How do you deal with this situation?
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive January 2004:
How do you deal with this situation?
This is mainly for mom's with teenagers. What would you do, if your teen disrepected you in front of company? She was being very mouthy. We grounded her from using the car, ( which is what the arguement was about)
Our company said that they would not have let her talk like that to them, if she was their daughter, one friend said that she would have wrestled her to the ground if she had to, and another couple said something about a good spanking. I think theses methods, are out of the question as she is 17 years old. We gave her the lecture, and told her how rude she was being etc, etc.. ( but what we should have done, was grounded her, and not let her go out) kicking myself now, for not doing that,) ahhhhhhh.
I am finding out that, our friends/ relatives who do not have teens, are telling us what they would do, but they are not even in this situation, need some input from mom's who have been thier , done that. My girlfriend has a 3 year old, and all the advice she was giving me,when my kids were little, and she had no kids at all, she is finding out now that it is really easier said than done. Any other methods other than grounding, and talking untill your blue in the face all we can do?
I don't have teenage daughters yet, but my sister was a handful!!!
It's funny when people give advice and they aren't even in the same boat;) I don't know what I would do in the situation, but do what you think is right. I'm just here to give moral support and I know a parents job is never easy.
Do the best you can, and hopefully sometime she will look back and thank you for all you did
I don't have teenagers yet either, but one pretty close. I wouldn't have wrestled her or spanked her, either. I agree that you should've stopped her from going out, but I also know that letting her go gave you the peace and quiet you needed right at that moment! It's a hard situation.
As for advice from those who have never BTDT, I'll never forget an early thread I read on Mommytimes. The question was "At what age will you let your child cross the street on his/her own?" The answers were absurd!!! Most agreed that 12 or 13 would be good. AS IF!!! It just showed how little people really understood kids beyond the age of their own.
I don't know. My oldest one is 14 and doesn't really act like that yet and doesn't have a driver's license yet, etc.! Certainly wrestling and spanking would be out of the question, though.
Spank a 17-year-old?? Right.
You are so right about getting unsolicited advice from folks who have no first hand experience. Not very valuable information. You know how childless people can be awful about giving advice on child-rearing? I think moms of under 5's can be worse. (Not all!! Just a lot I've encountered, including me when my son was very young! I was obnoxious.)
And since my son is only 9, I have no advice except to say ignore the comments from those other people telling you they would have spanked a 17-year-old! You know that's not the solution!
I don't have teens, but I think it was your COMPANY that was rude! Polite company, even friends, would have spoken about it as little as possible and certainly wouldn't have criticized the way you handled it. If it was this big loud scene in front of them, I can see you apologizing to your company and your company simply saying, 'Oh don't worry about it! Now where were we?' and launching right into a different subject. Your company shouldn't have made the situation any more awkward than it already was.
LOL about the spanking a teenager. That would be quite the sight to see!
No advice here either (all my kids are under 6). But, I do agree that you should do something...just not sure what!
Good Luck
Yes their was quite the dicussion on how we did it all wrong. I was trying to get on with other conversations but they went on and on about it, I got upset and told them, if their was anyone who did not like the way we raised our kids they could leave!!! The funny thing is I have tryed to give advice to my friend with the 3 year old, and she will not accept any and I mean any advice from me, she just tells me, -------- is the right way, I being the mother of 3 , does not know anything. When my kids were small, her and her husband, would come over for a few drinks, and she had told me, that her husband, did not want to come over anymore unless we had the kids in bed, well like idiots we started putting them to bed, not happy about it but still did it, Many years later, when my dF had her own dd, I brought that up, and she said now being a mother, she could see how that request was unaceptable, and that I should have just told them not to come over then. She will also understand the teen problems when she is at that stage in her childs development too! but wish she would understand now, it gets kind of lonley 
Mrse. I think you need to decide what punishment you feel suits the crime. I mean she is your daughter only you know what makes her tick. We could give you suggestions until we are blue in the face and not a single one would work on her. With my DD I can usually sit down and give her a lesson by putting her in my shoes and having her see what happened and why she got the reaction from us that she did. And suggestions for ways to deal with it in the future and list of things that I will not sway on. And if we feel she needs to be punished we will deal out some form of grounding but it doesn't usually take a grounding with her. I can usually talk her into one heck of a guilt trip with just my words, LOL. But not every child can be dealt with that way. Does she normally fly off the handle like that or is this out of the norm for her??
