Jonah transformed into a teenager somehow in one snowy week in February. It wasn't a gradual change in personality. It was an abrupt change. One day he was a kid, and the next day he was an asshole.
His body hasn't caught up, yet. His eyebrows are darker, but his voice hasn't changed and his shoulders haven't grown. Right now, it's mostly about his personality. I'm slowly learning how to parent a teenager, but it's like learning a whole new language. I still don't have the hang of it, yet.
Last night, as I drove him home from soccer practice, I asked him how it went. He replied, "Terrible."
I said, "Terrible? Oh sweetie, what happened?" I was alarmed. Did he blow a goal? Did the other kids tease him? Would this put him into a funk for five days?
"Mom, it went fine. I got two goals," he said with an amused voice in the back seat.
Apparently, "terrible" really means "great" and "I really don't want to talk about it with you, because you're a grown up." Except when "terrible" really means "terrible" and "I really don't want to talk about it with you, because you're a grown up." There are many subtlies with the word "terrible" and I haven't yet figured out when "terrible" means "great" or "really terrible."
He announced that he had a lot of homework, when he came home. So, I told him that he better get to it and walked away to deal with other matters. I found him at 4:00 in front of the TV watching a soccer match and texting on his phone. I said, "Jonah! I thought you had a lot of homework. Why aren't you doing it?"
"I will!"
Okay, so let me translate "I will" for you. "I will" means "I will do it at some indeterminate point in the future, which might be never."
He doesn't want me to tell him to do things, but he still doesn't want to assume the responsibility to do things on his own and still expects me to nag him to do things.
Last month, I went to a town function where there were a lot of women with younger children. They jabbered away about nap times and nursery school options and playdates. And I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. I felt really old. Like all that was another life time away. I'm dealing with "I will" and "terrible" and long lectures about Internet security.
Last week, there was a minor town scandal, because some high school girls took naked pictures of themselves and sent them to boys via Snapchat, the website that enables people to send pictures that are immediately deleted after ten seconds. Well, the boys quickly captured the naked pictures using a screen capture function on their phones and then sent the pictures to everyone in the high school. The school district freaked out, because photos of underaged girls is considered child pornography. If those photographs were distributed through district e-mails, they would be liable. The media was alerted, and there was a big circus outside the high school.
So, this meant that we had to have a long chat with Jonah about what he should do, if someone sends him an inappropriate photo and the legal ramifications of all that. I immediately went onto Instagram to see what he was posting. Artsy selfies. Whew.
I will get the hang of this. I will. But I mean "I will" in the Jonah sense, which is "I will at some indeterminate point in the future, which might be never."
Apt. 11d 
See, with a teen girl, the Terrible comment would have been followed by “the coach didn’t say hi to me. She hates me. I hate soccer. I want to quit. And then I won’t have any friends and everyone will hate me. I hate my life.” Followed by a burst of tears.
It has been a difficult lesson to do nothing and wait for the next mood.
Love the last line. Isn’t that true about all parenting?
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Taking notes….I’ll be there in about 4 years.
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The nude pictures story is being used as a teaching lesson in our house. Fortunately we think the girl highly unlikely to send pictures of herself to anyone and highly resistant to peer and social pressure with a very high (almost too high) worry of embarrassment. The boy, though, needs more education. He’s young, so right now he didn’t understand why anyone would send the pictures or why any boy would do anything but delete them right away (i.e. girls are still “gross”). But I’m a believer in talking about these things and hope I”m right that talking means an educated child.
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Laura- it gets easier! you will adjust to the “new” personality and learn how best to deal with all the moods.I agree with bj (I’m also dealing with a teen girl) in that waiting for the next mood to come is usually the best bet. I am learning not to take any one (or 10) comments about a subject too seriously.Mostly I nod and say “oh” and if she wants to talk about it she will. She vacillates between communicating totally by grunts and gabbing my ear off about every little detail of everything. But now this all just seems normal. I remember in the beginning of her teen personality change feeling like a stranger who hated me had moved into my house. It was a hard time but it does get better!
