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Why Do Teenagers Rebel?


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tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2014/02/why-do-teenagers-rebel/

This 19 year olds mother asked her to write about why she never rebelled.

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Jesus Christ, can she think any higher of herself? Must get lonely on that pedestal. It's clear as anything that that girl's identity is too wrapped up in her parents. And she's open about how she thinks she has to submit because otherwise she's dishonoring her parents and god and she'll be a disappointment. She doesn't sound like she feels safes rebelling into her own person.

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My comment.

So you never ever ever didn't do what you were told he very second you were told to do it? Because disobeying is rebellion. You're pushing against what Mom and Dad tell you. So what's your parents' secret for raising a kid who never in her life had to be corrected for disobeying? I've never heard of any kid who never disobeyed to learn the boundaries. Whatever could their, and your, secret be?
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And AFTER hitting the submit button there's this

Comment Policy: Please stay positive with your comments. If your comment is rude, it gets deleted. Any comment that espouses an anti-marriage philosophy (eg. porn, adultery, abuse and the like) will be deleted. If it is critical, please make it constructive. If you are replying to another commenter, please be polite and don't assume you know everything about his or her situation. If you are constantly negative or a general troll, you will get banned. The definition of terms is left solely up to us. Sheila Wray Gregoire owns the copyright to all comments and may publish them in whatever form she sees fit. She agrees to keep any publication of comments anonymous, even if you are not anonymous on this board.

So she claims the copyright of what you wright after you submit it.

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tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2014/02/why-do-teenagers-rebel/

This 19 year olds mother asked her to write about why she never rebelled.

It seems to me like their definition of "rebel" is essentially "go wild." I think lots of teenagers don't go wild. I don't think it's at all a sure thing that a kid will experiment with drugs, alcohol or whatever as a teen. I certainly didn't (fundy childhood, but still), and my husband also didn't (and he was given complete freedom and minimal supervision). I know plenty of other people who also didn't. When a kid goes off the rails, there's usually a lot more to it than simple "rebellion."

But rebellion as defined as "pushing away from your parents and becoming an independent person" is an entirely natural, normal and I'll even say HEALTHY event.

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I never drank, smoke, dated (no one wanted to date me in high school), never partied, and never really swore either as a teenager. I was moody at times like most. I went to public school. I also had a good job (worked part time in a flower shop in high school) and volunteered as well. I was the youth leader my senior year of high school and very involved in church. I still do not drink or smoke or party and never did through college either. I never wanted to smoke. I am more of an introvert and not much on parties. I also do not like alcohol and just never really wanted to try it. Getting drunk never interested me and never saw the appeal. I had my first date and boyfriend at 23. I do swear some.

I would say none of us rebelled much in high school. My sister drank a little and dated, but that was about it. She actually is more rebellious now at 23 than she was in high school. My 18yo brother never smoked or partied and does not drink and did not in high school and still is not in college. We all swear here and there, but so do our parents (dad mostly). He dated, but that's all on her list.

However, none of us were expected to be instantly obedient. Our parents were never out to beat us into obedience at all. My parents were not against spanking, but I told them about the concept of instant obedience and they were :evil-eye: :pink-shock: and did not get it. I also told them about the Pearls "training sessions" and they were horrified. Actually, beyond horrified. I believe my dad's exact words were "who the hell would do that to a baby? How fucked up do you have to be to treat a baby like that? How are they not in jail?!"

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My 25yo didn't "rebel." Neither my 16yo son nor my 14yo daughter are in rebellion. Maybe that is perspective tho. I do not make my agnostic-atheist 16yo attend church any more. That family might see it as rebellion plus me being bad at mothering. Oh well. Don't care.

I skimmed through that blog, did she ever say if she went to school?

My oldest was homeschooled from 3rd grade on. My 16yo son has attempted homeschool twice (7th and 9th) but it did not work out and he is back in the public school system, where he was all the years he did not homeschool. My 14yo daughter has always been public schooled.

Sooooo, yeah if she was homeschooled, no brownie points for her at all. There is no dealing with peer pressure or coping with situations or any of the normal experiences of American high school teenagers.

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I never drank, smoke, dated (no one wanted to date me in high school), never partied, and never really swore either as a teenager. I was moody at times like most. I went to public school. I also had a good job (worked part time in a flower shop in high school) and volunteered as well. I was the youth leader my senior year of high school and very involved in church. I still do not drink or smoke or party and never did through college either. I never wanted to smoke. I am more of an introvert and not much on parties. I also do not like alcohol and just never really wanted to try it. Getting drunk never interested me and never saw the appeal. I had my first date and boyfriend at 23. I do swear some.

I would say none of us rebelled much in high school. My sister drank a little and dated, but that was about it. She actually is more rebellious now at 23 than she was in high school. My 18yo brother never smoked or partied and does not drink and did not in high school and still is not in college. We all swear here and there, but so do our parents (dad mostly). He dated, but that's all on her list.

