be honest now...were you a problem child growing up?

[FrekeChild]

I was an exceptionally good kid compared to my peers throughout my childhood and adolescence. BUT I was a stark, raving B when I was 15.

 

[Cind11]

Nope. Not at all.

 

[Clairitek]

I was most difficult at 17, according to my father.

As a smaller kid I was hideously oversensitive but other than that, very well behaved. According to my parents I didn't throw a temper tantrum at all growing up until magical 17.

 

[Clairitek]

Date: 11/17/2009 11:17:18 PM
Author: Haven
My parents fondly refer to that as my ''stomp stomp slam'' year.

Ah... this must be what my father was referring to when I was 17 and "difficult."
I used to stomp up the stairs so hard I''m surprised I didn''t put holes in them or break a foot.

 

[Karl_K]

<--- pleads the 5th

 

[PilsnPinkysMom]

Date: 11/17/2009 11:17:18 PM
Author:
My parents fondly refer to that as my ''stomp stomp slam'' year.

YES! I recall slamming my door once and my father racing after me, opening it back up, and telling me I had to "quietly" open and shut it 50 times. OY!

I was a good kid, though often moody/emotional. I also tried to rebel during my sophomore year, as I was tired of my goody-two-shoes image. Despite my efforts it never worked, and my parents didn''t know a thing about my antics (parties I lied about, occasional drinking, chasing after ''bad-boys'') until waaay after my HS graduation. My friends were a good, wholesome bunch- we behaved but still had a fun, fun adolescence.

My sister on the other hand... It all started in 7th grade when my mom caught her smoking a cigarette at the end of the driveway while waiting for the bus. But that was the worst of it, really. Crazy hair dye, trying to smoke cigs, sneaking in boyfriends for makeout sessions after mom & dad went to bed, etc.

 

[bee*]

No I was quite good-the only thing I did that caused problems with my parents was to dye my hair purple and get a couple of piercings.

 

[ksinger]

NO. I wouldn''t have dared. My mother had an implacable will of iron, and I darn well knew it. She made it clear that if I got in real trouble - out of doing something stupid - I was on my own - that she would have neither the will nor the actual resources to bail me out. And I wasn''t to bring home any scummy guys either, thank you very much. Of course, I was not terribly inclined. I was pretty smart as a teen and knew I had a good gig: nice digs, 3 squares, and a better than decent mother. Why mess something like that up? Besides, if I left or got booted, where was there to GO? Being the child of a single mom, I had a better idea of basic economics than kids who got everything they wanted. The joke between us is that I didn''t actually rebel until I was 30. God, but I miss my mom.....

 

[steph72276]

For the most part, I was a really good kid. Although, I did have several of those teenage hormone induced fits where I said "you just don''t understand what it''s like today" and that kind of thing when I wasn''t allowed to go to parties with no parental supervision or out to the movies with boys when I was in middle school. But I''ve since thanked my parents for looking out for my best interest even though I thought at the time they were ruining my social life!

 

[zoebartlett]

I wasn''t a problem child, but I did do more than my fair share of arguing/fighting with my parents in high school.

 

[Mara]

moi? never!

I was 'spirited' when young...very curious and rambunctious, they'd probably say I had ADD today as I was always bouncing around and rarely still. Short attention span.

But a 'problem' child, nope...just a handful. I was a good teenager. I always did my chores, helped around the house and with my sisters, didn't drink or smoke or do drugs etc. The worst thing I did like a few others here was lie once about staying over at my bf's house in HS (where nothing happened!) but of course my parents caught me in the lie (that's when you learn it's never worth it to lie!), and I was branded with a scarlet letter and grounded for a year. hahaa.

 

[Lauren8211]

No. I was actually a really good kid.

I was a very moody and irritable teenager. I did get into drinking and drugs, but was "responsible" about it.

Never got caught, never drove while intoxicated. I kept my grades up even though I was drinking a whole lot as a teenager. I spared my parents the stress and just did everything under the radar.

 

[monarch64]

I was an exemplary child. I was a terrible teenager, though. I had very overprotective parents and I was full of rebellion, just not the in-your-face kind.