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Here’s my teen story (ok, I have a few hundred, but this is the latest): I was cooking something and had my iPod to amuse me and put it down on the part of the stove that was not hot. Then I sat down to eat whatever it was I had cooked (eggs, I think), and left my ipod on the stove. The teenmonster comes out of her cave and sees the ipod on the stove and berates me about leaving the ipod on the stove when it’s on (we have one of those lights that tells you the burner is still hot even when it’s turned off). On and on and on she nagged, till I finally got up and in a burst of frustration picked up the ipod from the cool part of the stove and held it to her cheek and said, somewhat loudly, “It’s not even hot, see?”
Then she yelled at me for the next 5 minutes for yelling at her for no reason. She just came into the kitchen and I started yelling at her and she didn’t deserve it and …. At this point I just tune out.
That said, she was vile for about 2 years about 90% of the time, and now she’s only vile about 20-30% of the time. Improvement!
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My wife will put paper, like a magazine, on the cool part of the stove. It drives me nuts and I have to leave the room. The stove is always on, the gun is always loaded, the microphone is never muted, etc.
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Wendy, without naming names, we are in those 90% years. I regularly doubt my ability to endure much longer. Two years? Seriously. I’m not going to make it. [This is the study I want: which is worse, three or twelve (girl)? Because I know I survived three, so I implicitly rank 12 worse right now. And when the kids are grown, 12 will have been more recent. We need those researchers who do the happiness studies to come up with an instrument that allows them to compare parents of current 3yos to current 12yos (girl division). I would read that study.]
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Around here, the “I will” is also “in a minute” and “soon” and “I will but only after you stop asking me to” (which is in fact not true, he still won’t).
Also, he critiques my photography constantly (among other things) but can’t take the slightest hint of criticism, no matter how constructive or nicely phrased. (He’s a budding photographer and I happen to be a fairly competent one myself, which is why this is relevant. And also a PITA.)
The mood swings hit unexpectedly, and in response to the mildest comment. It’s freaky. But most of the time, he’s still pretty charming. So far.
But y’know? I’m relieved to see ALL of it. His illness halted puberty by a couple of years. I welcome the signs!
Oh, and this, I think, is why so many homeschooled kids end up going to school for high school. They need that separation from mom and dad. Rather desperately, in some cases. I see it all around us, with D’s friends.
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“The mood swings hit unexpectedly, and in response to the mildest comment. It’s freaky. But most of the time, he’s still pretty charming. So far.”
What I find amusing about it is the predictability, the evidence that it’s biology. I find it hard not to point that out. As a mildly vile older sister, I once told my younger sister that I was going to keep track of her moods in a notebook (this did not go over well, because, as I realize now, it was obnoxious. At the time I thought I could make a good scientific case for it). I recently realized that my sister was probably just around the same age my daughter is right now. She won’t let me keep track of her moods in a notebook, either.
We’re lucky that “mostly charming” applies here, too. And, it is amazing to see the child grow up and become an amazing person.
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“The stove is always on, the gun is always loaded, the microphone is never muted, etc.”
Oh yes.
I think girls are rather different than boys–it all starts earlier. I remember (and there is photographic evidence of this) being a sulky 10-12 year old. I had a lot of epic arguments over dishes with my mom around that time. (Hint to parents: offer a choice of chores. There’s no reason it had to be dishes.) Our oldest is nearly 11, often very moody, and I am getting to live through the experience again, but in the mother’s shoes. It’s important to avoid getting sucked into the drama and to do what people recommend upthread, namely waiting for the next mood. It’s a very bad idea to start arguing with her, because a tween girl’s ability to argue is essentially unlimited by the demands of logic, common sense, or observable reality. On the other hand, as she is mildly autistic and we had a very rough time of it when she was a 1st and 2nd grader, this is all refreshingly normal and age-appropriate. She’s socially very close to on track and I think rather better socially than I was at the same age.
Speaking of which, we’ve been experimenting with an advanced form of playdate since around Christmas. We’ve been inviting families over to do cooking projects. So far, we’ve done gingerbread cookies, apple dumplings and soft pretzels. It’s good for our oldest’s social capital, it gets over the problem of being close to outgrowing the playdate proper, and it’s educational.
