The Alien Years (Teens)

I have 5 children, Doug, 25 - he is out and on his own, Sarah, 23- she is engaged to a great guy, they havew theri own place and they also gave me my first grandbaby, Trinity, (16 months), Brianna, 18- a senior in H.S., Lucas, 17- a junior in H. S, and Wyatt, 9 - in 3rd grade.

Seems when each of my kids, (except Wyatt, of course), hit their junior year, they decided they knew 'everything' there is to know about life and totally blow off school. The toughest year for each of them was their junior year - the 16 to 17 year old stage.

This past Friday night, or should I say early Saturday morning- 4:00am to be exact, I got a call that my son, Lucas was in jail and needed to be picked up. Good gosh, what mother loves to pick up the phone and be told that? So, I head to the police station in fog as thick as pea soup to be the responsible parent that I am and pick up my incarcerated teenage alien, (son). The officer that handed him back to my custody was stern, honest and to the point. (I liked that). He told me that Lucas and about 8 of his friends were all scooped up around midnight after being found "smoking marijuana" behind a group of newly built homes, (they were vacant homes), that were located near the home of a friend that Lucas had permission to spend the night with. 3 of the aliens had marijuana on them, one had ecstasy and another had a 'bong'.
My alien, (Lucas), was not, as the cop put it, "under the influence of any drug, was not holding any drug and was fully cooperative with the arresting officers". He said to expect a subpoena in the mail soon, as Lucas will be asked to testify against the other aliens.

Now, this is how it has always been with Lucas. There has been more than a couple times a police officer has come to my door asking if I am "Lucas' Mom". That question sure has a way of dropping your heart right into your stomach! As it turned out each time, they have come to question Lucas about what he knows. He has never been accused of committing any offenses, but he always seems to know something or had seen something about stuff that did happen. The friends he hangs around with are ones that he has known since he was little- and I watched these boys grow up, (into the aliens that they are today).

Well, needless to say, Lucas is grounded, which he doesn't understand why, as he was not one of them getting high, but as his mother, it merits a groundation for sure.
This is a tough time with him - his grades are slipping and he has a ....'girlfriend', (she calls ten thousand times a day), and he really thinks he knows all there is to know about life and I am nothing more than a lecturing drone of a mother who goes and on and on...

Just thought I would start this thread to see if any of you have similar 'alien' tales to tell.
Maybe we can support each other during these alien years?

Alien is a great description Sage...

My 16 yr. old daughter, soon to be 17... had a tantrum on Saturday while I was gone. She knocked a plant off the half wall between my kitchen and living room and it flew onto the carpet. Potting soil went everywhere. She said she vacuumed the dirt up.

However, when I saw it, it was a huge mud stain on my new carpet. She poured water, Mr. Clean and carpet cleaner on it and matted it into the carpet with a scrub brush, expanding further and further and making a huge mud stain. Then she tried to vacuum over the stain and then drug the vacuum cleaner across the carpet, extending the stain.

Her boyfriend brought over a carpet shampooer and went over it a few times, to no avail. It looked clean at first, but after a few hours, the mud was there again.

I have now been trying each night to get a little more out with oxy clean. I am so upset every time I look at that stain. I told her she is going to have to pay for new carpet when she starts working. She is getting a job at Pizza Hut...

I don't know how people survive more than one teenager.:confused:

*Sigh*

I too have an alien at home. He's my 17 yo (yea I am noticing a trend here lmao) junior. He's sullen, moody, and seething with false machismo, bravado everywhere. He has never been in trouble with the law, none of my kids have (knocks on wood), even the phone call asking what Alex knows would be enough to land his *** in so much trouble... body identification comes to mind. (Heh I am scary in my house ;))

I do feel guilty about so looking forward to college... I do... sincerely... really!

i remember those days all to well... i promise, they do go away! ;)

LOL how did I miss the name? My oldest is also Sarah :p

My daughter's name is Erica. She has a new baby sister named Sarah though!:)

My Sarah shed hers too just in the last 8 months. She is an amazing, incredible person that does me proud all the time. I'm glad to know her!

Well, I have two aliens.

Actually, for some reason my children seem to turn on me right around 13...and then grow out of it around sometime during 17.

My son, CJ, used to be horrid. I literally thought before we were through I was going to injure this child badly. He had a way of knowing exactly what things to say to really hurt me, and he used them often. He made me cry so many times. He seemed to have absolutely no regard for my feelings.

