My daughter is 11 now. I've lived apart from her just after she'd turned 2, so 9 years now.
Generally she's a good kid, excelling at school but in the last 12 months she's developed an attitude that stinks a bit.
People will ask her a question or try to speak to her and she just blatantly blanks them and ignores them. Me, her Mum, both sets of Grandparents, her Step-Mum's parents.
I've pulled her up about it and she's blamed it on shyness. Absolute bullsh*t. She's far from shy. She's the most confident kid around when she wants to be.
We had a decent run of six months after our little chat but its creeping back in again. I had a long chat with my wife (her Step Mum) and her Mum about it and I'm speaking with my parents about it at the weekend as its a rare weekend without her but all of them have noticed it and its embarrassing for all concerned.
I do have a good tactic though to share. If they've got a phone or tablet, check out the 'Our Pact' app. You just need to install it on their phone/tablet when they're asleep.
So when they start playing up, open the app on your phone then you can turn off every single app on their phone. Ultimate parent power. Slightly evil too. Ha, have that you little sh*t! Anyway...
I always wondered what it would be like if I ever met someone and I had to introduce them to my daughter. I shouldn't have worried. Her Step Mum is brilliant with her and I'll go as far as saying if you saw them out together, you would think they are Mother and Daughter. They've got a best-friends relationship going on which is quite nice and they spend most of their time bullying me!
However, her Mum has met a new fella and he moved in with them 18 months ago and my daughter cant stand him. My daughter says all he does is sit on the sofa watching football and spends the whole time moaning and apparently he makes absolutely no effort to talk to her. I've avoided getting involved so far as my daughter has asked me not to say anything but its getting to the point where I will have to poke my nose in.
Thanks for the tip on 'Our pact' @JohnBoyUK The option to set an amount of time per day is genius.
I think teenagers will always try to control the house if you let them, my daughter is 16 tries it all the time, lazy moo as well she expects everything done for her and bought to her etc. I was also the soft parent and she had no respect for me, I have recently taken a harder stance, she knows I pay her phone bill and can stop at anytime, she really hated it the other day when I turned the electricity supply off to her room when she was playing online on the PS4, but she remembers it.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to ignore secondary behaviour and pick my battles, for example if she was hitting her sister and I told her to stop and told her the consequences, she then stops but isn't happy goes upstairs calls be a fat bitch and slams her door screeching. I'm to ignore that bit because she done what I asked and was given consequences of her initial bad behaviour, the latter was just her knee jerk reaction. If secondary behaviours are also punished then there will be more and more and in the end we will run out of punishments and be continuously arguing. This seems to work.
(We may be a bit different as she has mental health problems, so I'm just using the normal teenage behaviour from her not the more extreme ones)
I have never had children, fortunately for both me and them.
However my take is that if they have their treats/luxuries withdrawn, and that is a start.
As children we were all brought up to have manners and show respect to other people, but the problem is the friends they have and then that can dictate how the future holds for them. Something parents are probably powerless to control.
I've got two daughters, 10 and 7, and happily I can't get involved too much in this thread yet, but the older one is starting to pick at the younger on a regular basis, and the signs of incipient hormone imbalance are already here. Flouncing out of the room when questioned about anything, refusal to communicate. Nothing too extreme yet, but I'm sort of mentally battening down the hatches. And I sympathise with anyone eho fails yo get back up from the other half as Mrs Shabby tends to back her against me on discipline which doesn't help. I also have the mother in law from hell who has insisted on spoiling them rotten with no thought to the consequences or the parents objections. It"s tough being a parent.
How about a walk in the fields. Once you are in the arse end of nowhere and 5 miles from civilisation, they need to open up? You express yourself honestly and allow them to do likewise. Even through a bit of light humour in just to cut the ice. What do you think of her dad? News the time to be open and honest.
Even something satirical as I won't mention Charlton as long as you make an effort. Humour wins these competitions as you all get to realise how stupid you are without anyone accepting blame.
As I may have mentioned before i teach for a charity based in Chatham. I take on school kids (13 to 16yrs) permanently excluded from mainstream, referred by the councils inclusion team. Now i know i am basing my opinion on working with lower acheivers and those heading for PRUs (Pupil Referral Units), but my solution is this... cattle prods! Right between the little feckers eyes! As for their divvy parents, i would be much less lenient...
My wife has called her a food Hitler as she tried to dictate everything to us including shopping, and my wife is no push-over, well mostly.
If you challenge her she just thinks you are attacking her. I tried limiting her broadband to midnight on school nights, but my missus didn't back me up.
I want to know if its normal, as it's come to the stage where it's ruining our family life.
Others on here may not want to share I accept that, and I don't really want a parenting analysis, but if people do want to offer their own experience and coping strategies that would be good.