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Hang in there. “When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” ― Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
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I’m entering the stage of my life where I’ll have middle-school aged twin girls at home, and at work, I’ll be dealing with teenage girls all day. Keep me in your thoughts, y’all!
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Part of what’s happening with our oldest is growing awareness of herself and her environment. Example: In October, I was in the hospital recovering from the birth of Baby T. Normally at home, I have a large area of our dining table covered with sticky note reminders to do stuff. While visiting us in the hospital, C noted that my bedside table was beginning to erupt in sticky notes. “You’ve already created your own personal sticky patch!” she said. Paying enough attention to parents that she is able to see our foibles and critique us is a big step forward in maturity.
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Another oddity is that (very unexpectedly), our oldest is very affectionate to the baby and (at least now) thinks that Baby T can do no wrong. It feels a bit manipulative (so I haven’t done this much), but I seem to get better results when I walk in carrying Baby T. Baby T (being very smiley and responsive and totally unjudgemental) functions as a sort of therapy animal for our oldest.
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That’s 100% true, hush. Cats aren’t always happy to see me, teens are sometimes happy to see me but the dog? The dog is always happy to see me.
Laura? People say “This, too, will pass” and that’s right but what really helps is knowing that you’re not alone. We all realize that parenting a young teen is really tough work – I’d rate it as tough as the toddler years. So know that you have lots of sympathies sent your way!
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Oh, Laura! Welcome to the Parent of Teenagers Club! Mine are 17,15,and 13 (boys) with an elementary aged girl following behind. I could write pages and pages about this topic. The biggest surprise to me was how *I’ve* changed by parenting teens. It has made me so much more patient, non-judgemental, and more calm in a crisis then I ever dreamt I’d be.
Keep your chin up. Get used to the one-syllable answers for days at a time. Get used to being the ONLY PARENT who says ‘No’ to a party/dance/whatever. (Unfortunately, in my case, I truly have been the only parent to say No in many cases, but I stuck to my guns. i.e. I was the only parent who wouldn’t let my 15 yo attend a party even though we were experiencing a Minnesota blizzard, every place was closed, and no travel was advised. Yep, everyone else let the kids battle the icy roads with zero visibility to go to a party. And I’m one of the few who is not OK with boy/girl sleepovers (starting in 5th grade going through 12th)Alcohol may or may not be involved. Many parents don’t bat an eyelash.
My advice? Apologize whenever you make a mistake. Choose your questions carefully because if you ask more than one or two you’ll get “Forget it! You just don’t get it!” Interpreting words like ‘terrible’, ‘I will’ and a gazillion others will take vast amounts of brain power. Practice keeping a neutral face. Teenagers assume you have no feelings and no life. They *want* and *need* boundaries. Even though they’ll stomp around and slam doors and say angry words, they subconciously realize we need to save them from themselves, IMO.
I’ve always enjoyed your parenting posts…even moreso now that you’re parenting a teen. Good luck~ You’ll do great!
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“Baby T (being very smiley and responsive and totally unjudgemental) functions as a sort of therapy animal for our oldest.”
I’d use the treat to its fullest, at least until Baby T might become aware of her utilitarian role (which, probably, is likely to be around the same time that she stops being perfectly adorable and non-judgmental).
On a more serious note, I do think that one of the mitigating effects of teenagerhood would be if the teenager had an actual role in life to play. My own was bemoaning the existential problem that nothing she does is *really important* yet. I suggested she do the laundry or, alternatively, I could send her to a rain forest and see how long it takes her to get back to our house. I think having a purpose (other than their own development) would help them navigate the teen years. You have to be careful, though, that the activity really has purpose and isn’t being chosen for their development of that purpose (i.e. how I feel about a lot of volunteering activities, especially anything involving another country). Helping with a little sister (who adores you in return, which is a lot better than laundry, which does nothing except get clean) seems like a pretty good purpose.
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I think there are rain forests in your state.
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We were going to send her to South America to make it harder. But, maybe it would be a good first step to take her across the city to a closer rain forest and see if she made it back.
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Not trying to scare you. But. Heather in MN is spot on about other teens’ parents. Different parents have different standards for their children’s behavior. Many are very permissive.