 

[vc10um]

Date: 11/17/2009 8:56:29 PM
Author: kas baby
I was kind of angsty at times. Overall though, I got my homework done, straight A student, did extracurricular activities, did my own laundry, didn''t ask for money, looked after younger sisters (i.e. made dinner, made sure they got their hw done, etc) I tried to be perfect.

Yup. That''s me right there. I only had one younger sister, though...and she''s definitely the problem child.

 

[princesss]

"Stomp, stomp, SLAM!" describes me pretty accurately as well.

I was a good kid - good grades, did 3 plays per year, no drugs, no sex, pretty responsible - but I caused my share of headaches. I tended to get very involved in my relationships (friends and boyfriends) and often neglected work for those. I was on the receiving end of a LOT of lectures about "opportunity cost" from my dad (to the point where I quit Econ 101 when the first day of class we ended up being lectured on that and only that). I missed curfew a few times, made some poor decisions (long distance phone calls for multiple hours each day was, in retrospect, not such a good choice), and hung out with some not-so-great friends. But I was never afraid to be a little different from my friends, and I was always the goody-two-shoes in the group. When I wanted a tattoo or to get my nose pierced, I asked my parents (to which I got a, "When you turn 18" and a "Yeah, that''d look cute!" from my dad). I wasn''t afraid to say, "No, I''m not going to _________" (drink, have sex, smoke that joint, etc.).

So I''d say I was a mostly-good kid that caused only a few headaches (but I will admit, when I caused headaches, they were pretty big headaches).

 

[sunnyd]

I was moody and miserable until I moved out.

Only drank once in HS, no sleeping around, always in by curfew, good grades... I just didn''t mesh well with my family all the time, what? We''re cool now though.

 

[meresal]

I think for the most part I was an angel, I just had a few "devilish" moments.

Luckily, my parents are really good about leaving things in the past, and my mom knows that I am extremely regretful for one thing that happened.

 

[CurlySue]

My parents still tell me what a good kid I was, and for the most part, I agree with them. Got good grades, was busy with lots of activities, had part-time jobs all through high school. I did do my fair share of sneaking out, drinking, etc., but I was also smart enough never to get caught.

Re: the "stomp stomp slam" thing... I know a guy who got SO SICK of his kids stomping and slamming, he actually took the doors off all his kids'' rooms. Didn''t stop the stomping, but slamming? Problem solved.

 

[zoebartlett]

Princesss brought up curfews, which I meant to mention earlier. When my mom was growing up, her parents (well, dad) never gave her a curfew. He knew that all her friends had them, and he thought, what would she do when her friends had to return home? Stay out by herself? No. He knew that she''d come home at the same time her friends went home, and she always did. My mom told me that many times when I was growing up, and my sister and I never had a curfew either. Honestly though, we wouldn''t have really needed one. We were pretty responsible about getting home at a reasonable hour anyway on our own.

 

[elrohwen]

Nope, not at all

I was quite the goody-two-shoes.

 

[Callisto]

A lot of you are saying you were trouble kids in high school which is the exact opposite of me. I was too busy in high school to cause any trouble for my parents. Sure we had our moments of fighting but most days I left at 7 am and got home around 9pm from various activities, scrambled to finish homework and then passed out. Can''t really do a whole lot of damage with that schedule.

When I was younger though I was definitely a handful. My parents favorite story is the time they put me in time out on the stairs and came back however long later to discover that while in my time out I had peeled all the wallpaper off the time out corner.... yeah they were pissed. My dad is super stubborn too so we butted heads a lot especially when I was little.

 

[LGK]

Erm. Totally shocked I lived to see 20 actually. No thanks to me that I did, just dumb luck.

Here's one story of my profound retardation I can share- I think I was 17 or 18. One of the things my friends liked to do for amusement was find high bridges and cliffs and leap off them into the water. I was terrified of heights, but I was determined I'd do it. So there I was standing on the railing, clinging to the strut of this bridge and looking down about 60 or 70 feet into the river below. I spent quite a while perched there. Then, the police pulled up behind us; apparently some concerned citizen had alerted them to our "fun". One of my other friends leaped right as he pulled up, and I had to wait so as not to land on him, which gave the cop some time to come over to me (though I was not aware he'd snuck up behind me). He bellowed in my ear, which freaked me out and made me lose my grip, and I fell. And landed completely wrong, and broke pretty much every capillary in my legs and butt. Couldn't sit for a week; that was one incredibly spectacular bruise and I'm pretty lucky I didn't break my back I guess. The policeman wasn't terribly pleased with me, I think he thought I was being a brat rather than just having been scared off my perch.