However, none of us were expected to be instantly obedient. Our parents were never out to beat us into obedience at all. My parents were not against spanking, but I told them about the concept of instant obedience and they were :evil-eye: :pink-shock: and did not get it. I also told them about the Pearls "training sessions" and they were horrified. Actually, beyond horrified. I believe my dad's exact words were "who the hell would do that to a baby? How fucked up do you have to be to treat a baby like that? How are they not in jail?!"

The same over here! I think for anyone confronted the first time with the rabbithole the fundieverse is, the "Pearl-method" is one of the most horrible details you can tell one.

Albeit upholding a concept of authoritarian parenting, my parents never hit or spank us either. Physical violence was (and is!) considered a act of primitivity in our home and my parents once had to throw out a Au Pair for spanking one of my brothers.

Back to the lovehonorvacuumblog:

It actually speaks volumes about the level of experience of life and experience of people outside her obviously resticted bubble she has. Namely very less.

First of all drinking, smoking, swearing and going to parties doesn´t make one into a rebellious teenager per se (except in those fundie and other teetotaler circles). It just makes one to a teenager, who drinks, smokes, parties or swears. This things are usually part of the average social life and are no indicator whatsoever for rebellation, let alone for teenage rebellation.

On the other side, there are even teenagers who rebell against their parents or society by NOT doing so (like "straight edge" subcultures)

Second, Rebecca G. may feel like she´s having a super speshul family, which allegedly kept her from "rebelling" ... but, uhm, all the 5 reasons sound like that kind of things which is going on in the vast majority of families (minus the fundie crazy). Sorry Rebecca, you are just super-average :lol:

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I do not make my agnostic-atheist 16yo attend church any more. That family might see it as rebellion plus me being bad at mothering. Oh well. Don't care.

That´s not bad mothering, that´s being confident in your almost-grown-up child and his/her ability to make own decisions. Which equals to good mothering.

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I didn't have any problem with this post, except for the fact that 2 kids - even with different personalities - don't represent all children.

Part of me is quite happy to have Sheila's kids toot their own horn a bit, because by fundie standards, Sheila is a liberal hippie. She's is VERY anti-Pearl, and doesn't believe in corporal punishment in general. She and Lori Alexander clashed over this. So, for the homeschooling Christian moms reading her stuff, I want them to see that it's possible to raise your kids by treating them like intelligent human beings and not using physical punishment and not making 1,000 rules - and still end up with good kids.

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I don't know that I'd call it teenaged "rebellion" as I would a time of experimenting and finding out who you are. Experimenting with smoking, drugs, sex...while not great is not really what I would call rebellion. I see it as a time to challenge the status-quo. Yeah, I was a "rebellious" teen and so were my kids. BUT...at the end of the story, I came around to a more traditional lifestyle and so did my kids. The problem is these conservative and fundy types see this process as rebellion. I'm more of the opinion its a time of growth and learning about self. They freak out the second the kid steps off the line they have drawn. They keep such control over the kids that the kids never even THINK about having an individual thought.

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My 25yo didn't "rebel." Neither my 16yo son nor my 14yo daughter are in rebellion. Maybe that is perspective tho. I do not make my agnostic-atheist 16yo attend church any more. That family might see it as rebellion plus me being bad at mothering. Oh well. Don't care.

I skimmed through that blog, did she ever say if she went to school?

My oldest was homeschooled from 3rd grade on. My 16yo son has attempted homeschool twice (7th and 9th) but it did not work out and he is back in the public school system, where he was all the years he did not homeschool. My 14yo daughter has always been public schooled.

Sooooo, yeah if she was homeschooled, no brownie points for her at all. There is no dealing with peer pressure or coping with situations or any of the normal experiences of American high school teenagers.

FWIW, she's Canadian, not American. She was homeschooled, and is currently a university student. It's a normal, public, coed university (the University of Ottawa).

It's pretty clear to me, from the context, that she's describing "rebellion" as going wild and doing things that would be against the basic values of her family. For example, for some kids, smoking would simply be doing what everyone else does and maybe even what their parents do. For a kid raised in a non-smoking home though, with a father who is a doctor and who educated her on all the health risks, smoking could be a form of rebellion.

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OMG, if the Pretzel and Mr. Pretzel are both about to swear like sailors, then something's really up. This time we did.

Christ on a cracker, this girl is so arrogant and full of herself that the arrogance itself could count as total rebellion. GOOD GRIEF. I think puberty and "rebellion", "going wild", "being stubborn" all include a bit of arrogance and knowing-it-all-and-knowing-it-better in the teenager.

By my standards, that conceited brat is not in the least through with her rebellion/puberty.

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I don't know that I'd call it teenaged "rebellion" as I would a time of experimenting and finding out who you are. Experimenting with smoking, drugs, sex...while not great is not really what I would call rebellion. I see it as a time to challenge the status-quo. Yeah, I was a "rebellious" teen and so were my kids. BUT...at the end of the story, I came around to a more traditional lifestyle and so did my kids. The problem is these conservative and fundy types see this process as rebellion. I'm more of the opinion its a time of growth and learning about self. They freak out the second the kid steps off the line they have drawn. They keep such control over the kids that the kids never even THINK about having an individual thought.