Let’s say your kid has a friend, Bob. Don’t assume Bob’s parents share your views on appropriate parties. Some parents will serve minors alcohol at parties. Massachusetts has a social host law, but adults will do it. Don’t assume “nice people”/”people I know” will not do it. http://arlington.patch.com/articles/ruling-made-in-annie-lacourt-husband-case
The kids know which of their peers are likely to throw wild parties. They know which of their peers can wrap adults around their little fingers. Sometimes they are secretly relieved when you say “no” to a party they know will be dicey.
We’ve told our kids they can always tell their friends, “my parents would kill me.”
And, the biggest threat to your children becoming productive adults is not some gangster they’ve never met. It’s one of their peers, whom you may remember as a sweet kindergartner. The kids know who the dealers are. If they have any peers who use substances, their suppliers are likely to ride the bus with them. (I know this by hearing the updates on who was arrested for dealing or expelled from our local, excellent, public high school.)
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bj, I agree about the not having a purpose issue. Though my son has taken it to a clinical level at times, I still feel like even for non-depressed teens, the fact that their worlds are taken up with “practice” stuff is problematic. I had a real job starting at 14, which gave me a purpose at least for those hours as well as a glimpse into what life as an adult without a college degree might be like. Jobs are scarce for teens. Mine doesn’t have a driver’s license. For a while, he looked close by, but couldn’t find anything, so he quit looking. I think a job would help on many levels.
I think the hardest thing about parenting a teen is getting used to not knowing everything about your kid’s life. And I just have to be okay with that.
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When I was 16, I got a job at McDonald’s. Didn’t help. When I was 17, I got a job building pig barns and grain bins. That helped a great deal. Ironically, it took me years before I was able to eat ham without thinking of a dirty pig but McDonald’s food never bothered me.
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Of course, at both 16 and 17, my main reason for wanting to earn money was to buy beer to drink and gas so we could drive around and drink the beer in relative safety. My parents and my friends’ parents wouldn’t let us have a party.
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I assume your teen parties happened before the movie Project X.
Due to stricter controls on drinking, such as locker searches, some teens are “pre-gaming” events such as school dances with hard liquor at home beforehand. Parents can be home and have no idea.
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Our oldest daughter was also going through the difficult mood-times (age 12) when the youngest was born. Oldest daughter first declared that the baby’s impending arrival was “ruining her life” but then she decided that the baby was the best thing ever once he arrived, which I also think made a difference in her moods. (It helped that her friends all thought having a new baby brother was cool.)
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Due to stricter controls on drinking, such as locker searches, some teens are “pre-gaming” events such as school dances with hard liquor at home beforehand. Parents can be home and have no idea.
See grandmother, teaching to suck eggs.
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So I waved the paper at my lads this morning and said, ‘guys, if you are at a party and some girl is unconscious drunk, it’s a bad idea to put your fingers into her vagina’. And they said, ‘Ick, Dad, you’re DISGUSTING’ and I went on about being, well, polite until they eye-rolled and I had totally lost them. Sex photos will be my next subject, and how Megan’s Law and Jessica’s Law mean that sexting will require you to live under a bridge at the edge of town for the rest of your life.
We’re in it for sure, now. Boys 14 and 16, and the girl is eleven-going-on-15.
One of our better strategies is giving them and their friends rides. It’s amazing what they will say to each other in the back of the van.
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dave s.,
They won’t be able to say that nobody told them.
By the way, somebody should run a high school or online course, “the law for teenagers and young adults.” It sounds like you’ve got the beginning of the curriculum in hand. Student loan law would be a nice addition.
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Here’s today’s quote from our 5th grader:
“I don’t like that tone of voice, mom.”
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As a middle and high school teacher, I concur. In my classroom, sometimes it’s like I’m not there, and sometimes when I ask probing questions, I get answers. Because I’m not their parent. 🙂
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And another thing young men should know, is that breaking a window with a slingshot is ‘missile into an occupied dwelling’, which is a felony, at least in Virginia. Just saying.
I’m trying to get across to them the idea that just trying to be polite will keep them out of a lot of trouble. Refrain from manipulation of drunk girls’ parts? Polite! Refrain from slingshot? Polite! Polite is good!