So, if my friends were to jump off a cliff, apparently I would too

The other day I saw someone trying to commit suicide off the same bridge I fell off of.

This was my favorite technique for dealing with highschool work: if you didn't do a scrap of homework, but got As on tests, you could manage a C; also, the class before whatever one had a test in it, was clearly study hall- not a chance I'd actually, y'know, study on my own time. I drove some of my math teachers to distraction with my non-homework-doing ways and at least one was personally offended that I managed to get good grades on the tests regardless. Also I frequently would blatantly read whatever I felt like (often classics oddly) in classes when I felt the lecture was too boring. Some of the teachers actually found that rather amusing. My sister had one class with a teacher who loved to lecture the class about his seriously right wing veiwpoints and she often just stood up, walked to the supply closet in the back of the class, and sat in there for the whole period.

Most of the rest of the things I did as a teenager are definitely not shareable on a public forum

I left home at 16 (actually, left the state to be exact) and somehow graduated from highschool. I'm sure I terrified my poor mom with my exploits and non-living-at-home, but there wasn't a chance I was living where my dad was, which I still think was the only decision I could have made. She pretty much had to give up on trying to control me when I started leaving for long periods of time. I finally pulled my head out of my butt in my mid 20s and realized I was only screwing up my own life at that point, but I did manage to graduate from college 4 years after HS despite it all.

I think I was mostly well behaved up til I was 13. After that, well, not so much. May I just say that I hope and pray I never have a kid like me; I know my mom was rather the wildchild too (and in fact for the same dismal reasons) but I know it didn't prepare her for the hellion that I was. I don't think my husband really understands why I'm so dang scared of of having kids- but, at least I didn't marry a man like my father or grandfather, so hopefully that would make all the difference.

 

[HollyS]

Middle child.

Peacemaker.

Quiet.

Long-suffering.

 

[Luckyeshe]

Yes, I was!

But I turned out pretty good in the long run!

 

[mochi]

Not to their knowledge

 

[cellososweet]

outwardly I was a good kid during my teens years. Straight A''s, took college classes for half the day, ran track, did cheerleading, principal cellist in the orchestra. volunteered on wednesday''s at a feeding the homeless event, tutored younger kids. I was the quintessential over-acheiver.

But I was miserably tormented emotionally and drugs, alcohol, and bad relationships exacerbated this. Even though everything looked good on the outside and there was nothing my parents could really punish me for (they didn''t know about the dark side), they got the brunt of my severe emotional outbursts, self-injury, eating disorders, and an eventual psychotic break the summer after my senior year of school. Drugs made all of this worse and they tried so hard to get me help without knowing that this was a huge part of the problem. We found the dumbest psychiatrist in the city, I swear. He didn''t even ask me if drugs or alcohol were involved and prescribed me high-powered anti-depressants, anti-anxiety meds, etc. All in all, it was a horribly effed up time. I feel for my parents. I think catching me with a boy in my room or with some pot would''ve been so much easier for them.

 

[AdiS]

Oh, yes. I was.

 

[trillionaire]

My siblings and I were all really easy. My sister was the moodiest one, and would yell alot, but I was in college, so I missed all of that fun

She still is the only ''yeller'' in the family.

My brother was the easiest. He rarely went out, didn''t have a lot of friends, and was usually lost in some book or project.

I had a few meltdowns when my parents wouldn''t let me visit my friends or go to parties... but they lived 30 minutes away, and my parents didn''t exaclty love me driving so far at night. A side from those minor things, we were pretty perfect kids. If you asked my parents they would say were were really easy kids. We''ve actually been harder as adults than as kids.

 

[4ever]

My older sister was the problem child/headach maker. She still kind of is at 23.

I''ve always been the good one

 

[Londongirl1]

Date: 11/17/2009 8:38:37 PM
Author:Dancing Fire
did you give your parents a lot of headaches during your teenage years?

Oh course not, I was perfect and still am

But seriously, I didn't go through any rebellious phases. I think I was quite a boring teenager