Feeling ashamed of how I handled a situation with my daughter this morning

[expatinspain]

I really lost my temper with DD 10 this morning and am feeling awful about it. She ended up really upset and at the time I was angry, but now I'm upset too.

She is just a nightmare with being messy and it drives me insane. This morning it came to a head. We've tried rewards, talking and punishments, but it always seems to end up the same after improving for a while. She's a procrastinator in the mornings and I seem to spend my mornings like a drill Sargent trying to get her out of the door on time. All she has to do in an hour and 15 mins is get dressed, brush her hair and teeth, eat breakfast, make her bed and leave her room in a semi organised state.

She leaves her pyjamas screwed up in a ball on the floor, even though she gets her clothes ready the night before, she puts on different things or tries on different coats and leaves the things she's not wearing screwed up at the bottom of the wardrobe or on the floor hidden, only to be discovered days later. Some of these are new things or just washed. She also spends the morning answering back and arguing about anything and everything or telling me last minute.com about papers she needs signed for school etc.

After a particularly bad morning I went into her room and found a brand new coat screwed up at the end of the bed, stuff on her bed that she'd just covered with the duvet that she couldn't be bothered to put away and I lost my temper. She argued with me and I took everything and threw it in a massive pile on the floor and made her put everything away neatly and really told her off. She was close to tears and really shocked, and she ended up 5 minutes late for school and me rushing to work stressed and upset too.

I will apologise later as I acted out of frustration and it wasn't my finest hour. If anyone has any advice up offer on how to handle things better, it would be very welcome. It's like Groundhog Day every day and I'm so fed up, but don't want to overreact like that again. I've just upset her and myself as I was so pissed off and really shouted at her. Acting in anger is never the best way and I'm not teaching her anything.

Honestly the best way to deal with this is to make her responsible for her own ironing and washing. My brother was the same until he was made responsible for sorting his crap out - but this assumes she wants to look smart / well presented at school. Won’t work as well if she’s a slob.

Poor girl :( I think an apology is in order. Mornings can be hectic, why not ask her to do a ten minute tidy up when she gets home everyday?
A coat left at the end of a bed really doesn't sound so horrifying..

I don’t have any concrete advice cos mine are tiny so chaos is our natural state. But I just wanted to give you a bit of a handhold.

Also, I don’t think what you did was that bad. She needs to know you have limits and getting cross with her and making her put everything away doesn’t sound unreasonable.

I feel for you. It is very annoying and frustrating and would drive me bonkers. I would not buy her anything new, beyond absolute essentials, until she can take basic care of what she's got.
Agree with getting her to do all her own laundry- at least for a month - and then maybe scrunch up a few of her newly ironed things and throw them on the floor so she can see what it feels like to work hard and then be treated with such disdain....
Maybe try a routine in the evenings? After tea, get her to empty her bag/ blazer pockets in front of you to check if there are is any admin to be done. Get her to check any online school systems- email/ homework etc and to sort it before she disappears off to her room or out.

In all honesty I don’t think you did over react. 10 is plenty old enough to do what you’re asking. Maybe you losing your shit was the shock she needed

No advice, but just wanted to say that you’re not alone!

I have a DD of the same age who is generally a great kid, but SO messy and just such a little whirlwind of chaos wherever she goes in the house.

I’ve lost it with her on a few occasions, too. She is not only only messy, but also constantly loses things because she hasn’t put them away properly, which can make mornings stressful...and I do get cross with her sometimes.

We are only human .

I try to remind myself that she is still learning about how to organise herself, and just keep the messages consistent. I also take responsibility away from her for certain things if she wears about too much. So for a while she was packing her own school bag in the evening but constantly forgetting things, so I went back to doing it with her, which she hated it as it involved me ‘nagging and nodding her about’ . She soon started organising herself a bit better and has now been given that responsibility back. I’m hoping that approach might help with the messiness eventually.

Lots of typos, sorry.

Should say

‘If she arsed about too much’ not wears

And

‘bossing her about’ not nodding

Don't apologize.

You are her mother, not her friend. She needs guidance and boundaries and has to realise her actions have consequences.

Sounds like she needed a shock.

Sit down together tonight and tell her you are at the end of your tether with this disrespectful way she treats things.

That would drive me mental clothes all screwed up.

I've done exactly this with my 10yo boy, and felt just as bad. I'm torn, because sometimes it's good to be pulled up sharp about unacceptable behaviour and see how much it affects the people around you. On the other hand, it's my job to stay calm and parent. I get your shame and your outburst equally.

I think one of the reason I react so strongly is that it feels like a failure of parenting that my child is SO rubbish at keeping track of his belongings and taking any kind of care of them, and makes us late constantly. That's about me, not him, but breaking my own pattern of behaviour is so very hard that you'd think it would teach me about how hard it is for him to change too. But no, all I see in that moment is the time, money and mental peace wasted every day.

