Very stubborn 13 year old!

[Weegiemum]

Yes, I know it's par for the course!

Dd1 is 13.3 and hormonal as F*!

She was incredibly insolent, muttering under her breath, throwing her shoes then refusing to put them on, screaming, totally blanking both dh and I.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things it is fairly minor, but I certainly don't want this sort of thing to become a habit, and so for every 5 minutes she sat ignoring me and not putting her shoes on (like a toddler, only as tall as me!) we said we would have her iPhone5 that she got for Christmas.

She was stubborn enough to sit for 20 mins so she gets he phone back on Friday morning, and it has to be then, dh is working away until Thursday evening and he's taken it with him (so there's no use her looking for it).

Just wondering if phone confiscation is an over-reaction? I don't think so but I'm new to having teenagers (though I used to teach them!). She has to get two buses to get to school but she's never had an emergency, she often texts me on the way home.

I want to get on top of this now, before it gets worse.

She's being all sweetness and light now!

[Weegiemum]

Bump?

[crispsarenotoneofyour5aday]

Not at all - phone conviscation is just about the only thing that works with my stroppy teenage DS. Oh the shame of having to go to school with a six year old pay-as-you-go no frills Nokia (he gets the train quite a distance to school)

Aaaah - the joys of boundary pushing....

[TigOldBitties]

I think its a bit of an overreaction, just speaking as when I've had hormonal issues and it feels almost uncontrollable, I'd cut her a bit of slack. I find they're often a bit scared by their own mood-swings themselves, its quite worrying to go from being happy and then feel so angry then so upset.

I find teen hormone tantrums to be a bit like toddler tantrums, totally irrational.

I'd maybe have taken the phone for a day up to half an hour, or said for every 5 minutes this goes on after half an hour you lose the phone for a day. To lose it for 4 days, over 20 minutes seems excessive.

The thing with teens is you really have to pick your battles, you don't want to end up coming down hard on everything because it will just become a battle of wills for the next 5 years, especially if she's stubborn. I usually just ignore certain things and then challenge things which really can go on. You don't want to get into the situation where you've got the phone more than she has, as thats a bit of a waste and I'm assuming you got it so you can contact her, its sort of mutually beneficial. Plus if you take the phone away for say a week, where do you go from there if she kicks off, you have to start taking more and more away and then you've got a stroppy miserable teen moping about.