A friend recently told me how worried she was about her 14 year old daughter because she is acting out so much. She is slamming doors, screaming, and saying horrible things to her parents like I hate you! When I told her, ‘welcome to the club’ she said, ‘OMG thank you for being so honest and telling me this.’ Another girlfriend confided in me that her daughter is in therapy. She is 15, grouchy, nasty, and always blaming her mother for her problems. She told me she felt so upset that her daughter is going through this. I told her I could name a handfull of women I knew who had teens going to therapy. One mom told me the psychiatrist told her we have an ‘epidemic of obedience disorder.’ WHAT? My interpretation for that is a generation of spoiled brats. I have two of them.
But in my mind I think it is normal for teens and tweens to go through this psycho stage. Am I wrong? If they can’t express themselves at home with their mom who can they open up to? Yes, I think they go to far insulting parents and talking back, but why are all these kids in therapy?
Is our over-indulgent generation over-indulging their children by bringing them to a therapist when they really just need a ‘woopin.’
Aren’t we giving these teens too much power by asking them what their feelings are all the time? I have the shut up and do it mentality. And yes, they talk back sometimes and slam doors but I win.
Or maybe I am not winning. I might be totally wrong. Maybe these out of control teens do have psychological issues. Do we know the side effects of so much video game playing. Do we know how constant multi-web stimulation affects the young mind? How about what these teens today see on tv, and experience in school. Surely they are under a lot more pressure than I was at that age.
I feel bad for any mom who comes here and thinks it’s always happy land when being a mom can be so hard. So many days we want to lock ourselves in our rooms. I just want you all to know every mom is going through this, some more than others but we all have our moments or our days.
And it’s okay to come out of the closet if everything isn’t perfect in your house becaue it’s not perfect in my house either.
This is SO true.. and it’s hard when the grandparents don’t ‘remember’ what it was like.. I always feel like the loser! lol Thanks for putting things in perspective!
I AM a therapist. A pediatric behavioral therapist, to be specific, and I still have trouble with my kids. Being a parent, specifically a mother, is the hardest job there is, so don’t lose heart. Hang in there, and hopefully soon all of these bad times will be faint memories of growing pains.