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I have to ask — any chance Jonah will see this? His friends?
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No chance that Jonah will see this. He has zero interest in anything that I write. We have different last names, so nobody will ever find it by googling his name. In another day or two, it will slip to the next page and then almost no one will ever read it. Even if he did, we’ve been teasing him very openly about “terrible” and “I will.”
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Just had to ask — because you’re not as anonymous as you seem to think. You got some specific identifying details in this post (and I’ll completely understand if you delete my comment).
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Sure, I know I do have a lot of info in that post, but you would be surprised about how few people in real life find this blog. I blogged for eight years before my in laws found my blog. Of course, that happened to be the one time that I said something snarky buried way deep in a comment section that made them feel bad. Ugh. For the most part, people just aren’t interested enough in women over 40 to go home and google their name. Really. Only a handful of real life friends know about this blog, and if they do know about it, they think it too boring and dry to bother reading every day.
I was at a party last month and someone asked me what I was up to. Hadn’t seen her in a year. I told her that I’ve been writing little articles for the Atlantic and even got on NPR. She didn’t know what the Atlantic and NPR were. Never heard of them before. Hard to brag when people don’t know what you’re talking about, so I don’t bother.
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Laura, I have to laugh. I often feel equally sheepish when I talk about what I do (write online, except nobody pays me)because most people just don’t care. But I’ve been writing pieces for the big paper in my city (a major midwestern metropolis), most of them online but some of them get slotted into the weekend print edition. Suddenly lots of people have seen my name in the weekend paper and act impressed. Funny that my friends in real life are impressed by my bit part in a dying print form, when the other work I do is so much more interesting. 🙂
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Dr. Manhattan,
C thanks me for having been pregnant with Baby T!
I am so surprised–none of my kid books or previous experience with C as an older sibling prepared me for this eventuality.
I know it won’t last forever (I’ve promised my big kids baby gates for when that time comes), but at the moment, it’s amazing.
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Well, my guess is that anon-for-this will prove right at some point: the kiddos will figure out that it is there, decide they are interested, and read the whole archive sometime when they are nineteen or so. And maybe it will be fun memories of childhood, or maybe they will feel aggrieved.
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I don’t think teenagers are that different from adults. It’s just the change that is difficult for their parents. For instance, I have found that most adult males, if they say, “I’ll call you,” it means, “I might call you, at some indefinite point in the future, which might be never.” Similarly, my wife and my daughter always fought about the suitability of the daughter’s clothes, but most adult women (including my wife) react with fury if anyone tells them what to wear. So none of these things is a teen peculiarity.
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re: What my kids will say when they eventually read this blog. I told Jonah a couple of years ago that I write about himself and his brother and asked permission to keep writing about them. He said yes. I actually don’t think he will bother with reading everything until he’s an adult, because ten years of blogging every day means that I have about two phone books of words here. I also think he’ll be relieved, because I have not written about the big stuff.
Yes, the change from being a kid to a teenager/adult that is jarring for the parents. it’s also the fact that you don’t know whether the teenager is wearing the adult hat or the kid hat that day.
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y81,
That’s very good. It’s all very natural, but just hard to take from somebody who is living in your house and eating your food.
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[I think my first post got eaten because of language issues — how ironic…]
Laura, I’ve read your blog for 7 years. I really enjoy your posts, you link to great pieces, and I love the conversation among your readers.
But as you talk more specifically about your children and they get older, it’s becoming very uncomfortable for me to read you. Let’s be honest, asking Jonah a few years ago if you could keep writing about him is *NOT* getting informed consent for you to call him as a**hole in writing on the internet where nothing truly ever disappears (and frankly, I’m surprised none of your other readers have called you out on this).
Maybe no one cares enough to look you up. But you’ve identified your town in this post, and googling your name and your town brings up Steve’s last name and your address. Your family is not as hidden/protected as you assert. And as you publish more in national publications, you’re drawing more attention to yourself.
Maybe he will laugh at this in 6 years (maybe this is how you talk in your family). But as I discuss privacy concerns and informed consent with my students, specifically regarding parents blogging about their children, they cringe when I show them posts like this one.
Thanks for listening. I’ve said my piece, and I’ll bow out now.
