Our teenagers have hit the age where they know everything.
It doesn’t matter that my husband and I have been living for 50 years and we have more life experiences than them, because according to our teens, they’ve learned more in their 16 years of life. It can be super frustrating, but I know I was the same way when I was their age. It isn’t until you’re a parent of teenagers when you finally realize all the stress you put your own parents under. One of the biggest disagreements we were having with our teens was regarding our thermostat settings. According to them, money grows on trees and heat and air just magically happens in our house. My husband and I have our thermostat set to 75 degrees during the daytime and 73 in the evenings, because these temperatures keep everyone comfortable while still running efficiently. Our teens disagree. They like to change the thermostat to their desired temperatures while we’re not looking. Not only does this make our HVAC system run tirelessly between the various settings, but it’s less efficient too. To put an end to the thermostat battle, my husband and I replaced our old thermostat with a smart thermostat. We did this because it was time for an upgrade, and the smart thermostat had amazing features. My husband and I have the coordinating app on our phones, which only we know the login information for. From our phones, we get alerts about any changes made to the temperature and we can lock the settings. Now, our teenagers have no way to alter the temperature, even if they wanted to!