And I say ***** your friends. She is not their daughter and this is not their life. Who cares what they think. I agree with Kate 100% they were rude to say anything.. It is not their place and they do not have one ounce of a clue of what it is like to raise a teenager. For them to make it a topic of discussion is just plain heartless and goes to show their lack of parenting skills. We are not and will never be perfect parents. Things happen and everyone gets upset and things get blown out of proportion. And if they had a hormonal teen they would know this... and would have minded their own business. I think that you should deal out a punishment IF you think she needs one, ONLY if YOU think she needs one... If you think what you have done already is punishment enough than leave it be. Don't beat yourself up over any of this because I promise you their day will come and you can sit back and have a good chuckle about it.  I am sure miss manners would have said something to them to the effect of... "Thank you for your concern over the behavior of our teenager but when you have one of your own lets do tea."
Not sure if you are asking advice about how to deal with your daughter or your friends. I'll offer both.
Having a teenage daughter is bad enough - and having one who is being mouthy and disrespectful because she feels unfairly punished is worse. (And when did a teenager or any child ever feel a punishment is fair?) But having "friends" who offer advice on how you should treat your child is the worst of all. It's none of their business. What they should have done (I am assuming the mouthing off happened in front of them) is pretended they didn't see or hear anything and changed the conversation immediately. I agree with Bobbie, they should mind their own business.
No, I don't think you can spank a teenager. For one thing, I doubt it would do much good or have much impact. It would certainly cause her to feel that you don't respect her dignity, which can only make things worse between you. And probably wouldn't do much for your dignity either.
I agree, you should have grounded her from going out - but you didn't. What you can do is tell her that the next time she behaves like a little brat and mouths off at you - especially in front of others - you are going to treat her like the little brat she is being and send her to her room whether she has other plans or not. Whatever your reasons for grounding her from using your car, the use of the car is a privilege and not a right, and she needs to know that. You've made it clear. And, being allowed to go out is a privilege, not a right, and just like driving the car, going out is a privilege she can lose by her own behavior.
Teens - what a hassle. An awful time to live through for most of us, and an awful age to parent. And 17 is really rough, because she's so close to being 18 and a legal adult when "you can't tell me what to do, I'm 18". To which my response was, as long as you're living in my house and eating food I put on the table, I make the rules. If you want to be independent then you had better be self-supporting.
My middle son and I had a really rough time during his teen years, until we learned not to discuss things when we were angry. We had a blow-up and both of us felt badly about it, so we talked about how to avoid blow-ups in the future, and came up with that rule - no discussions in anger. And we would say "I'm angry, let's talk about this later" or even use the time-out signal with our hands for that message. It helped a whole lot.
I can only tell you this too shall pass, and in passing it will give you lots more reason for mommy-guilt - as if we didn't have enough reasons already. It's exacerbated, of course, when the teen is dealing with the parent of the same gender, because then competition enters into it as well as the usual parent/child conflicts. I can only tell you that I'm truly glad my 3 sons and I survived the teen years without any major scars, and I wouldn't want to ever live through those years again.
As for your presumably well-meaning but rude friends, I think the only thing you can do is what your friend with the 3 year old suggested (even if she didn't really mean for you to take her advice), and tell them how you feel about their unwelcome input. (I like that from her - now I know I was wrong and you should have told me so then - sheesh, some people.) In cases like this, with people like that, I guess you just have to tell your "friends" - look, I'm sorry this happened in front of you but I don't want to discuss it so let's change the subject - and persist in that statement until they get the message. From the sounds of the conversation you described it might take them a while to get the message, but if you just keep repeating your statement it will eventually get through even the thickest and most insensitive head. Well-mannered people already know to ignore an embarassing incident when it happens in front of them and pretend it didn't happen to save face for the person who was embarassed - others have to be told, sometimes repeatedly and loudly.
