I look around at the teenagers I see and things are different.
I just dont see the animosity between kids and parents like I was used to and what there is stops around jr high age.
Why is that?
Or do you see it more than I do?
I haven’t seen a teenager in weeks, months. Maybe a year or more. I don’t go to where they go, and I don’t even know where that is. I was beginning to wonder if they are extinct.
Their phones keep them distracted and immobile.
I have a teenager. He’s 17, just about to graduate from high school. After all the moaning and warnings about “just wait til he’s a teen!” that I got from older parents when he was little, I expected far worse than what I got. I mean, sure we have the odd fight over grades or chores, but in general it’s been much better than when he was in 4th and 5th grade, which were the most difficult period. Even middle school wasn’t that bad.
Actually I have heard that in other places that them stuck to their phones means less time physically being together and getting into trouble.
Granted that can now mean other sources of trouble like sexting and online bullying.
I think part of it is money.
Kids have realized that parents have it and they dont. Years ago no teen would have been caught dead at the mall with their parents but now they want to because those are who buys them things. They have also realized parents pay for their phones, cars, and possibly college.
What I see is fewer teens working jobs for extra money since they are too busy with school, sports, and groups.
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I have an almost 14 year old daughter and the situation today is a little sad. Every time I suggest that she raise a little hell somewhere, she tells me that is “probably illegal”. Her friends are the same way. There is not a hellion in sight. All they do is study, go to after-school activities and then come home and do homework. She scolds me (politely) whenever she thinks I am breaking a rule in public because that is the way she has been conditioned by the system. She recently broke the news that may not want to get a drivers license the second she becomes eligible like I did. I am afraid that she will reach 18 without any law enforcement interactions and very few disciplinary incidents even in high school and I blame it on her peer group. She certainly didn’t get that from her parents.
I am at a loss because things were completely different when I was a teenager. Please help.
Mystified in Massachusetts
Well, when everybody can videotape your every move on their cell phones, it’s hard to raise hell anonymously.
Fwiw, all that lead in gas/paint/water that created more crime in decades past wold also have affected teens. The whole world is less aggressive and agitated now:
There isn’t huge generation gap right now. Kids and their parents have cell phones, computers, and video games. They listen to the same music. Not as many parents pretend they were perfect snowflakes as teenagers and talk openly about sex and drugs with their kids.
So it’s easier, in the way slogging through 3 feet of mud is easier than slogging through 4 feet of mud.
I have a 15 year old daughter. The worst we’ve had to deal with is scolding her a little when it’s time for her to bathe the dogs. Other than that she’s well behaved. As far as I can tell so are most, but not all, of her friends and classmates. The ones that do have behavioral problems all have a parent or parents that are neglectful or are dealing with significant personal issues of their own.
Unlike silenus, I don’t have enough data for statistics, but since I can remember I’ve known teenagers who were reasonable and had reasonable parents, teenagers who were complete assholes hailing from a long line of same, teenagers who were having specific “authority issues” (multiple cases of “you’ll major in X” “oh hell NO” “you will because I am your father!” - as Quino masterfully put it, number 5, “and I am your child and we got the degree at the same time!”), teenagers who were fine people but had one or more assholes at home…
One of my brothers went through The Idiot Age; neither the other one nor I did. The Idiot One took decades to understand why us two were able to negotiate better conditions than he did: the main reasons were that we negotiated and that we always kept our side of deals. He never tried to negotiate but screamed and never kept his side of any agreement, so gee, wonder why Dad wasn’t keen on treating him like he wasn’t a brat (hint: in your next life, try not being one!).
I have two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Sure, they are less likely to party - there is a “cool kids” group that parties; neither of my kids is cool enough to be part of. Also a “burnt-out kids” group that parties harder which they have no interest in.
Kids in our town (typical upper-middle class suburb of a major city) are busted for parties without parents’ supervision all the time, so it is quite prevalent (arrests; stomachs pumped, etc.), so I am more than okay that my kids don’t participate.
Cigarette smoking is viewed as really stupid and pot smoking as a non-issue - again, neither chooses to do either.
Now, as a completely separate question: outside of experimentation with drugs, are teens any easier to deal with?
Answer: No! And not only that: Hell, No!! 
They have formed their own lives, existing through social media and group chats. If you aren’t careful you may never realize that you were never actually having a conversation with them because they were in their own smartphone land.
They feel empowered to make their own decisions and opine on big issues because everyone “knows” that issues like women’s empowerment, Black Lives Matter, gender fluidity, etc. have “been accomplished” - i.e., they live in a mental world where this stuff is accepted. No sense of the history and the huge cultural inertia that is still in place.
Add to that the fact that they are bombarded with messaging that tells them that they are “their own person” who should “follow their bliss” and you get kids who have a very different POV of family, tribe(s) they are part of, and cultural issues today.
Now, think about being a parent of a kid in this relatiy, and trying making sure they focus on High School and have a plan for what they are thinking about past that. Fun times.
No!
+1
I have been through the teenage years of all 3 of my kids. All were different. My son and I had a rough time of it, but he was fine with my wife. The middle daughter was just the opposite. the youngest, still a teen for another few months, tends to stay in her room. She gets snappy from time to time, but also gets over it quickly.
In other words, now as always, it depends. Things don’t usually get easier from generation to generation, just different.
Times a Billion
Come to my house…
There have always been a few teenagers who were reasonably proficient at predicting consequences. You just haven’t run into any of them before.
You talk like having a juvie record is somehow a good thing.
Well, just maybe her form of rebellion is… being good? Being strait laced and square so to speak?
I mean I’ve heard of that before when the parents were into drugs and other crazy things and the kids rebel against that by being totally opposite.