Now he has outgrown that, and actually he is a pretty cool guy. Im proud to say if he wasn't related to me, he is the kind of person I would actually chose as a friend. Now that I actually like the guy and would enjoy spending time with him, he is leaving for college this summer.

Now that he has outgrown the horrid stage, Chelsea has slid right in there at full speed. She apparently learned a lot from watching her brother, because she has the exact same technique...except that she had some added bonus features...

Like, her eyes roll almost every time I speak. And I if do actually get a sentence out that seems to register with her...the response I get is "thats so stupid"...

Recently our major battles are over her friends. She has two close friends who are really unacceptable, and she is allowed to have them over here, but she is not allowed to stay at their houses. In my own defense, one of this girls has a stepfather who is a registered sexual offender of a child under 15, and the other family doesn't seem to have a parent at all. I mean, there does seem to be a mother figure present in the home some of the time, but she seems to think it is fun to drink wine coolers with the kids and go out cruising for guys after midnight...or what have you. So, our newest favorite phrase in my home is....

'THATS SO STUPID. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT, YOU DON'T KNOW MY FRIENDS" except it is run together really fast and really loud like one word.

My youngest, Jake, is only 10. I am trying everything within my power to keep him under 13 for as long as I can, but so far I have not been able to pull telling him that once you reach 10, each birthday you actually lose a year. He said' Oh mom, please. Im no dummy. People start doing that at 35, just like you did".

Lots of prayers ladies...lots of em.

LOL Jody!

This thread is funny!:) Nice to know others understand the struggle.

And blondie.... I think I would wring my own neck if I had all that to deal with, you are a good woman!;)

No kidding 1love! Multiple aliens is more than anyone should have to deal with. My kids are so far apart in years that I once had an Alien and a potty trainer all at the same time. Boy was I beyond hostile...

I love this thread, and to those struggling, like Christina I believe said, THEY DO get better!!! so much better

My son is 16 and tonight he threw a big one at the table, but having 2 teens before him who are young women now, and having been through those years before , I just figured oh well....I let him rant for a while and then when I had enough, I said get up and out of here, Im tired of hearing it, he said I WILL, I WILL JUST GO TO MY ROOM!!! I said GOOD, cause I prefer to eat alone! He went to his room and I went to my computer......then about 30 minutes later (surprise surprise) here he comes saying mom Im sorry, I was out of place and he hugs me. I said son, I know you are a bundle of hormones, dont worry. Then he said I just wish I had a girlfriend. NOW IM REALLY WORRIED!!! LOL

He is up on hormones one minute, and next he is as sweet as apple pie. The storm has just begun. Im hanging on to my hat.

Like I said though, I had been through 2 teen girls before him. The first hellion started being a hellion when she was in 6th grade. I nearly lost my mind with her. Learned on her, you always do with the first. FINALLY her sophomore year in high school she changed her ways and is a model young woman, very goal-oriented and doing great. She always had that sweet side, just had to show the other side for a while I guess. My second daughter just finished her freshman year at college, and she about gave us all heart attacks this year.

I tell you when it gets good.....for girls when they reach around their sophomore or junior year of college, all of a sudden mom is smarter and a lot less argumentative than they remember her. For boys, Im not sure. ...Im just trying to get through high school first.

I will tell you though hang in there and believe in them and encourage them even when they are being brats, cause they really do listen to you even though they tell you they dont and that you know didly squat. :)

People that know my kids think they are perfect, and they are shocked when I tell them the troubles I have had. It happens to everyone.

BTW, my 2 daughters are on their way home. The oldest just found out a way to move to Mexico when she graduates in the interior of Mexico, (I have visions of her in the bush with a machete and an AK-47, remember Patty Hearst?) and the younger daughter's hair color changes every time I see her, and she just bought some new clothes with some money I gave her....last visit she wore houseshoes, army coat and hat, jeans and nice blouse with blazing red hair, she got a bargain she said.....lol

Oh well, you pic your fights. :)

I am on Alien Rounds Two and Three at the moment. My oldest son recently turned 20 and *just* moved into his own place but we talk often and see each other several times a week. ~sigh~ no matter how old he gets, he'll always be my baby... but I digress...

