What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Parents just dont understand

  • #21
We sure have some great parents here in TF... My dad would of posted "you're too young to understand" by now. I'm definately taking advantage of my childhood, as much of it as i possibly can because I realize that when it's gone, it's gone and i won't get it back.
 
  • #22
My mom is really overprotective sometimes. Example, she thinks every single person that gets on the internet is a murderer. She's still trying to prove that AE is some 37 year old fat ugly bald guy with only one arm and a missing finger that wants me to come over to "play". Some of the things she comes up with is hilarious. I have to sneak SASE's and whatnot to the mailbox or she'll yell at me or something. She underestimates my intelligence cuz I act like a total idiot sometimes. ^_^;
 
  • #24
I know how y'all feel.. I live with my grandparents, but they're just like parents, in good and VERY bad ways.. my grandfather is unwilling to accept the fact that he basically doesn't want me to leave the house. Ever. And he wonders why I don't get perfect, top-notch exercise.. it gets kinda boring riding my bike around the block more than once. I manage to sneak out to the block diagnally adjacent to us that edges along the main road once in a while... anyhoo, a few weeks ago, I wanted to go with my uncle Gary to his friend Tim's house to watch the Gators game. Tim's house is AROUND THE CORNER. It was a fight to the END until he let me go. He thought they were gonna be drunk and smoking pot and cussing (CUSSING. I HEAR THAT EVERY DAY. I live amidst every cuss word that EXISTS and I'm completely used to it. It takes a LOT to offend me) and BS like that.. guess what? I went there and there was no drinking or "smoking pot". He never lets me go anywhere, for those reason and some other crap. I ask him, "Why do you not trust my judgement? You should know you can trust me by now!" And he says, "I do trust you!" That was a total paradox. If he trusted me like he says, he'd let me leave the house once in a while. I completely understand that he means well and he's just trying to protect me, but dude, I'm 13.. I have my own mindset, my own judgement, and I know about the world. There's a difference between being vigilant and being overprotective.
 
  • #25
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]But what is your neighborhood? If you're in a sprawling suburbia of 1 acre lots and busy main roads and can't reach stores or parks or friends, you have my sympathy. My parents didn't move to one of those until my senior year of high school and it sucked. I had a drivers license by then and could sometimes get in a car and escape, so didn't have it as bad. Now I'm 43 and we have an 11 year old daughter. We're in a neighborhood of 50 x 100 ft lots with all those stores and parks and friends all within a kid's walking distance. If my daughter says she and a friend are going for an ice cream, I say OK. If we lived somewhere else, I'd have to say, "you're too young."
Now I'll just say that everyone in my neighborhood is annoying that's my age, and there are a few little kids that are great people but they're younger than me. Its a suburban small neighborhood, two blocks. My parents always say I'm irresponsible so i shouldn't be able to go places. That's because I lose stuff. So I agree I shouldn't be carrying around valuable stuff, but if I'm just carrying around a wallet with five bucks it dun mean I'm going to get run over by a car. On friday I had to convince my dad, and that was very hard; for me to walk to a store across the parking lot. He lectured me about crossing streets. (and I mean I've crossed about 400 freakin streets in my life!) He also tells me to be careful when I ride my bike to school alot. I've ridden my bike to school for three years and nothin happened. My mom; one time she SAT THROUGH THE ENTIRE YOUTH GROUP just to see if it was ok. It's a CHURCH activity, and she is friends with all the parents and the leaders. And what's the result? I write really wierd stuf and get in trouble for doing bad stuff. Its like reverse psyc. If I wasn't watched over so much I wouldn't break rules. I mean ppl my age LIKE breaking rules. I know it isn't good, but its true.
 
  • #26
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]
Now I'll just say that everyone in my neighborhood is annoying that's my age, and there are a few little kids that are great people but they're younger than me.

And when i was a i had no problem with hanging out and playing vidiogames with a six-year old. Shure he acted his age alot but thats to be expected/ and we had alot of fun togeather. I ride my bike everywhere, even in the dark (with apropriate safety precautions) and the concept of being confined to a single block is insane to me.
 
  • #27
[b said:
Quote[/b] (ChronoKiento @ Nov. 01 2004,2:37)]My mom is really overprotective sometimes. Example, she thinks every single person that gets on the internet is a murderer. She's still trying to prove that AE is some 37 year old fat ugly bald guy with only one arm and a missing finger that wants me to come over to "play". Some of the things she comes up with is hilarious. I have to sneak SASE's and whatnot to the mailbox or she'll yell at me or something. She underestimates my intelligence cuz I act like a total idiot sometimes. ^_^;
lmao. hey it's my fault my voice is deep
smile_n_32.gif
 
  • #28
Can let this one go by. Parents, the bane of existance for our children. Jim and I have children the same age, 18, 15 and 10. All boys and always pushing envelope, tugging on the apron strings, etc. We have a good relationship, I think, but not without conflict or miscommunication. Fights always end with a hug, handshake and "I love you."