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Ok, point well taken, anon. I keep a pretty close eye on my traffic records and haven’t seen any unusual referrals. No spikes in traffic from my home town. I’m so boring that I can’t believe that anybody would want to look me up. But I suppose I should think about all that.
I’m not so worried about Jonah. We all tease each other pretty openly in this family. I get my share of grief from all them, too. It’s really impossible to talk honestly about parenting without talking about its ups and downs.
However, it does freak me out how people can figure out Steve’s name and my actual street address.
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Y81, I don’t think teens are adults (yet). That’s why there is a place for a juvenile justice system, which I believe is more fair than treating teens like adults.
https://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=19620
“The Teen Brain: Primed to Learn, Primed to Take Risks”
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“I’m so boring that I can’t believe that anybody would want to look me up. But I suppose I should think about all that. ”
I don’t think you’ve said anything here that is particularly problematic for J. Really if someone bothers to piece together all the information here, when J, for example, runs for president, all you find out is that J, the presidential candidate, was once a teenager. Is that a surprise to anyone? People, in general, are going to have to learn to be more comfortable with knowing/having known a lot more information about them. It is worth discussing explicitly with J.
But, if you’re relying on being boring (practical obscurity), that’s a dangerous plan. There are people out there who like the puzzle of putting data together, and there might well be such people in your own community, who just like knowing information for the sake of knowing things. I don’t think you say anything deeply problematic here, but I do think that you should be considering whether it would be problematic if your neighbors/teachers/plumber/painters knew about anything you write here.
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I’d agree with everyone about the *assumption* of anonymity. I’ve figured out both your addresses and last names and all sorts of stuff (I do this kind of thing because it’s kind of fun for me–I’ve tried to divert my attention to genealogy where it’s far less intrusive). I am often disappointed by people’s lack of curiosity, but I have learned never to depend on it.
I rip poor S everywhere. I should stop. And I disclose E’s Asperger-iness. It’s getting time where he needs to be responsible for that. But I’m not sure it is yet.
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And, just an FYI, to all the commenters. You guys aren’t really anonymous either.
No, I’m not relying on being boring. Pretty much everything that I write here, I say to people’s faces.
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One of my daughters went from “vaguely amused but uninterested in that blog thing” to “omg you spent years violating my privacy and I will now find every word you wrote to use in arguments with you” about 2 months before her 12th birthday. I had to lock down the blog until I have time to put back everything not-kid related.
I trust your report on Jonah so I share this story just because I have no place to post it (the new schema suggests that anything I write about myself that even indirectly relates to the daughter is unforgivably rude), not because I think it’s something you need to consider. It was just a big surprise to me, the sudden and fierce change in the child’s feelings about the blog.
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Yes, I know. I’ve gotten used to it, though the first time I googled myself and found 20+ year old usenet posts, I was a little nonplussed. And, since my given name is unusual, I don’t get the benefit of masked obscurity (a friend has the same name as a famous rock star, which makes him much less invisible on the internet).
Also, I looked at the application when the Obama administration posted an open request for people who wanted to work with Obama, and one request in the app was for “all pseudonyms you’ve ever posted with on the internet.” So, pretty much, yes, when you post something on the internet, you’d better be ready to own the post.
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Jody — I wondered why your blog had gone on lockdown. Yup, 12 year olds are like that, is what I’ve discovered. I’m going to have to let my daughter read what I’ve posted here, just so that she doesn’t say that to me later.
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bj, she had been reading, a very little bit. She thought it was sort of funny and charming. And then she didn’t anymore. Thank god I at least used pseudonyms instead of real names.
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“one request in the app was for “all pseudonyms you’ve ever posted with on the internet.”
I’m not sure there’s a form long enough. And I don’t even sockpuppet. I just have been online a long time.
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Ah, yes, the 180 degree change in opinion. I know that, too. One that ny kiddo has come to realize herself is that she doesn’t like me to take pictures of her, but likes having them 6 months later. So our solution is that I take the pictures; she complains; and 6 mo later she’s happy.
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“One of my daughters went from “vaguely amused but uninterested in that blog thing” to “omg you spent years violating my privacy and I will now find every word you wrote to use in arguments with you” about 2 months before her 12th birthday.”