Yes, I have two, count 'em, two teenagers at home right now. A 14 year old girl and a 15.5 year old boy. You know, they're actually pretty good kids. My son is really floundering academically and it's rough to watch. He's smart, got a good heart... but just cannot, no matter how I help him, no matter what his teachers try to do, get himself organized enough to do what he needs to do to succeed in school. I'm sure others may disagree (and that's perfectly okay) but, having been through that myself -- I succeeded in high school basically under the threat of death from my mother only to fall FLAT on my face in college -- I've reached the conclusion that my kid will be ready only when he's ready. And he just isn't. So we get through school. I think he, like his older brother, is just going to have to experience life before he makes up his mind that he IS academically talented and he CAN succeed. For now, I help, offer assistance, and show him whatever learning tricks he's willing to learn.

On the other hand, we have my daughter. She is brilliant. She's known since she was six years old she either wants to be an anesthesiologist or a neurologist. And the girl is as precocious as it gets. AUGH!

Here's a daughter issue that drives me INSANE!!! If it's not practically glued to my body, she "borrows" it. Clothes... hair accessories... make up. Ooooo, I hate that! It's not like she doesn't have her own that I've bought for her. I even have shampoo FOR PEOPLE WITH RED HAIR. She is a honey blonde, for goodness' sake! WHAT on EARTH does she need my shampoo for redheads for??? ::: banging my head on the keyboard :::

By the way, when my oldest went through the "Gawd, don't you know anything???" stage with me, I think I cried and felt like a failure for two years straight.

With my next two, I've chuckled, braced myself and said, "Rounds two and three... here we come!"

And I have a magnet that says, "Quick! Hire a teenager while they still know everything!"

:D

Originally posted by christina923
i remember those days all to well... i promise, they do go away! ;)
Can I have that in wrighting...ohhhh... you did give that one in wrighting didn't ya... :o

Well my oldest daughter (15) has the worse tandtroms... and what a mouth she has... and the atteude... She really gets me mad when she crosses her arms over her chest and tells me "So what", "think I care, huh" grrr.... I just want to pick her uo, through her to the room, seal her mouth with ducktape, lock the door and through away the key...
But I'm happy with one thing and that is that she only missbehave at home and in school... If she is at a friends house she is an angel... I guess she is just letting out steam... just wish she didn't have to do that in scholl... cause I'm tired of all the school meetings....

When I started this thread, I wasn't too sure if there would be much of an interest in it. So glad to see the many posts!
(I am not alone!)

The one thing I have found, is that each of my teens, all of them aliens, have been quite different in their own right.
My oldest daughter, Sarah, now 23, was really into make-up. I refer to when she was 15 to 16 as the "Racoon Years", (too much eye-liner, ack!) Now my youngest daughter, Brianna, detests any kind of make-up whatsoever, so it ends up with Sarah getting on Brianna that she needs to put some make-up on and of course, Brianna protests to that idea and the two of them end up sparring over that. Luckily, most of the time they get along okay. What I find with my 25 and 23 year olds, is that they now feel they can "guide", if you will, the 18 and and 17 year olds with their "adult wisdom". Usually no one listens to the other much and I have to step in and break up the debates.
I find it rather amusing when the older kids complain to me that I "better do something" about how the teens are acting and how they talk. Gosh, so quickly they forget, (about their own alien years).

One of the things my 17 year old son, Lucas is into that drive me, (and his dad), nuts, is the droopy drawers, (pants pulled down to his butt crack). I really feels it alters the way they walk for life, (look like ducks waddling along), but he still insists on pants 3 sizes to big for him.

None of my kids went through a "Goth" phase, although we thought Brianna was heading that way for a bit - wearing all black for a bit and listening to rock bands such as "Slip Knot" and plastering posters of them and Marilynn Manson all over her room. Those posters are now gone, (thank God) and now she is into less angry rock bands, (another thank God).

I have 3 of them, ages 13(b), 14(b) and 17(g). I cant complain too much as they have been really good kids and I enjoy them enormously. However.....there have been those "stages" where I have wanted to lock them in a room like joelstrouble suggested, and throw away the key. The biggest issue I have now is my two boys (only 9 months and 3 weeks apart in age) seem to just loath one another. It is constant insults back and forth , making fun of each others hair/clothes/ friends/interests etc. If they are in the same room together it is a b*itchfest and I am forever saying.."Alright, that is enough, no more" they do as asked for the most part and will break it up, but it still gets under my skin.

