Me (in head): She finds Kelly Brook in a bikini offensive? Typical! Mother: When I was your age boys didn’t look at such material.

Me (head again): That’s not what Dad said.

Mother: They were a lot more innocent and sweet back then. Nowadays boys are liking girls a lot earlier. You should be enjoying your life as a child.

Me (in all spaces that could be conceived to be intelligent): Nothing. All connections of ear to brain severed, creating the largest amount of space for non-sociability.

Lesson for parents: You know you say: “I don’t know why we bother”? Well, save your sanity. Don’t!
— Alex, 13 minus a quarter, Bedfordshire

I’m changing schools because the school said it wasn’t working. I was fed up. I didn’t want to be there and I made it obvious. Probably too truthful. I’ve always wanted to go to state school but they’re full so we’ve settled for another private school where you call the teachers by first names and wear your own clothes. I want to be treated like an adult. You change completely between Year 7 and Year 9. In Year 7 you’re more easily amused, you go out with your parents, in Year 9 you tend to only go out with them when you want something. You’re doing your own thing.

I’ve got more freedom than I used to have and I think I want more than my parents give me. I want to be allowed to grow up. I don’t really know what’s wrong. Teenagers sometimes don’t want to talk and sometimes they don’t know who to talk to. You don’t want to worry your parents and you don’t want them to be nosy. You don’t want them to know anything about you.

So you end up lying and then you get caught out and you end up not caring. But I can see if they weren’t there I’d probably be a bit lost.

I pointed this out to Mum yet again the other day but she didn’t listen. Thinking I might as well live up to my teenager label, I went off slamming the front door behind me.

OK, I returned after 20 minutes but I felt I got the point across. Anyway, by God did I need the toilet.
— Hannah, 16