Banging My Head Against A Wall - Pre-teen weepiness

[golfgal]

Sometimes the problem comes when you give your kids choices (or too many choices). If they have had a busy day, maybe had a lot of tests, etc. and are asked to make another "decision" it gets overwhelming so by you trying to be nice and saying "do you want this to eat or that to eat" is just too much. I know if I have had a busy day at work and have had to deal with too many issues that day the last thing I want to do is come home and decide what to have for dinner.

Now for the kid that asks for help on homework and then tells you you are wrong, try saying 'well, if it were me I would do it this way but what did your teacher say?" When DS gets like this--asking for help then telling us we are wrong I just say, OK, and walk away".

 

[luvsJack]

This is why, in our house if dd has a problem with homework my pat answer is "discuss it with your teacher tomorrow".

Actually, dd's teachers have asked that we not even check their math homework. They want to be able to see where the kids are making their mistakes on homework so they can correct it before the tests.

We also had the argument about studying. She didn't study and made 100's on every test. Sort of proved her point.

 

[kellyg403]

Math...the bane of my existence! Oh how I would love to tell the kids they don't need it! Combine math with parents and hormones and it is an experience to match no other!

I just tell the kids they will have to talk to the teacher, or stay for tutoring or have someone else help them. I get frustrated, it doesn't help and we both end up crying and bad attitudes.

When I first met dh he was one of those people who sat down with the sdd's and by the time 15 min were up they were crying and he was mad. They just didn't get it the way he explained it. I finally had to tell him he was no longer allowed to help the kids because it turned into something not so great. Parents and homework are not a great combination. We learned it differently, the kids are afraid to learn it differently in case the teacher gets upset, its just confusing for them. They don't understand yet that arriving at the same answer is the right answer, not really how you get there..at least IMHO.

She'll grow out of it, but pick you battles and get her a tutor or let her teacher go over it further. Its like oil and water at this age with parents!

Kelly

 

[Wall-E1]

What's happening here is this:

Our teenagers feel that they know everything, and that their parent's are clueless. Let's all remember every John Hughes film from the 80's - Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club; etc. If there is one message to be learned from these movies, it is this - parents are always clueless and Molly Ringwald knows all. Today I'm a grown man and know better, but back when I was a teenage girl, I would watch these movies and totally identify with Molly Ringwald and her struggles to survive a life filled with adult buffoonery. Remember back to the time when we were teenagers. Our bodies were going through major changes and our parents were suddenly becoming oh so uncool. So, when our teens or tweens need help from one of us lesser minded creatures, it really is stressful for them having to deal with the likes of us. Like I said in an earlier post - they try to be patient and accept our limited capacities, but they are so much smarter than us. If they lose patience with us trying to help them, we must understand that they are always right. We must take a step back and let them learn from their constant correctness.
Finally, I'll leave you with two quotes from the immortal classic "Sixteen Candles".

1. The first is an observation made by Samantha (Molly Ringwald) - You know, everyone in this family has gone outer limits.

2. The second is a deeper and more reflective statement by the geek (Anthony Michael Hall) - Relax, would you? We have seventy dollars and a pair of girls underpants. We're safe as kittens.

...just a little something for all of us to ponder.

 

[pigletgirl]

Oh yeah, I definitely went through that! I hated it too. It was almost like I couldn't control it.

 

[SC Minnie]

Yep, went through that too. Now going through the 'why do you hate me?!?!?!' every time I tell her to change what she is wearing or that she needs to do something a little different.

 

[Disney Doll]

If I had asked my mother for help and then told her she was wrong when she gave me help, her response after that when I asked for help would have been "Figure it out yourself".

 

[NYPDwife]

I'm 15 and no I don't get weepy. I just hate it when I can't figure something out.

Aaaah, that sounds about right. It's the "I can't believe I can't figure this one out myself" thing.

 

[NYPDwife]

There really is no satisfying solution to your problem. This is because your daughter is, in fact smarter than you. I'm sorry, but there is no way to sugar coat it. This is just a fact that you need to accept.

I KNOW how to do long division and how to estimate numbers and that's what last nights lesson was on. I thought about this and I think it's that the teachers teach our children how to do things differently than we were taught. I try to tell her how to do it, show her how to get the answer and she says I'm wrong.

 

[NYPDwife]

Are you me?? I thought it was just me who had a child who is so brilliant they know everything, yet can't remember to brush her teeth every day.

Seriously though, we have this problem, and a lot of it is that they are teaching them different way to do the same stuff. DD had to find the % of something the other day, and they had like 4 extra steps with changing stuff to a fraction and what not. Now, I stink at math, but I can tell you what 40% off a cute sweater is in 3 seconds flat. I showed her how to multiply and then subtract and she was amazed-AMAZED-that her dim-witted Mom who thought Jethro Tull was a just a band could do that!!

ITA!!!!! Why did the teachers change the method of teaching? It worked for us!!

 

[Wall-E1]

I KNOW how to do long division and how to estimate numbers and that's what last nights lesson was on. I thought about this and I think it's that the teachers teach our children how to do things differently than we were taught. I try to tell her how to do it, show her how to get the answer and she says I'm wrong.

I'm sure you are quite good in math. I was joking about our kids being smarter than us. They just think they are. You are exactly right about the teaching of math. There is often more than one way to solve a problem. We may know a "trick" that makes solving the problem easier, or we may know how to solve the problem in less steps. Our kids just don't want to accept that we know things that they don't. It's just their age. They'll grow out of it sometime in the future, after we have had heart failure due to the unnecessary stress that they have been putting on us after all these years..

 

[NYPDwife]

I'm sure you are quite good in math. I was joking about our kids being smarter than us. They just think they are. You are exactly right about the teaching of math. There is often more than one way to solve a problem. We may know a "trick" that makes solving the problem easier, or we may know how to solve the problem in less steps. Our kids just don't want to accept that we know things that they don't. It's just their age. They'll grow out of it sometime in the future, after we have had heart failure due to the unnecessary stress that they have been putting on us after all these years..

I SWEAR I figured it was sarcasm after I read your 2nd post about Molly Ringwald.

 

[luvmy3jewels]

We are going through a similar thing with my dd (9). In fact, last weekend I took dd and her group of 6 friends to our family's cottage for her birthday party slumber party. I had taken the same group last year, but it was amazing the difference between the way they behaved last year and this year. I guess they must have some pre-teen hormonal thing going on because 5 of the 7 girls cried at some point during the party, some even more than once! I told my dh that I was never going to host a slumber party for girls this age again!! I'm thinking that the closer we get to their teenage years, the rockier this road is going to get.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

My DS is almost 11, and we're going through the same thing.

 

[ZachnElli]

I'm having issues with my DD who will be 11 on Jan 1st also. It's not over homework. It's about her looks and personal hygiene. She will try to leave for school without coming her hair and it will be an absolute mess and she gets mad at me whenever I ask her to brush it. She always wears her hair down in a messy mop in her face. She has the prettiest face but refuses to pull it back. She said just last week everyone says she looks just like me (her mom) and then she brushed all her hair even more in her face! So looking like me is a bad thing? I was thinking about taking her for a girls day out as part of her birthday, get her hair cut (she's been saying she wants it shorter), go to the eye dr and try out some contacts (she has also said she wants this), I thought maybe it would give her more confidence, but now I just don't know. I feel like it's a "I hate that I look like my mom" thing and this will just make it worse.