I feel especially bad for Dustin (13) as he seems to just be floundering with no real aspirations for himself. His brother Scott (14) is a very accomplished gifted musician and is loved by everyone he comes in contact with. Teachers love him, kids love him, parents love him, he is a big hit with the ladies (eek) He is basically one big ball of charisma and everything he does he does very well. Poor Dustin is forever in Scotts shadow and is always compared to him by everyone at school. He is always known as "Scotts brother" and I know it bothers him A LOT and it has had a huge impact on his self esteem. Dusty is smart, talented and very adorable in his own right, but he just wont utilize his abilities. He is quite the athlete, but yet refuses to try out for any sport or activity. I dont know what to do with him. I have been very careful not to ever compare him to the older 2 (older sister is also a musician and going to music college this fall) and to try and encourage him to find his niche.....but he just continues to act as if he is no good at anything. He is such a sweet natured and sensitive young man, and I know he would excell if he could just get out from under the weight of his brothers persona. If anyone has any advice here or has been through something similar, please share :)

on the female side ......My daughter Sam was literally possesed by the devil himself from age 11 to 14. Something happened one day though and she just woke up and was respectful and darling. She still has moments where she grows fangs, but they are short lived. Thank God. I did have a some issues with her concerning a "bad news" friend of hers but we solved that realtively quickly without too much aggravation, the girl is allowed over here, but Sam is not allowed to GO anywhere with her.

It sure is a bumpy ride...and I admit I have (so far) had it pretty smooth, but I am certainly not out of the waters of turmoil yet...lol...I have 5 more yrs of teens and right behind them is my youngest who is six and will just be entering the evil stage when the last of the older crew leaves home. No breathing room. :eek:


______________________________

Me and my gang
http://groups.msn.com/AgelessLoveUnofficalMemberPhotoAlbum/ohlis.msnw

~Lissa~

Hi Lissa,
I can relate to your post- Brianna, 18 and Lucas, 17, are 11 and a half months apart. I always like to tease them when they are the same age 2 weeks out of the year, (from Jan. 22nd to Feb. 6th). They bicker a lot too and it's almost like living with a bad marriage in our midst. They have gotten physical only a few times, nothing severe, but still not tolerated. They fight verbally. I will admit, it has gotten much better now that they are older - it was awful a couple years ago when they were 16 and 15. They are like Ying and Yang - totally abstract from one another. Lucas is out-going, very talkative, always smiling, a jokester and has friends just about everywhere he goes. Brianna, on the other hand is my silent one- she rarely talks, carries a bit of a chip on her shoulder and has just a couple of friends. She doesn't care for Lucas' friends and he makes fun of hers. Lucas is part of the popular group of kids at school and Brianna's friends are kind of the Square Peg type - not popular at all. They are even opposite in their grades - Lucas gets A's without even trying and Brianna struggles just to get B's and C's. When they were little, they were the best of buddies, but as soon as they got to Middle School, things changed. I wish they would get along better and not always be so ready to contradict the other. Some days they seem to loathe each other and it saddens me. I am hoping that as adults, they find each other again and get that closeness back that they had when they were younger.

Brianna is the Middle Child anyway, and everytime I read about the pitfalls for the Middle Child, it it Brianna all the way. I think she feels she is the Forgotten One, so I try to focus on her more sometimes. Being that she is so quiet, she does get left out at times, and that isn't right. There are days she acts like she could go off and never see us again and be perfectly happy. My oldest daughter, Sarah, is trying to get closer to her now too. She wasn't the best Big Sister to Brianna when she was a teen, always leaving her in the dust to be with her HUGE circle of friends, (Sarah was my other very popular one in High School and is a lot like Lucas in her out-going ways). Sarah and her friends were make-up queens and very much into shopping, clothes, and all of that - which Brianna never has been. Sarah lived on the phone when she was a teen, (and still does gab a lot), and Brianna never talks on the phone. Funny how these kids were all raised by the same Mom, but are so different.

I'm glad Sarah and Brianna are getting closer. Brianna baby-sits my granddaughter, (Sarah's baby), Trinity a lot. That helps them grow closer. I don't know how to bring the quiet child out more - I have tried with Brianna and I can't say I have been that successful. I think we just need to pay attention and try to get them to focus on what they are talented at and never compare them to their siblings. At least that is what I am trying to do with Brianna. She still roles her eyes at me a lot when I try to draw her out more, but little by little, her and I are connecting better than we were. Seems so much I say to her falls on deaf ears. I did get a shock one day when one of her friends told me that Brianna thinks I am the smartest woman she has ever known. Whoopee! She IS listening! LOL

Hang in the Lissa, you are not alone!!
:rolleyes: