How Raising a Teen is like Raising a Toddler

Your child has grown, the toddler days are in the rear view mirror or so you thought. Welcome to the teen years where you will think those toddler years were pure bliss; hormones, adolescence, coming of age, you know all that stuff you went through? Well now you are the parent in this scenario and you will soon find that raising a teen is almost exactly like raising a toddler, but worse.

Raising a Teen

Raising a Teen

Tantrums Come Back

All those days of toddler tantrums will return once your child has hit those double digits in the teens, tantrums that you wouldn’t even be able to comprehend coming from your near adult child. From stomping of the feet, to eye rolls, to the all too famous “you just don’t understand me” ultimately leading down a path of complete utter tantrum fits.  Don’t be shocked if your nearly full grown child throws themselves down on the floor or couch in an angry fit of tears or mean words. This is totally common during the teen years and makes it number one on the list of how raising a teen is like raising a toddler.

 Emotions Run High

Oh you thought we meant for your teen? Well that too, but no we meant you. As a parent of a teen you will soon find yourself on an emotional roller coaster ride.  It’s as if your child turns into this emotional toddler who is uncontrollable, inconsolable, and all over the map. You will once again find yourself teaching your child how to handle emotions that stem from hormone fluctuations as if you were teaching them about emotions during the first few years of their life. There will be days you just want to rip your hair out, stomp your own feet and throw an adult tantrum during these emotional roller coaster moments.

Replace Why with I Don’t Knows

As a toddler your child probably asked the question “why” all of the time, right? Your lovely little bundle of joy will start to utter the reply of “I Don’t Know” as often as they asked why during the toddler years. It is unknown for sure why these once decisive children have become these little indecisive creatures, but it happens and all you can do is find some humor in it such as you do with toddlers incessant questioning of why.  No matter what the question is, how it is worded and how easy you would think a yes or no answer would suffice, your teen will still reply with “I don’t know” and just like that you will realize that this piece of information is high on the list of how raising a teen is like raising a toddler.

The Mine Mentality

As a toddler your child had to learn to share, not everything in this world was theirs and if it was theirs then they had to learn that letting another child play with said item was a good thing. During the teen years you will see this start occurring again, but only towards you, the parent. Their room will become their space, their drawers will become their drawers and they will express this very loudly to you while throwing the tantrum mentioned earlier, stomping of the feet! Once again, you will find this is a frustrating part of parenthood while you work to teach your teen, much like in the toddler years, boundaries as well as how their space is shared with the owners of the home, their parents!

Overall, raising a teen can be quite fun and entertaining at times, but there will certainly be multiple moments where you wonder what happened. Did this little human wake up at thirteen and just flick a switch backwards to the toddler years? Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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