How strange it is to ask for parenting advice on the piano board!

[bernadette60614]

Our formerly lovely and loving son has turned into an angry, door slamming stranger. Granted, he is now 14, ready to start high school...so I can understand that he feels considerable stress.

I recall being a pretty loathsome person as a teen and my mother saying: One day I hope you have a child like you.

Does mom always have to be right?

Any parents who can reassure me that this is just a phase?

[iansinclair]

Yes, usually it is just a phase.  Consider: he is beginning to try and figure out who he is, as an independent person.  Which will, as we who are older, know will take the rest of his life.  He'll find that out soon enough...

In the meantime, about all you can do is be as supportive as you can.  Don't take offense, or meet anger with anger (that is easier said than done!).  Try to keep him working and living safely -- also easier said than done.

And hang in there!

[mjames]

I HATE YOU MOM, YOURE THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD.
UGH I HATE THIS
I WISH I WAS NEVER BORN

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I couldn't do that when I was 14 my dad would whoop my ass lol

My younger brother got kicked out the house once for trying to pull that ish

[indianajo]

My parents gave me almost no advice after I was 11.  Pretty good plan, I was very independent and doing all right.  I think I quit showing them the report cards by high school, which were okay by the way. they paid for piano lessons until age 16, when I quit to concentrate on school band.   The parents had given me the skill of earning pocket money helping neighbors starting age 8, so I didn't ask for any money after age 11. Not even for band supplies/lessons.  I wouldn't ask to borrow the car, and when my bicycle was stolen, I bought another, plus a lock and chain.  I had $2400 in the bank when I started college and paid my way through with that, scholarships, and ROTC pay.  I never even gave my parents the financial aid forms, I figured higher education was not their problem.  My father had his clothes set outside in a cheap suitcase the day after he graduated high school.  My mother was admitted to osteopath medical school after high school, but her mother wouldn't sign a mortgage to pay for it, so she became a secretary.    
The parents found my brother a neighbor mentor age 10 who taught him house construction skills.  The May of his 13th year he ran away to a city 100 miles away to roof houses. There were no cards, letters, or phone calls.   He was hitching back home late August with $1300 cash in his pocket when the suburban police found him "pennyless" by the side of the road and called his parents to pick him up.  His grades were okay, but nothing to brag about.  The summer  he was 14 he tried to ride a Honda 90 (he bought with construction wages) 2500 miles to California, but turned back after 400 miles because it was too hot.  He is well off now with a Master's degree, a PE license, and a business with a dozen employees.  I don't have any of that.  I do have a piano I play for fun, he doesn't waste time like that.  
So whatever your kid is doing probably not as exciting or dangerous as all that.  Leave him alone, he'll come home- sometime. Feed him at dinner time when he is around, I much appreciated that.   Whatever you taught him by age 11, hope it is enough to get by. he won't be listening now.  
My Mother would tell family stories while she was cooking dinner and I sat around like a bear waiting for food to appear. Dad would tell stories while we were improving the house or yard or fixing appliances or whatever.  They weren't like Aesop's fables with a moral at the end of every one.  Just what they thought was interesting to talk about.   Interesting how the parents got by, depression, WWII, car wrecks, injuries, jobs, and all that.  Maybe your life has been interesting.  I didn't have much to say in those days, I figured I didn't know enough different to be interesting to anybody.  Certainly my classmates mostly bored me with what they talked about.  I decided there was enough idle talk.  Nowadays I type all over the internet, having lived a bit.  Sorry to bore you.  

[pjjslp]

Ha! I think it's safe to say, without knowing you or your son, that it's a phase. I have 13-year-old twin girls, and OMG the hormones! One minute they're snuggling in for a hug, the next they're rolling their eyes and stomping off to their room. I don't know if this will help you (and I hope my assumption that you are female based on your user name is accurate!), but I remind myself of how crazy I can feel at, ahem, certain times. And I'm 40-something and have been dealing with the hormones myself for an awfully long time! They're new to the game and don't know how to deal yet. Take a deep breath, remind yourself of what it was like to be a teen, tie a knot in that proverbial rope and hang on.

My mom always said she was grateful for our teenage snottiness when it was time to pack us off to college, because it made saying goodbye much easier. 

[swagmaster420x]

REALLY strange.

[bernadette60614]

Thank you! 

I feel somewhat the same way...I thought I would miss DS dreadfully when he goes to college.  I will miss him, he is underneath all this a lovely person, but oh my.....right now that lovely person is submerged in layers of resentment!