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PS my husband's family was southern proper...and its a huge lie. But what ever.
Ha! Well, we raised our kids in Northern Michigan ... where we were raised. Not that that makes any difference in the matter, or is any of your business. Our kids are wonderful, but it takes a LOT of work. Southern has nothing to do with it. You have yourself a good evening.
See if you can get the police to arrest him for chewing mint gum. If not, take a trip to your state legislature to introduce the bill to have mint gum declared illegal. Maybe if nothing else works DEA could call it narcotic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiger_Momma
Thank you! His father got home and took away his electronics for a week, they have Friday off this week, and he's screaming on the top of his lungs. I lowered my voice and told him, calmly, to go to his room and let it all out. I still hear him from upstairs.
Is this normal in teenagers? He is out of control!
I always spoke to my son the same way I'd speak to anyone I loved and respected. He's 28 now. Once you start screaming, you might as well just give up entirely. It doesn't work. I've never reached understanding with anyone through screaming. Chaos breeds more chaos.
A smart 13 year old is able to reason. It almost seems like maybe he's doing something to get a reaction, so maybe you just need to spend more one on one time where he feels listened to?
Wow this is the worst parenting advice. OP...don't do these things if you want a healthy well balanced human. Dogs are not children, children are not dogs.
And a juvenile detention center wouldn't take a kid for not spitting out gum or following house rules. They are for kids who break laws, not rules. You can give a child to child protective services, but you have to pay to support them and *you* are the one in the hot seat for not living up to your parenting duties.
Actually what she means by healthy, well-balanced human is one who is only 13 years old and runs the household, does what he wants when he wants because he knows there's no consequences, can be as verbally and physically abusive to his parents and any other adult as he feels like it, and thumbs his nose at anyone who tells him what to do.
That kind of child had parents who did the following:
asked their children nicely to quit running in stores, quit yelling in libraries, quit screaming in public. Sometimes they even threw a please in all that begging. And they ask and they ask and they ask and the kids just keep on doing the same thing over and over and over and annoying everyone else.
or who asked or told their children to do something not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but sometimes five and six times before they make the child do what they were told to do, at which point the parent is screaming and yelling along with the kid.
Quite frankly, if you're a parent and you don't mind your kid not minding you when you say something, feel free. But the parents who act like parents and the parents that back themselves up are the ones who have the well behaved children and make the rest of you whiny parents look like idiots. Plus, your kids are the ones that get children banned from restaurants and public places because you're the parents that don't make them behave.
I know plenty of parents whose children claimed they were going to call CPS on their own parents and the best way I've heard from a parent to handle that is to pick up the phone and tell the kid, hey, no problem, I'll dial the number for you.
So thank you, HFB, for completely missing the point of my comment about detention centers.
Actually what she means by healthy, well-balanced human is one who is only 13 years old and runs the household, does what he wants when he wants because he knows there's no consequences, can be as verbally and physically abusive to his parents and any other adult as he feels like it, and thumbs his nose at anyone who tells him what to do.
That kind of child had parents who did the following:
asked their children nicely to quit running in stores, quit yelling in libraries, quit screaming in public. Sometimes they even threw a please in all that begging. And they ask and they ask and they ask and the kids just keep on doing the same thing over and over and over and annoying everyone else.
or who asked or told their children to do something not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but sometimes five and six times before they make the child do what they were told to do, at which point the parent is screaming and yelling along with the kid.
Quite frankly, if you're a parent and you don't mind your kid not minding you when you say something, feel free. But the parents who act like parents and the parents that back themselves up are the ones who have the well behaved children and make the rest of you whiny parents look like idiots. Plus, your kids are the ones that get children banned from restaurants and public places because you're the parents that don't make them behave.
You don't mean to say there are children who actually obey their parents and are well behaved and respectful, do you? Gee ... I thought that was just a lie we "Proper Southerners" made up.
But you're right ... my parents and grandparents wouldn't have put up with that.
I've actually seen a well-behaved child or two. They're rare, but they're out there. LOL
The one that comes to my mind is the mother who brought in five - count 'em - five kids with her when she did her banking and she had them lined up with their hands on the counter. Her exact words to me were, "They're not going to be kidnapped on my watch."
This was the 80s and in the Bay Area, and it seems every week we were reading about another child gone missing. It was a scary time.
I don't think screaming at a kid works, but sometimes with a more challenging child, it's easy to wind up screaming out of frustration. My daughter is very challenging in many ways and sometimes I lose my temper. I've taken her to a psychologist for a while who did behavioral therapy with her, so that's something to consider for the OP.
How about "son, the smell of mint makes me feel sick. Can you finish chewing that in the other room" or something that treats him with a little more autonomy. He is 13 after all.
If yelling and screaming is happening often...pretty much at all, something isn't working. There are therapists who could work with you on parenting and help resolve this before it goes too far.
THIS. It is night and day with my parenting style and my husband with my daughter. He is a hothead and escalates the situation needlessly. All because she want doing exactly what he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted for something as simple as spitting out gum.
I know this sounds easy, but I usually found that when I took away whatever they cherished the most (the next weekend with a best friend, that's been planned for a couple of weeks, their computer, their cell phone, car, etc...) it always works, especially if you keep it away from them for long enough. If that doesn't work you just keep on taking away privileges. Definitely get Dad involved, make it clear to your husband how atrocious their behavior was. I kept things from my husband too many times, because I didn't want them punished that hard, well, I wish to God I never had done that. They would be much more disciplined today, if I had told him about eveyrthing.
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