. He probably doesn't have hours of homework a day.

Correct. He was at the library and Starbucks chatting, not studying. I am not an intense parent. He has just one AP and a light amount of work he complains about a lot. So I don’t have much sympathy when he puts off work after hours of fun on a school day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

Yes I do. Graduated in the late 90s. AP classes most especially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ya, welcome to teen hood. I have two teens: one is great about this kind of stuff; the other, not so much

This is one area I do not want to allow for natural consequences. Grades are too important for college, but as long as their grades aren't suffering, then you just have to tune out their whining and blowups.

I try as much as possible to speak calmly to them and not blow up myself. Hard for me to do because I'm pretty high strung myself. Having kids has definitely made me try to be calmer.

I also find it really hard to not say, "I told you so" every 30minutes.

My big issue with him is he is constantly pushing, testing, saying things like why does it matter, I don’t care…. I am patient generally but sometimes after a string of incidents I can’t take it anymore, like his tantruming yesterday about something so avoidable. It tends to ruin quiet moments a lot. We were peacefully watching a show with dd who did all her work and he truly explodes over this. It feels unfair of him to impose his moods and mistakes on everyone else.

I think this is the part you focus on. Not the substance of the moment but you're not allowed to burst in and ruin a moment the family is having.

Let him do whatever he's going to do with the homework. My kid does this sometimes and then has to stay up too late and is tired the next day. Sucks to be you. Not my problem. Keep the grades up and whatever stupid ways you go about it are your problem. If grades aren't where they need to be, start taking away some privileges like hanging out at Starbucks with your buddies. This is assuming this is a neurotypical kid who knows what he should be doing and just isn't doing it. Which at 17 is probably what you're dealing with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

Yes. I remember homework in HS and I graduated in 1989. I remember writing essays, writing reports, completing math homework, completing lab reports, and a whole host of other work. I had plenty of homework in HS.

And I played 2 sports. And I worked. And I found time to hang out.

I tend to be more surprised that people think that the schedules today are insane because they look a whole lot like mine except that I had to go to the library to do research since there was no internet at the time.

[Anonymous]

Yes, this is very normal. They are illogical creatures at this age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, this is very normal. They are illogical creatures at this age.

+1. Throw in soiling the nest, preparing themselves for being away from Mom and Dad when they go off to college. Fun times!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it normal to struggle with it as a parent? Yesterday ds who is nearly 17 comes home, I ask about homework, he says he has none. Then he goes to the gym and library with friends for hours. Comes home at 8.30, has hours of homework left. He starts ranting very loudly about how much work he has, how he never has time to do anything, gets mad at me for saying he had hours after school to do all this. He is a good student but could be much better if he tried harder, and he has the most horrendous attitude.

You were at my house last night?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

I totally agree with you. We had homework and activities, but this is insane

[Anonymous]

My kids are in 3-4 APs their junior and senior years and have never had hours of homework a night. Maybe occasionally had 2 tests in a day or a project and a test same day, but never a constant schedule of hours of work a night.

IME with my middle, he procrastinates and then it seems like a ton of work to do a paper in one night that he had 2 weeks to do and he gets overwhelmed and blames everyone and everything but himself but that self-inflicted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you remember having HOURS of homework a day as a teen in high school? No because we didn't.

Why is it fair to push and push and push these kids. They go to school for 7 hours. Practice sports or extracurriculars for 2-3 hours more. Then we expect them to be excited and want to come home and do 2-3 hours of school work.

Teen years are supposed to be fun. There needs to be a better balance. I understand their attitude to be honest

Not the OP, but I think you are misreading this. Hours at the library with friends means not doing his work. He probably doesn't have hours of homework a day.

She literally said comes home at 8:30 and has hours of homework left. What is the PP misreading. Teens having hours of homework after 7 hours of school and 3 hours of sports is crazy.