This was my one beef with the post.

"Rebellion" isn't always cause for extreme panic.

Sheila's kids, even if they had different personalities, don't represent all personalities. Some kids, by nature, will be more prone to rebelling than others. I would look at what someone's kids are like at age 40 if you want to evaluate whether they turned out "good" kids. I know that I was the goody two-shoes, never rebelled kid. My sister wasn't, and my cousins were definitely rebels. At some point, though, everyone grew up. They stopped smoking/drinking/doing drugs. They got serious about school and careers. They traded in casual sex for stable marriages and kids. They became solid citizens and good people.

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I don't have much of a problem with this post. Rebecca seems like a know-it-all, sure, buuuuuut so did I at 19. And, having taught college freshman for a few years, so do MANY 19 year olds.

The advice seems generally sound if your goal is to foster a close relationship with your kids and discourage immature decisions that could hurt them later in life (sorry, but partying at the cost of grades is a universally bad decision in high school OR college). For this family, some things might be considered harmful (and therefore "rebellious") that wouldn't be harmful for other families (teenagers having sex with boyfriends, for example).

I didn't go through a rebellious stage either. I blame that mostly on seeing responsibility modeled for me and having activities (for me, sports) to funnel my energy into. Also, a naturally boring personality helped.

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I don't have much of a problem with this post. Rebecca seems like a know-it-all, sure, buuuuuut so did I at 19. And, having taught college freshman for a few years, so do MANY 19 year olds.

The advice seems generally sound if your goal is to foster a close relationship with your kids and discourage immature decisions that could hurt them later in life (sorry, but partying at the cost of grades is a universally bad decision in high school OR college). For this family, some things might be considered harmful (and therefore "rebellious") that wouldn't be harmful for other families (teenagers having sex with boyfriends, for example).

I didn't go through a rebellious stage either. I blame that mostly on seeing responsibility modeled for me and having activities (for me, sports) to funnel my energy into. Also, a naturally boring personality helped.

Exactly this. I talk regularly with my kids about drug and alcohol use and responsibility re: both. Early alcohol use does correlate with alcohol abuse, and because alcoholism/addiction runs in my family, I will strongly counsel my children against using alcohol as teens.

I didn't drink until I was a bit over 21**, and I don't feel that I in any way lost out by not "experimenting" or "finding myself" through alcohol use. I have never used illegal drugs (nor have I recreationally used RX drugs), either, and again, I do not feel as though I missed out. I figured out who I was and what I wanted from life without the need for substances. Will my children ever experiment? Possibly. Will I see it as rebellion? Not necessarily -- to me, rebellion is more about the extent of the behavior than the behavior itself as well as the attitude. For example, if my kid goes to a party and has one beer, I will be disappointed but really, it's not the end of the world and is a fairly normal thing for teens to do. If he regularly goes out and gets blitzed every weekend and has an "FU" attitude constantly, yeah, that's a problem, and his dad and I will need to figure out where to go from there.

{L_MESSAGE_HIDDEN}:
** Funny story: My coworkers took me out for a "girl's night" on my 21st birthday. I didn't drink at all, and I think they were profoundly disappointed to not have been able to get me drunk. :lol: I still don't really like drinking often today because it makes me feel really loose and silly and giggly, and I talk way, way too much. I much prefer having full control over my faculties at all times. That said, my husband is highly entertained on those rare occasions that I do drink.
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The following link is, IMO, a good read on teen rebellion, even if it is from Focus on the Family. It's realistic to most people's experiences because most people don't homeschool.

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenti ... -rebellion

That this homeschooled kid didn't "rebel" and the reasons she gives are some credit to her parents but honestly, as the mom of a homeschooled kid (3rd grade til college) and two public schooled kids, I believe homeschooling is all the difference in terms of exposure to and the power of outside influences.

This kid says:

  1. Sense of family honor
  2. Encouraging yet demanding parents
  3. Family talks about everything
  4. Rebellion not expected
  5. God is center of the home

IMO 1-4 are not even religious principles but simply good communication skills

5 is not necessary, there are plenty of miserable homes of which God is supposedly the center yet the parents are so rigid and righteous, it is hard to see any love there at all.

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My teenage fundie-lite loved one told me about the one time she rebelled against her parents. I can't remember the exact details, but it had to do with the fate of a family pet. Her parents proposed something, and she disagreed, and she was so angry and upset and wanted to scream, and I waited to hear about the big confrontation. But that was it. She disagreed (silently, to herself; she never stated her opinion out loud) and was angry (privately, in her room) with her parents for what they were considering doing about the pet. Which they never followed through on, so this teenager felt God had tested her trust in and obedience to her parents and she had failed the test. So she felt ashamed of her rebellion and prayed about it, and she will never rebel again.

I don't know if she realized that she had defined rebellion as privately having a different opinion in her own mind. Maybe that's what it actually means in their family. I don't know. She told me this story like it was the most normal thing in the world, like she couldn't conceive of the idea that some people would believe that she has a right to her own thoughts and opinions. The whole conversation made me remember/realize how deep into the psyche the fundie control goes. It is scary.

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