All I can advise is to act with a firm resolve in whatever way you feel best. Don't back down, and alway stand together. Don't worry about ruining her life. You're saving it. Make her face responsibility for her actions. Insist that she accepts and deals with any fall-out that comes to her from anything she's done. Don't fight for her when she's wrong. Sometimes though love is the best kind there is. I've been there and learned the hard way.
Thankyou everyone for your help, I have picked a few things up , I am definatley going to try out, the time out untill everyone calms down is the one I am going to do, that will stop heated arguements, it is funny when an arguement starts, every other argument you had in the past year, ends up in the current arguement, which makes everything worse. The thing about my friends being their it is not just that I am embarrassed by my daughters behavior, it is also now my friend, has taken an attitude towards my daughter, she would say things like god she looks bitchy. The day she made that comment she was coming in the door from working on a farm, she feeds calves on the weekend, and she had just finished working 5 hours in a rain storm, and was soaked, so she was not looking her best, I just told my friend if she had done her job, in the blowing rain, for 5 hours, she would look cranky too! I have never said anything, about her daughter being well a bit spoiled, or being a brat at times, as she is 3, she is testing all the time, I have been thier and I know that stage. My daughter also has one of thoses faces, that she always looks cranky, very heavy eye brows, so if she is not actually smiling one would come to the conclusion that she is in a bad mood. It hurts when your friends, act like you are not raising your kids right, and has resentment because of the way she had acted, during an arguement, and holds grudges. When we have an arguement, and end up with a resolution as far as I am concerned it is over, and that is it.
Good for you - when you have an argument it is over and that is that. That is one of the rules of "fair fighting". And you are right, when you are angry and arguing, everything comes in including the kitchen sink - another rule of fair fighting is to stick to the subject, the immediate thing you are fighting about, and never say "you always" or "you never".
Sounds to me like you know your daughter well, and also, if she spends 5 hours on a weekend feeding calves and otherwise working on a farm, this is NOT a bad kid. I know just what you mean - my youngest has deepset eyes, a narrow face and a rather thin mouth with a big jaw. When he is tired or upset, he looks really threatening, especially if he makes a sort of smile which makes him look sort of like a skull making a grimace. Sometimes when he is frowning I tell him he has his "Snoopy vulture" look - he reminds me of Snoopy being a vulture in the Peanuts comic strip, with heavy eyebrows hanging over deepset eyes.
Sounds to me like your friend takes much too much on herself (maybe she needs another child or two to occupy her mind and time - lol). Since she is apparently all for honesty in communication, maybe you need to communicate with her "honestly" that you absolutely don't appreciate her comments about your daughter and request that she keep them to herself. Sounds like she needs some lessons in letting something be over when it's over. Or maybe you just have to say - look, she's my daughter, I love her, and I resent your making negative comments about her so often. Please stop.
I wonder, too, if when you are talking with your friend you may (as we often do), talk more about the problems than the good things. We do that because we are more concerned about the problems, but it can sometimes give our friends the wrong image of our kids (and our spouses). Maybe you could consciously try to bring up good things about your daughter in conversations - nothing major unless something major happens, but just the trivial nice things people (even our kids) do that all too often go unrecognized. Maybe even acknowledge those good things to your daughter to help her feel better about how you see her - that was another thing I had to learn and then use with my sons, and it was helpful when we had to discuss contentious things because they would agree that I didn't only see the bad things.
I had a second thought. I will assume your daughter knows this friend - it sounds like you have been friends for several years. Sometime when neither of you is angry, could you say to your daughter something like this: You know what so-and-so is like - well, after you popped off to me in front of her, she has been on my back ever since about what a bad kid you are. You know you're not a bad kid and I know you're not a bad kid, but you know what she is like. She's my friend, but she does have some aggravating traits. So, do me a favor and the next time you are upset about something and want to sound off, try to save it until no one but family is around, so that other people are not in the audience and don't feel they have a right to make comments or advice.
She may learn the lesson of "keep it in the family", and it wouldn't hurt to give her the warning that your friend presently is down on her and looking for signs of trouble.
And a final (I promise) thought - isn't it nice to have a kid you can ground and the kid stays grounded. I know of families where the parent told a kid "you're grounded" and the kid just pushed past the parent and out the door. As frustrating as teens can be some times, I think that she argues with you instead of just going her merry way is a good sign.
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