What mind-blowingly stupid thing has your teen done, or what obvious thing do they ignore?

[Anonymous]

I know that you’re shocked that your kid lacks basic grammar skills. But your title is really alarmist. Some of us have kids who actually did mind blowingly stupid things like the tic toc tide pod challenge or benedryl challenge. Or they tried asphyxiation games. Seriously if you find bad grammar to be a mind blowing event you should count your lucky stars and you should be more self aware than to post something so stupidly insignificant and call is mind blowingly stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year my then 16 yr old asked me if the Pentagon was named after a Confederate general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:15-year-old kid wondered why everyone was upset over gas prices. $5 for a tankful of gas didn't seem all that much to her She had no idea it was PER GALLON until she learned to pump it herself.

My niece was honors everything, full scholarships, etc. Her parents gave her a Exxon credit card for gas when she went off to school.

She asked them why her money-challenged roommate didn't "just get a Exxon card to pay for her gas" when the girl was not able to go home one weekend due to low funds.

This story is befuddling because she is now a doctor and is incredibly smart. I think she was just so spoiled and never paid for a thing and had no clue that things cost money. My sister had to literally explain to her that they were paying the bill.

[Anonymous]

My kid got her first paycheck and didn’t know what to do with it.

Lucky for her there’s an app for that!

[Anonymous]

No kid knows how to read a map. I get that phone apps give road directions, but North/South/East/West - no clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know that you’re shocked that your kid lacks basic grammar skills. But your title is really alarmist. Some of us have kids who actually did mind blowingly stupid things like the tic toc tide pod challenge or benedryl challenge. Or they tried asphyxiation games. Seriously if you find bad grammar to be a mind blowing event you should count your lucky stars and you should be more self aware than to post something so stupidly insignificant and call is mind blowingly stupid.

I agree. And who could have foreseen it turning into a thread about how incredibly smart everyone is IRL?

[Anonymous]

These are mostly stories of DCUM privileged kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are mostly stories of DCUM privileged kids.

Jealous, poorly performing parents out in full force today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He goes to public school. What do you expect?

Former teacher:

Kids from private schools who came to our public school always had gaps in their knowledge. 100% of the time. My niece was in private and was top of the 8th grade in math. The school said she had no peers at her math level because she was so far ahead but they created enrichment for her for the 10th grade curriculum. 3/4 of the way through 8th grade she had to switch to public school in FCPS. She was so far behind that she needed tutoring 3x a week to be able to understand what was being taught. I’m not dissing privates because there are some benefits to them, but don’t kid yourself that private school education is the utopia.

All private schools are not the same. My son will take BC calc as a sophomore and our public offers nothing beyond that (they said they’d pay for college classes). Our private (that we are switching to) offers multi variable, diff eq, linear algebra, a multiple advanced math seminars.

I just have to say that our public school offers all the math classes that you mentioned. You are obviously not in Montgomery County. I don't want to take away from the discussion, but just wanted to mention that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are mostly stories of DCUM privileged kids.

Jealous, poorly performing parents out in full force today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No kid knows how to read a map. I get that phone apps give road directions, but North/South/East/West - no clue.

I was pleasantly surprised when my 15yo competently took over map duty on our recent hiking trip. Guess all those years of Girl Scout camp paid off! I feel like she’d manage OK without Google Maps, assuming a paper map could even be found anywhere these days.

I will say, though, that it was an embarrassingly short time ago that we had to explain what a dial tone was. She’d only used cell phones to make phone calls, because even though we have a house phone we literally never use it. Its only real function is for the alarm system. She picked it up one day and said, “Why is this phone making a funny noise?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year my then 16 yr old asked me if the Pentagon was named after a Confederate general.

OMG, that is so something my teen would ask!!

[Anonymous]

We were in Ireland a few weeks ago and 13 yr old asked our 17 year old what the TV antenna was that was on our house. 17 year old said it was a lightning rod.

[Anonymous]

I don't have teens yet, but when my friend and I were teens we baked cookies. She did not know how to use the timer on the stove, so she used the microwave as her timer...by running it empty for 10 minutes. We were so lucky that it did not start a fire!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that you’re shocked that your kid lacks basic grammar skills. But your title is really alarmist. Some of us have kids who actually did mind blowingly stupid things like the tic toc tide pod challenge or benedryl challenge. Or they tried asphyxiation games. Seriously if you find bad grammar to be a mind blowing event you should count your lucky stars and you should be more self aware than to post something so stupidly insignificant and call is mind blowingly stupid.

I agree. And who could have foreseen it turning into a thread about how incredibly smart everyone is IRL?

+2 Not to mention privileged.