Learn me 16 year old teenage daughters.

Books? Edginess?  Drama?   I said one wrong word and uh oh.   

Stay in the workshop and come out for her college graduation?

Teenaged girls (my house has them at 17,15, and 13) are an evolutionary adaptation to test their parents’ love.  If they were as cute and sweet as they were at 8 we’d never let them move out, but they start learning to push away and make themselves so difficult that we are willing to give them a hand packing.

I do hear that they get better at around 20, so there is a light in the tunnel.

Eh, I don’t know. Both of mine just went to their rooms for 3 years. 

One of them came out the other side with a wide streak of SJW.  The other one came out with a wide streak of party girl. 

Both of them argued with their mother far more than me, but with me also.  Do your best to treat them like the intelligent adults you want them to be, and explain yourself more than you think you should need to.  It’s better than trying to dictate  to them.

5-10 years on and neither of mine wound up pregnant or addicted to anything, so there is hope. 

It's an incredibly tough time. Both girls and boys have to deal with changes in hormones, but girls have it worse. Boys mostly blow up, burn, and race stuff. 

Hell I'm not a teenager or a boy and I want to blow up, burn and race stuff. Not all the same stuff.

My daughter is going to be 10 in January. 

This thread is making me nervous. 

EastCoastMojo said:

Hell I'm not a teenager or a boy and I want to blow up, burn and race stuff. Not all the same stuff.

No wonder you're so edgy. 

In reply to Cooter :

 Edgy as in tense, nervous or irritable, or edgy as in trend setting, experimental or avant-garde?

I kinda like the second one.

I've got an 11 year old. I see it coming.

Be the quiet voice of reason.  If there's more than one woman in the house, there will be a horrible power struggle.  You may have to send them to their own corners sometimes.

Don't go to war over the little crap, but if you decide it's worth going to war, win.

I got a 9 year old..  She's going on 15..  Ohhh.. I'm in trouble.

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

We were lucky & never really experienced any of this with either of our 2 girls. Sure, they had occasional drama at school, but nothing that we ever received a call about. 

I was talking about this with the younger of the two a couple weeks ago, who’s 18 now, along the lines of “I’m not sure how we managed to avoid all that teenaged girl drama?”  She replied “It probably because you guys always treated & talked to us like adults.”

Idk if there’s truly any merit to that, but it’s her perspective anyway. 

Thank the good Lord mine is out the other side. She just turned 24. Still a bit hard headed, but I'm letting the school of hard knocks teach her now. 

Bookmarking for reference in 15 years...

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

We were lucky & never really experienced any of this with either of our 2 girls. Sure, they had occasional drama at school, but nothing that we ever received a call about. 

I was talking about this with the younger of the two a couple weeks ago, who’s 18 now, along the lines of “I’m not sure how we managed to avoid all that teenaged girl drama?”  She replied “It probably because you guys always treated & talked to us like adults.”

Idk if there’s truly any merit to that, but it’s her perspective anyway. 

This is how we've always handled our kids. Big brother will be 15 next month, doing great. Little sister, fine so far. We'll see.

A close friend of mine  has 5 kids..... 4 of them are daughters.  They had their kids rapid-fire, so he was "gifted" with having four teenage daughters at the same time.

I called him, and asked how he was doing....... "I'm on my bucket" he says

Huh?  I ask......  his reply was golden.......

"Every now and again when I need to hide, I grab a 5-gallon bucket, head to the garage, sit on the bucket, drink beer and cry"   

So I guess that's what you have to look forward to!  :)

My 2 yo daughter has the stubbornness and determination that makes me want a bucket too. ALREADY!

Nope. Can’t be done. 

Yep, just hammering home the "I don't think I want kids" point for me

sitting on the bucket crying is better than standing on the bucket to get the rope over the truss

Streetwiseguy said:

Don't go to war over the little crap, but if you decide it's worth going to war, win.

These seems like solid life advice in general.

Everything I know about 16 yr old girls I learned as a 16 yr old boy.  As the father, you don't want to know what I learned.  

Must have won some kind of lottery cause we sailed past ( 24 now and working overseas having a great life) with the same calm pleasant level-headed kid that she had been all along. My cats must have done a great job of raising her.

The reason I knew to trust her and never worry too much is because I knew for a fact that she liked the person she saw in the mirror. More often than not, that is the person they are rebelling against during the turbulent years. Parents and siblings are just collateral damage; keep that in mind when responding to any given atrocity.

FYI, for those on the fence about kids, my thoughts about being a parent pre-parent days: Legal? Yes. Wise?Probably not.

Pete

RossD said:

My 2 yo daughter has the stubbornness and determination that makes me want a bucket too. ALREADY!

I'm sorry to report, but the person who came up with the term "terrible twos" must have felt really foolish after their kid turned three. 

Good luck...You're going to need it. 

Driven5 said:

RossD said:

My 2 yo daughter has the stubbornness and determination that makes me want a bucket too. ALREADY!

I'm sorry to report, but the person who came up with the term "terrible twos" must have felt really foolish after their kid turned FIVE. 

Good luck...You're going to need it. 

FTFY