Reply to How hard are the teen years, really?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So like everyone said, they are all different. Same parents and my kids are so very different. My teen on the spectrum was such a challenging baby and toddler. I was notorious everywhere I went because of his behavior. I got the stink eye and so many judgmental looks and rude remarks and I was schlepping him too all different therapies, doing diet changes and revolving my life around his needs-gave up work. Knock on wood the tweens and teens are so much easier than those years and people comment to me on how polite he is and how hard working and kind. I am still the same parent just trying to do my best, but I guess maybe over time all those therapies actually helped and we got lucky...so far...it could change. My daughter was the the Mayor of the town as a baby and such a happy and social and happy kid through the start of middle school. Now we are dealing with anxiety, some depression and many friendship dramas and I dread high school.[/quote]

Did I write this? DS, now 19, has high functioning autism and I know we were the talk of the playground when he was in elementary school. The other parents "uninvited" him from his 5th grade promotion ceremony because he had a meltdown during the practice. He got steadily better when puberty his and now he's off to college in the fall! He's going nearby and will likely come home on the weekends to decompress but this is still huge. We have ZERO problems with sex, alcohol, drugs, etc. because he's just not interested. On the other hand I don't foresee any grandchildren from him!

DD, now 16, was such a ridiculously easy baby, toddler, everything until the last couple of years. She was an absolute delight and my best friend. We are still very very close and 90% of the time it's great. However, she has anxiety and borderline ADHD--inattentive and is LGBTQ+ and a vegetarian and is the word and thought police on both topics. I'm super liberal and easy-going but I'm also 50 and still learning new terms and ways of looking at things. She has NO sympathy for that and expects me to literally fly flags (which I do), switch to vegetarian cooking (which I do), and never call anyone walking down the street, who can't even hear me (!) a man or woman because what if, by some chance, they identify as a different gender?! But mostly she's pretty easy too, I love all of her friends, and they all seem to think that shopping in Georgetown for the afternoon is as good as life gets. So I'll take it. She's no trouble at all behaviorally at school though her grades have suffered during Covid. She's generally a good person when she's not being moody.

I was a ridiculously good teenager but my mother criticized me, yelled at me, and hit me, so I've really put a lot of effort into having a good relationship with both of my kids and I think the results have been pretty good so far. I do agree that there's not a darned thing I could really do if she had turned out like my sister who lied, cheated, stole, and was basically a difficult late teenager/early 20-year-old. It's all a crap shoot and a lot of hard work![/quote]

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