auntiegwens guide of what to do lesson 2 - Parenting - the teenage years

Da dun dun, cue scary music.

Parenting teenagers is a doddle if you've worked in a zoo or on peace keeping missions in Iraq. Most of us haven't, have some more of my handy hints.

Don't watch Skins or Hollyoaks, especially Skins, it will fret you.

Don't ask questions that you won't like the answer to. I work on a strictly need to know basis. I'm sure that's much better for my peace of mind.

Find a good hiding place for your stuff. Teenage girls in particular think that any cosmetics/perfumes/toiletries that are in the house belong to anyone that needs them. This goes for shoes, clothes and jewellery too, it is much worse if you are the same size, your 17 year old daughter looks so much better in all your clothes. Teenage boys think all food in the house belongs to them, no matter how many times you tell them that if it's a fruit and nut toblerone it's yours, they'll still eat it.

Music has to be played at 1 decibel below ear bleeding to be fully appreciated by the teenage ear. Train them early to like your music, it hurts less when you like what's being played.

Choose your battles carefully - sure where's the harm if they look like they got dressed in the dark or have been at the dressing up box. Take pictures, lots of them - in years to come you'll have hours of enjoyment looking at the cut of them.


If you put food in the fridge, it will be eaten. If there is beer, it will be drunk. If your house gets the rep of having such items you will be descended on by a plague of hungry/thirsty teenagers. This is expensive.

They appear not to get tidier with age. You would think that having 3 teens you could delegate some of the chores out, spread the weight a bit. You can try. Good luck with that.

The behaviour level is sometimes similar to the toddler phase, especially when the hormone fairy has visited, they are significantly less cute though.

What excited them when they were 5, will excite them again at 16/17/18. They love trampolines, bouncy castles and jelly. If you do a birthday party with kids games like pass the parcel and provide alcohol, you will have some very happy teenagers.

Remember when your adorable little cherub of a toddler got you up at 6am every day ? It is incredibly enjoyable to go into a teenagers bedroom (double the fun if they're hungover/woke you up when they stumbled in drunk/vomited in a bathroom cleaned that very day)and wake them up. You can bounce on their bed, open the curtains and say in a nice cheerful tone "S'morning now, morning now, get up, get up, get up, I'm wake now, entertain me, hungry now, bored now, can we go to the park ?" or any other little saying your cherub was fond of in their pre dawn years.

How others see you

Last week I started my new job teaching Health and Social Care. I am teaching on the Btech ( with 15 year olds) and the AS level ( 16 and 17 year olds) and A level ( 18 year olds). The way the timetabling is done is that I have each group for a double lesson 1 per week, the rest of the time they have other teachers.

My Btech group are doing a module on communication, so because they didn't know me last week it was a good way to teach them about the way you communicate depends on what you think of the person you're communicating with, how you can stereotype people and make assumptions, and how you mentally pigeonhole people quickly to form your first impression. I asked them to have a look at me and to write down what they thought about me, what did they think my life was like ? including things like

age
was I married
did I have children
where was I from
was English my first language
what hobbies
did I drive
what car
what did I do before teaching
what do I drink

What a laugh we had, most people thought I was married but that my children were young, no one thought I had 3, a few were stunned to find out who's mummy I was ! , lots of the class thought I was Irish and not Scottish, nearly all thought I was sporty and 1 girl thought I played competitive netball. They were nearly all on the money in saying I liked shopping, one boy had me as a reader and another had me as a very keen cook !!! Oh, how my family wish that were true. They all thought I drove, I had a range of Fiats, hatchbacks, a honda jazz and a mini cooper, again if only that were true. Most people thought I had always been a teacher but 2 thought I used to be an estate agent. No one guessed the red wine, lots of white wine and spritzers, a few vodka s and slimline tonics and no one had me as a Starbucks addict.

The best bit of all was the age, the oldest guess I got was 40, most had me early to mid 30 s but the youngest one put me at 28.

I love my Btech group.