I'm not sure there is are any good ways to deal with it, my sister used to be awful and I always felt for my parents when they had to deal with it daily. Her and my dad in particularly clashed - she went through a period of talking very loudly on the phone all night long at one point, my dad told her many times if she didn't stop he'd "brake the fucking thing", she continued anyway and he grabbed her mobile and snapped it in half with his bare hands (was a slide up phone). My sister was troublesome both emotionally and physically. In the end my dad was pursuaded by the rest of us to stay out of it as they clashed so much, Mum had to deal with it for the next years and years, doing so much for my sister even though she was treated like shit.
My sister is completely different now and hates that part of her life being mentioned at all. I'm afraid the only way to deal with a child like that is to show love and hope they eventually come to their senses, it took a very long time but happened eventually. Even after experiencing that for years and years not even my parents have learnt how to deal with a problem child in the slightest. Just have to stick through it. One bit of advice is to take each problem as it comes rather than trying to tackle her whole life, also conceding in some arguments is wise, but definetly not all of them.
Also try your hardest to not get social services involved, their method wasn't to help my parents but to tell my sister that she was in the right and my parents were shitty at parenting. Those absolute fuckwits made my sister's road back to normality take a lot longer.
Like others, I've got this to come - 5yo daughter (with ASD, which obviously has its own issues) and 1yo son - but I feel like my daughter's already there on some days. If she's pissed off, she'll slam her bedroom door and scream "I'm never looking at you ever again!" Or if we tell her she needs to speak to us more politely, she'll calmly say "Mmm... no, I won't."
But then other days she'll independently write me a card to say that she "luvs kudling" me.
Other days it's a mixture. This morning she stroked my cheek, told me she loved me then said "I'll be sad when you die" before ominously leaving the room.
My 2 daughters were a nightmare as teens (both now in their 20s) whereas my son was/ is a joy to be around.
My wife and I have had to deal with just about every major problem you could think of (apart from excessive recreational drug abuse, thank goodness).
The only advice, I would give is: 1. Don't blame yourself, it's almost certainly not your fault 2. Things will eventually change for the better, hang in there 3. As other posters have said pick your battles, focus on the important stuff not the trivial stuff that annoys 4. Don't give up on them- no matter how bad things get, keep reaching out to the decent person that's still inside
My sister was horrible from the ages of 14 - 18, she eventually moved in with my dad at about 16 as her and my mum were clashing too much. She's nice now though, I think her boyfriend gets the brunt of it instead
Daughter's just turned 16 and for the last year she's been picking more fights (mainly with her mum). We have a line on personal behaviour and stick to it and try to be there for her, as much as we can be. We tend to disagree on which battles to pick - I don't think nagging her to revise at this point is worth the effort, her mum was prepared to endure the flack on that. She's also niggly and bossy towards her brother (10) but he adores her. She's still a great kid (actually a fantastic young woman) but is pushing all sorts of boundaries and has all sorts of issues with self-esteem. These are things that are largely outside of our control so we can tell her she is great loads but she just says "you don't count, you're my parents". The validation she wants isn't going to come from us. This is pretty much all hormonal. I remember I was pretty uncommunicative with my parents when I was that age. I try to be patient - it's not one of my virtues - and I'm fairly confident it will turn out alright in the end.
It hurts me to say this but I don't have the best relationship with my 18 year old daughter because of her poor attitude, laziness and rudeness. Anything I say to her or ask her to do is met with refusal and I am spoken to like a piece of dirt. Of course, my wife puts the blame on the way I talk to her and I admit that I do snap but only in response to the way I am spoken to.
She is off to Portsmouth Uni in September and I will miss her dearly but I have to wonder how she will cope when she never lifts a finger to help at home and keeps her room like a pig sty.
You clearly love her with all your heart, and would stand in front of a train for her. But there is something in your post regarding rudeness, snapping, and what your wife says. It is a huge challenge that as parents we might have to watch our P's and Q's with our teenagers, I mean who do they think they are when they are so rude themselves? Yet, it may be that listening, and the language of interaction can help to improve situations, even though it is a tough call. It might start by accepting that if our teenagers are not going to change in their rudeness, we can. Maybe it starts with the teenager making the first move too. For example in a post above a daughter accuses her parents of tight fistedness. That seems to me a good point to start a dialogue. It might be along the lines of, 'When you're so difficult and to be honest hurtful, I really don't feel like getting you a car even if I could afford it's. The response might be dialogue, it might be a flounce, but it is a seed planted.
I am very patient and I don't snap straight away. But she knows how to push my buttons. I have tried talking but the more I talk, the more she takes it that I am attacking her personally.
