Normal teenage boy behavior?
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Normal teenage boy behavior?
| Mon, 12-31-2007 - 12:52pm |
Hi,
My 13 y.o. son had a tantrum yesterday and my husband and I are wondering whether this is 'normal' or if we should get help. Actually, this is about the third time it has happened in the past year or so. He is a good student and has lots of interests.
Everything was fine until my husband asked him to put on something nice for church...then all hell broke loose. He started this long tirade that included, "You won't let me

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If this kind of meltdown has only happened 3 times in the past year I wouldn't get too worrried about it yet - sounds like pretty normal 13 y/o stuff.... "horomones raging" as you put it.
I'm sorry your going through this.
What's kind of funny is, he never threw tantrums when he was little. Maybe he's been saving them up for me all this time!
My oldest, now 22, cried more at 12 than the years 1-11. It lasted about a year, hit and miss-never made a lick of sense to me
I would recommend taking the time to talk about what he said. If something as simple as a haircut is bothering him, that's easy to fix
Oddly enough, the same 22 yr old complained over the holidays over the 'bowl cut' he wore for many years-said he looks like a girl in all his pictures! I have no idea where that came from-my recollection is he never cared about his appearance one way or the other. I wish he'd spoken up or, maybe he did and I ignored it???
Anyway. mother guilt never dies. Here I am feeling guilty over the darn haircut my son had 10 years ago!!!
Still, with that fresh on my mind, ask about the fixable things at a time when he is calm.
My son hasn't gotten into a tantrum, crying stage at all, thank goodness. Having a girl doing it is enough, even though she doesn't have too many melt downs, I'm pretty lucky with that I guess.
I think now is the time you should talk to him about his meltdown. I know you don't want to bring it up, but this is the time to talk about it. It is all fresh in your minds, what he said, what he's feeling etc. Find out from him if this is really how he feels about himself or was it just one of those things he was feeling for the moment. Then talk about how he can fix some of the things he doesn't like, like the hair cut or some of the clothes he doesn't like or whatever. Also give him the "you are wonderful just like you are" talk, and even though he will probably say just what I did at that age, "You have to think that, you're my Mom" do it anyway, they need to hear it a lot at this age. JMHO!
Hope this helps. Let us know how things are going.
Personally, when ever ANYONE banys about a threat to injure themselves I think it needs to be taken seriously and a check in with a counselor warranted. Begging off bad or extremely out of character behavior as typical teenage behavior is aksing for trouble.
Now reality is he is feeling social pressure and you are the safe people to be mad at so sometimes the remmnants gets splattered on you. These are those moments when parents have to back off whatever the point of disagreement is and let cooler heads prevail. It really does not matter what his friends parents say or do - trust me my oldest son has had to go to school with his "golden child" cousin.
I think the biggest thing is you are entering a new phase of life with him. You are now in a time where picking your battles is crucial and being the adult is critical. He may have been looking for a fight - it had absolutely nothing to do with changing into church clothes. I think you do need to go back and revisit it because otherwise he is still carrying around the confusion he was feeling.
I HIGHLY recommend reading the book "The Biggest Job We'll Ever Have" by Malcolm and Laura Gauld. It is a wonderful guide to living with teenagers and helping them launch into adulthood. It is all about the character of the adolescent and how to transition well. It is the best parenting book I have ever read.
Courtney
I pray my wish, will come true, for my child, and your child too...
Courtney
There's a great big beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of every day... there's a great big beautiful tom
ITA Pam :)
I have said many times that no one talks about the fact that boys act almost as if they have PMS during the early puberty years.
If you summarize the thousands of how-to books on raising teenagers, we find the raging hormones affect boys much different than girls; boys feel like itching powder is covering their body, with a strong fleeting urge to put their fist through a wall.
The good news is, your son's tirade appears quite normal from the standpoint of adolescent behavior. It can appear quite abnormal from the standpoint of a typical concerned parent scratching their head trying to make sense out of a jumbled, disjointed
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