I take it that’s another vote for teenageriness beginning substantially earlier in girls.
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My female in-laws are one of my main reading constituencies for my blog and I’ve told a number of in-real-life friends about the blog, so I filter myself so much that barely anything comes out the other end. Once you start filtering, it’s hard to know where to stop and still have something to say. For instance, personal finance is one of my passions, but I haven’t been blogging about it in much detail lately, because I don’t want it to sound like panhandling if I complain on my blog about how stupid expensive our current apartment with the non-poop-scooping downstairs neighbors is and how we’re on track this month to save literally one dollar ($1) for our house downpayment.
On the other hand, even though I don’t normally talk a lot to my brother’s wife, she does a really good job picking up on what our kids would enjoy as gifts, thanks to the blog.
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AmyP: YES.
We have two twelve-year old girls and a twelve-year old boy so YES. My sample size is small but YES.
Once I had to start filtering for a hormonal 12yo girl, I stopped writing.
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D has known for years that I blogged extensively about his Floortime therapy when he was little. He’s never been interested enough to read through the archives, but he’s fine with that level of disclosure. And I think you’ll find that most teens and 20somethings are. It’s more the norm than not (well, not talking about a kid’s autism treatment, but you know what I mean). As a culture, we’re getting less private all the time. I, too, have always been careful of exactly what I do and do not say. These days, I run my Facebook posts past him if he’s in them. And if I don’t, he reminds me to do so. But he never asks me not to post. Laura, I’ve never ever seen you post something I would consider inappropriate about your kids.
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I have a growing appreciation for why child marriage and vision quests where you send a teenager away to the wilderness alone for days or weeks are popular in societies without universal K-12 education.
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Now, I’ll admit that I had a secret hope that boys never did actually turn into “teens” and am disappointed to have my secret hope dashed.
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It’s hard to imagine the boy in our household as a moody teen (and it’s always been easy to imagine the girl in our household as one), hence my secret hope. But, this post suggests that 0-nine year old behavior is not a good predictor of 14 year old behavior.
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“But, this post suggests that 0-nine year old behavior is not a good predictor of 14 year old behavior.”
NO.
My 10yo is a delight right now. Then I remember he turns 11 in July and I shudder in fear.
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Wow… what a fascinating, if a bit exhausting and pretty unnerving conversation over here!
How funny that the commenter things s/he can be anonymous when you can know exactly where they’re blogging from and IP address, etc for them in your stats (that’s how I tracked Jo(e) down in about three minutes 8 years ago when I started blogging and I loved her blog and her comments on mine).
And I’m so glad that Jody shared that. I mean, I’ve missed her blogging, but I knew from what she’d shared a while back that her kids weren’t that happy with her blogging about them too much, I just didn’t know it had become that tough. Sigh… I hope my own 11 year old doesn’t change that much like her daughter (in regard to me blogging about them).
My youngest son strongly object to me blogging about him, so I do it as little as possible now. They are both interested in the blog and maybe someday they’ll read it (they read posts here and there). I don’t write much about them, though, much more about me.
As for people finding a person via their blog (address, etc), it doesn’t really freak me out *that* much, but I went more anonymous for the sake of my husband and also for my own peace of mind regarding being an academic.
Thanks for blogging so openly, for talking to us in the comment section. I like that a lot.
And this post scared me. I know it’ll happen to me and it will be HARD!! My 11 year old is already moody and monosyllabic a lot, but he’s still very cuddly and loving (it helps that he’s pretty small still, but he’ll grow, I know). Sigh.
And I’ll sign this comment with L only, just because of everyone trying to scare us (I’ve been leaving my whole name here for whatever reason).
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Not stupid here — I *know* Laura can see my email and IP address… Just wanted to remain anonymous to the larger internet.
Seems only fair if I know her address that she know mine…
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The same teenagers who complain about parents’ online posts are happily sharing their deepest secrets on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. There’s probably a popular meme site, but I’m not a teenager, so I don’t know which one will win, if any.
It’s possible for teens to gather together to produce a Harlem Shake youtube video, while complaining their mother mentioned them online.
I was just born too early.
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