We have a boiler service today and the engineer will need to look at all the radiators in the house and her room is a total disgrace. I asked several times yesterday if she had done her room only to be told that it was a work in progress. At 9pm last night, after realising that she hadn't brought any of the rubbish down, I had to go in and take a look. Well, a dump doesn't come close. There was mould growing on one plate that had been in her room for goodness knows how long. Then when I started picking stuff up myself she got really angry and aggressive before yelling "No wonder I hate you!"
Morning, no.1 son is in that twilight zone of finishing exams and a gap before 6th form, we think small part time job, he thinks up all night and loads of x box, it's gonna be a fun summer and I expect the wine thread to be my friend.
Morning, no.1 son is in that twilight zone of finishing exams and a gap before 6th form, we think small part time job, he thinks up all night and loads of x box, it's gonna be a fun summer and I expect the wine thread to be my friend.
Wont do him any harm to have a holiday like everyone else
Morning, no.1 son is in that twilight zone of finishing exams and a gap before 6th form, we think small part time job, he thinks up all night and loads of x box, it's gonna be a fun summer and I expect the wine thread to be my friend.
Wont do him any harm to have a holiday like everyone else
Couldn't agree more, Cyprus is the next port of call, love getting away.
Comments
The option to set an amount of time per day is genius.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to ignore secondary behaviour and pick my battles, for example if she was hitting her sister and I told her to stop and told her the consequences, she then stops but isn't happy goes upstairs calls be a fat bitch and slams her door screeching. I'm to ignore that bit because she done what I asked and was given consequences of her initial bad behaviour, the latter was just her knee jerk reaction. If secondary behaviours are also punished then there will be more and more and in the end we will run out of punishments and be continuously arguing. This seems to work.
(We may be a bit different as she has mental health problems, so I'm just using the normal teenage behaviour from her not the more extreme ones)
However my take is that if they have their treats/luxuries withdrawn, and that is a start.
As children we were all brought up to have manners and show respect to other people, but the problem is the friends they have and then that can dictate how the future holds for them. Something parents are probably powerless to control.
Nothing too extreme yet, but I'm sort of mentally battening down the hatches. And I sympathise with anyone eho fails yo get back up from the other half as Mrs Shabby tends to back her against me on discipline which doesn't help. I also have the mother in law from hell who has insisted on spoiling them rotten with no thought to the consequences or the parents objections.
It"s tough being a parent.
You express yourself honestly and allow them to do likewise.
Even through a bit of light humour in just to cut the ice.
What do you think of her dad? News the time to be open and honest.
My sister is completely different now and hates that part of her life being mentioned at all. I'm afraid the only way to deal with a child like that is to show love and hope they eventually come to their senses, it took a very long time but happened eventually. Even after experiencing that for years and years not even my parents have learnt how to deal with a problem child in the slightest. Just have to stick through it. One bit of advice is to take each problem as it comes rather than trying to tackle her whole life, also conceding in some arguments is wise, but definetly not all of them.
Also try your hardest to not get social services involved, their method wasn't to help my parents but to tell my sister that she was in the right and my parents were shitty at parenting. Those absolute fuckwits made my sister's road back to normality take a lot longer.
Or if we tell her she needs to speak to us more politely, she'll calmly say "Mmm... no, I won't."
But then other days she'll independently write me a card to say that she "luvs kudling" me.
Other days it's a mixture. This morning she stroked my cheek, told me she loved me then said "I'll be sad when you die" before ominously leaving the room.
My wife and I have had to deal with just about every major problem you could think of (apart from excessive recreational drug abuse, thank goodness).
The only advice, I would give is:
1. Don't blame yourself, it's almost certainly not your fault
2. Things will eventually change for the better, hang in there
3. As other posters have said pick your battles, focus on the important stuff not the trivial stuff that annoys
4. Don't give up on them- no matter how bad things get, keep reaching out to the decent person that's still inside
Some kids are just a total nightmare and not sure how I would cope.
She's still a great kid (actually a fantastic young woman) but is pushing all sorts of boundaries and has all sorts of issues with self-esteem. These are things that are largely outside of our control so we can tell her she is great loads but she just says "you don't count, you're my parents". The validation she wants isn't going to come from us. This is pretty much all hormonal. I remember I was pretty uncommunicative with my parents when I was that age. I try to be patient - it's not one of my virtues - and I'm fairly confident it will turn out alright in the end.
We have a boiler service today and the engineer will need to look at all the radiators in the house and her room is a total disgrace. I asked several times yesterday if she had done her room only to be told that it was a work in progress. At 9pm last night, after realising that she hadn't brought any of the rubbish down, I had to go in and take a look. Well, a dump doesn't come close. There was mould growing on one plate that had been in her room for goodness knows how long. Then when I started picking stuff up myself she got really angry and aggressive before yelling "No wonder I hate you!"
That was really hurtful.
Best of luck to all of you.
At least you can give the grandchildren back