Help! My son is a teen now

My husband and I have enjoyed what you may call a “dictatorship” as parents for the past 12 years. Whatever we say goes – from what to wear to what’s for supper. There’s never been a question around what he likes or doesn’t like – it just never came up – until recently. 

Suddenly, as a teen, my son questions the rules around screen time and bedtime. The teenage rebellion stage has officially started.

It never occurred to me while we were enjoying our autonomous rule that one day he would rebel and try to overthrow our regime. To be fair, it’s not like we never entertained his interests and requests (to a limit). And of course, we’ve had the minor misdemeanours like the untidy room, the no brushing of teeth, etcetera, but no blatant disregard of the rules that we are now seeing. 

There is now a constant challenge to everything we say or do. Example: *in a cranky tone* “Why do you buy so much milk, when there’s already milk?” 

As the parent and primary grocery provider, I ask him with teary eyes: “Why do I have to explain myself?”

For some reason, he also thinks he has the option to decline requests like “pack the dishwasher” or “pass me the remote”. I say “requests” but really there is no choice. 

I always assumed that as parents, we were the ultimate influencers to our kids; that what we think would always be their sole source of guidance. 

How naïve.

ALSO SEE: Parenting tips: How to deal with emotional outbursts in teens

The reality is that most of us at some point (probably the teenage years too) stopped listening to our parents and started forming our own opinions. 

While we’d still show them the respect they deserved (or commanded, let’s be honest), we also started doing whatever we thought was best at some point. For some, it might have been at the age of three when they decided they would only wear skirts and dresses and throw a tantrum to show their opinion, while for others, it might have only been when they decided to buy a car against their parents’ better judgement. 

If you recall, what we thought at a young age was largely influenced by the friends we kept. The scary reality, though, is that kids are now influenced by so much more than we were then.

Their exposure to media (even indirectly) can never compare to the limited television channels and the YOU Magazine we had growing up. 

I am by no means complaining because, let’s face it, we’d probably all have seen the wooden spoon (or belt) more often than we’d have liked if social media was around when we were growing up. 

Nevertheless, we now have to deal with the reality of so many other influencers on our children and how do we compete? I guess this is the test of parenting and one where we hope that the groundwork we put in, in the earlier years, will have influenced them enough to be decent human beings.