I'm a few years behind you, so I'm looking forward to the discussion on this thread.

I have to say, though, that I am endlessly impressed with the way you describe Hunter. You must be very proud of him.

I am proud of him.  Thanks.  Coming from someone I consider one of the best mom's EVER..I appreciate it.

Me too.  Hopefully we'll see some good advice...I dunno.  With this new HONEST point system, I don't feel very well read..haha..I think I liked it better when the points lied...made me feel so popular!

 

I fought with my dad all the time during my teenage years, though truth be told he was an asshole for the most part.   Or maybe I was the asshole...probably both.

As a teen, (well that'll be over in a couple months) we do enjoy our alone time...but we gotta be yanked around and made to do shit whether we like it or not.  It's part of growing up.

I'd say just be yourselves...no monumental change has to occur except for the step by step granting of further independence which is stretched out over the next 5 or 6 years.  Now would basically be the time to let him off on his own to get some thinkin' done and figure out his own identity...I think so, anyway...it's been awhile.

~Zoo

The time has come to drop him in the middle of the woods on an island and let him find his way home. If that sounds harsh, I suppose you can give him clothing to wear for the return journey.

Step by step.  Someone needs to tell HIM that.  He wants to be treated like he's an adult when it comes to privileges, but when it comes to responsibility, well, that's a tuffer nut to crack. hahaha

That's good to know.  We do make him attend certain things, but he acts like we are killing his favorite animal.

 

Yeah, like that's gonna happen. 

 

I want to be the one on the island!

 

Heh, we all remember the lust for freedom and the shirking of responsibilities...good times.

I used to kind of be like that.  Thing is, you might have a really awesome time if you go someplace new or somewhere you don't visit often.  Same applies to pretty much everything...always try new things and be open to the world.  Sometimes you need a push, though.   It's good for'em in the end.

~Zoo

Maybe if you threatened to kill his favorite animal instead...

Seriously though, I know as a kid I wanted to stay home and game. And I did.

Don't let this happen to your kids.

Unless you love them.

Heh, heh. 

Seriously, it's a good idea to get them off their ass and out into the world.

~Zoo

For me, my parents had very clear rules and guidelines that were relaxed over the years.  Even at the start, I had a fair bit of freedom, but the limits were hard-set and you didn't try and push it.

Basically if I wanted to go out and do something (so long as it didn't conflict with curfew, family committments and my grades were good), I mostly just had to tell my mom where I was going, with who, and when I expected to be back.  It wasn't really asking if I could go, just letting her know what I was doing.

If I was over one place and we all decided to go somewhere else, I just had to call notifying her of the change of location.  If I was going to be late, I had to call and give a bit of warning (i.e. not 5min before). 

It was about trust and honesty.  If I was truthful and straight with my parents, I got to do more or less as I pleased.  Sure there were conflicts and times when I screwed up, but after a year or two I caught on.  This placed the responsibility and a lot of the power with me, which teenagers like.

As the mother of a 15 year old girl, a 13 year old boy in the throes of puberty and a pre-pubescent 11 year old, I feel I am in a position to give you advice.

Anyone who tells you that teenage girls are harder to raise than teenage boys is lying. My girl has, thus far, been a dream. She had a couple of episodes back when she was 13 where her hormones ran away with her, but she's never bitten me or been violent in a way that necessitated her being handcuffed and restrained. My 13 year old son, however, has. He's also sprouted underarm, chest, belly and facial hair, his voice is breaking, his face is broken out, and he's now taller than I am. His body is being ravaged by testosterone, and it's taking him a little while to get used to it. He's also very much his father's son; they have the same temperament and I find my mother in law nodding knowingly when I talk about the issues I have with him - because she went through the exact same thing with my husband.

Jake is 11, and has started to sequester himself in his room more and more and more. His face is starting to break out and he's gangly and all arms and legs. He's getting more and more temperamental and is starting to sulk and pout more....so I don't think it'll be too much longer before he's in the midst of puberty too.

With three of them going through it at the same time, I may just need copious amounts of diazepam in order to make it through the day.

My advice is this: don't take anything he says to heart. He doesn't mean it, and if he's anything like I imagine him to be he'll come and apologize to you if he knows he's hurt your feelings.
I found that a 'trust and reward' approach works well. To start with, I gave mine small responsibilities, and when they behaved appropriately and handled them well, I rewarded them with my trust. Trust is an incredibly important thing to a teenager and is a valuable commodity. Of course, if they mess up, punish them. Davey knows that if he messes up he'll be grounded, lose computer and telephone privileges and won't be able to have a TV in his room. So far, we've only had to go all the way and remove his TV once, but he's been grounded a few times.
Set boundaries, but be prepared to adjust and readjust those boundaries as they grow.

Let me know if you need any help!

Seriously though...do you think this hurt you as an adult?  What did you do in your room?  (TMI is DEF not needed here...just a general idea.  buwhahahaha)

I don't think he believes it.  In fact, some days, he's pretty sure he is smarter and more worldly than we are.  I ask him where he gets all his life experience when he never leaves his room! buwhahahahaw.

 

Woah...déjà vu...

~Zoo

May I ask...was your dad an Alpha male?  My husband grew up in a VERY authoritarian home where big daddy ran everyone.  Plus, he's in the military.  It's a double whammy. haha.  He really does try to tone it down, but his dad basically didn't allow him to do anything besides sports and hold a job until 12th grade.  (There was always work to be done at the house.)  So he has that, "it was good enough for me" thing going on.

I ran wild, so no help there.

This sounds ideal to me.  But my son is still in the "let me push and see how much I can get away with stage."  For instance, we had to institute a bedtime on the weekends for him because he was so tired on Mondays at school and it was affecting his work.

He stays up until 12:30 on Friday and 11:30 on Saturday.  He HATES this.  But we may even have to go earlier because Monday's are still not great.  So to get around this, he will ask to spend the night at a friend's house on Sat night.  None of his friends have a bed time.

His dad won't allow this to happen.  Says Hunter just wants to get around the rules.  Which is true, but at the same time I think he should be allowed to have sleep overs and they can't always be done on Fridays.  And his friends don't always want to sleep here because of the early bed time.  It's a conundrum.

 

Thank you.  It always amazes me how much you are willing to help people when you have so very much on your plate.

Oh yes.  We have already drilled the trust issue in with him.  He went through a rebellious spell last year while his dad was in Afghanistan.  He was lying and being snotty to his teacher.  He was grounded for a long time, but eventually he snapped out of it.  He told me he felt horrible when he acted like that, and he was just relieved to get it all off his chest.  (He hated his teacher and felt like she bullied him.  He was still disciplined, but at least I learned something about him.  He's a good kid, and when he acts out something is WRONG, really wrong, in his world.)

Do your kids complain?  Seems like everything he does deserves at least an obligatory complaint.  Just to let us know he is CHOOSING to do it, but he doesn't like it, not one bit.

Yeah, you're right.  He would tell me sorry if I let him know he hurt my feelings.

And then some..haha.  Your house must be interesting!