Questions that require deeper thinking or answers longer than a few words, do occasionally throw us off balance. I, at one time, used those very words, some day you will understand, only to ask myself "When would be that day?" As they have grown older, I have made great strides in pushing aside my own ideas and tried to grasp more of helping/guiding them through life. My children also know the "parental" over protection, their mom. Hundred questions when leaving the house, going out for the evening, visiting a friend, etc. Watching and listening to everything.

I am about 90degrees to the left of this and it works for us. They know the basic routine, and as long as they stay clean and let me know about their movements, things go pretty smoothe. When they don't well, discussions and disagreements follow. The thing about going out into the neighborhood, has changed since the 50's, 60's and 70's. I think we need to be more concerned today than in the past. We, parents, may seem to be over reacting sometimes, but, just turn on the news and really listen to what has happened today. In our day, we may have been more lax because of ingnorance, but listening to the news can make someone paranoid, if you take everything to heart. Geez, parents are humans too,you know, at least most of them. We aren't perfect either, and mimmic how we are raised, with a few suttle differences.

Enough on this topic, I think everyone gets my idea. I never really knew my parents as an adult, they died pretty young, but I do appreciate everything they gave me. Tell your parents you love them, make their day!
 
  • #29
Hey Rick, I just HAD to look at your profile! You're insignificantly a little older than me. Cool! Go Sooners!

Anyways, one thing that concerns me as a parent is that no matter how good a head on their shoulders a kid is, there is always the fear that he or she, in an unguarded, insecure moment, they could make a mistake that could radically, deleteriously change their lives and maybe if they were a little older, they might have not knuckled under to whatever. Of course, no one is exempt from making a bad decision - at any age. Well, that's a fear I have. I'll bet there's a lot of that fear as their 17 /18 year old goes off to college and lives inthe dorms. I know - I was there. I saw kids, "raised in the closet" go absolutely nuts as freshman, with their new found freedom. It is difficult for we parents to totally let go and trust - though we want to.
 
  • #30
I am living proof that SOME teens can understand what parents go through and understand most of it. It's all the bad teenagers' faults that we get a bad rap. All with their pot smoking and stupid stuff like that.
 
  • #31
I understand parents, entirely. I think they have a really tough job and no parent is perfect. It's just sometimes they focus too much on their jobs as parents, when they should try understanding the child more.
 
  • #32
Just always remember, your parents love you more than you will ever know until you become a parent yourself. They want nothing but the best for you in your life and sometimes it may take a little hairpulling and arguing for them to succeed. There will come a day when they are no longer around and you will realize how much they really meant to you.

So if mom says be home by 10, come home at 10. You will have plenty of years ahead of you where you can stay out as late as you want and do what you want.
 
  • #33
Alright guys, its time that they knew the truth.

It is because your brain's are under developed until the age of 18.  It is true!  At twelve the brain is only the size of a small orange and unable with stand the influx of too much information.  At fourteen it actually changes shape and becomes bannanna-shaped adding to a very strange sense of humor and hormonal disturbances.  At sixteen if flattens and becomes two dimensional.  At eighteen the brain suddenly inflates and becomes usable material.

Alas at forty the brain takes a sudden shift and becomes square.

I do not use the "your too young" when it comes to any form of understanding.  Now if it comes to an activity that may be a true statement, but I do not think that is what you are after.  Teenage life is difficult.  You are trying to become independant and yet, somewhere deep inside, you wish to remain somewhat dependant.  At the same time your parents are pushing you to become independant, but, somewhere deep inside, they are not ready for that to happen.  At the same time you are learning, growing and taking in information at an outstanding rate.  You have many decisions now facing you.

Also, there is a lot that you might think you understand, but you don't.  Your parents may understand, but may think that you could not.  In this mistake they say things like, "your too young" when maybe "let's talk it out" would suffice better.  I would equal "your too young" from your parents as "You don't understand me" to a parent from a teenager.  It breaks down to communication. Talking is better, both can learn from it. You may be able to add to the understanding they thought they had.

As for my teenage life.  My mother was an alcoholic that partied all night.  I would tell her, "don't you think you should stay in tonight", but she would put on that face and say things like, "you just don't understand me".
smile_m_32.gif
 
  • #34
Sarracenia, well said.
 
  • #35
...The hormonal disturbances don't come until 14.... are you sure?
 
  • #36
If that was so, 7th grade wouldn't be cracking all those potty jokes.
 
Back
Top