If you find an answer, please share!

butterflyjive I would have thought you would have seen from my post that this isn't about a coat being left at the end of the bed. It's about constant lack of respect for me, her things, anything new anyone buys her. This isn't an isolated incident, it's constant. Her behaviour is unquestionably bad at the moment and disrespectful. She does have to tidy up each evening, but makes a complete mess every morning. I make her breakfast, pack her lunch, help her sort out her stuff the evening before, so for her, mornings should be quite easy. Maybe this is half the problem as I'm not helping her help herself.

Op I feel your pain; my 9yo dd is very similar. Constantly faffing and leaving her things in a mess, losing stuff because she doesn’t look after anything. Drives me mad, and sometimes I shout at her too.

You are only human, and as a pp said it doesn’t do children any harm to know you have limits. I always apologise to dd later when I lose my rag with her, and explain why I lost my temper. Things usually improve temporarily after that.

I don’t think there’s much you can do, except make them as responsible as possible for their own stuff. But if they don’t care, they don’t care, and it’s hard to make them while they have you as a back up to tidy up their mess and organise their lives. I don’t think I learnt to be organised and on time until I left home.

I have no experience of 10 year olds (mine are toddlers) but I don't agree that it was THAT bad. I mean, yes, you probably shouldn't have bellowed at her (you didn't use that word specifically but when you wrote that you "really told her off" that's what I'm imagining) but putting her stuff all in one pile and then getting her to tidy it away doesn't seem so bad.

Apologise for the angry shouting but also give yourself a break.

Hopefully being late for school (and possibly having her teacher pull her up on why) might be an incentive next time for her not to do it again.

I know you mentioned rewards etc but does she have a morning checklist, ie a physical checklist that goes on the wall? It might be that she gets muddled and doesn't prioritise well, so needs some help to understand how to do things in the right order.

I took everything and threw it in a massive pile on the floor and made her put everything away neatly and really told her off

I don't think you did anything wrong with that.

Perhaps turn the tv/phone off 30 minutes earlier each night and she spends that 30 minutes tidying the room and getting ready for tomorrow?

My mum use to pick up everything that wasn't away in my room and dump it on my bed so I had to tidy it away before I could go to sleep. I hated it at the time but it was effective and I see why she did it!

I think it's pretty normal messiness and a pretty normal over reaction too. I bet the majority of us have been there.

Don’t apologise. I cringe when I see parents fawning and bowing scraping apologies to smug dc after they have administered a well deserved bollocking.

I feel your pain I also have an extremely messy 10 year old girl though the rest of her behaviour very good. She’s not a toddler anymore

OP, I think she is definitely ready for a bit more responsibility at 10. My messy DD gets her own breakfast now (and have just started having success with her putting her bowl in the dishwasher and wiping down any spills...that took a while! ).

She also makes her own packed lunch.

Is your DD in year 6? I’ve been getting my DD to do a lot more for herself lately and telling her it’s in preparation for secondary school, which she responds fairly well to as she wants to be more grown up.

Oh and I NEVER apologise after I’ve told them off. If I’ve told them off or gone mental there will be a reason for it - them.

I don't insist any of mine make their bed and i couldnt care less if their rooms are messy, particularly at 10. All of them are teens and now automatically tidy if they have a friend coming over.

Don't worry too much OP, we all have days like this!

Going forwards, maybe part of the way to handle this is just accepting that you may be aiming too high? You say "we've tried rewards, talking and punishments" and none of them have worked. Perhaps she is just a less organised person than you. Is that the end of the world? I'm not saying you should give up completely, but maybe focus on the really important things and stop worrying about the rest.

Do not apologise! Kids need to be told off every now and again. Keep going with the very firm message that she needs to put things away. My mum also did the 'putting everything I hadn't put away on my bed' thing. Very effective.

God please don't apologise! What's actually wrong with giving your kids a proper bloody bollocking once in a while? She KNOWS she's being disrespectful and she's arguing back and basically treating you like shit. She needs to know that you're sick of it and making her put all her screwed up, dumped stuff away today is a lesson, not you overreacting.

It's good to hear others are in the same boat!! Perhaps as others have said, it's time for more responsibility and natural consequences. She's in Year 5, not year 6 for the poster who asked, but has just turned 10.

RE the apologising, I mean for really shouting. I really snapped today and she looked shocked. I was just so fed up. So for that, I think I should apologise for that, the same way I would apologise to anyone else if I lost my temper. I think that just put me in the wrong. I'm sure she's gone to school telling her friends what a horrible mum she has 😂

I've done much the same thing with mine, She's now 14 and still a slob.

Last weekend, after I'd asked her to put her washing out, asked her if she had put her washing out, been told yes, and then found a bag of dirty uniform, I refused to do her washing. I made her do her own washing, including putting it out to dry, and turning her jersey over to make sure it dried in time. It took two whole sodding days of her trying to avoid it, finally realising she wasn't going to avoid it, doing it huffing and puffing and muttering.

I'll be interested to see if she puts all her washing out this Friday!

If you keep on being Mrs Nice Mum, and she sees that as an indication that she can continue to take the proverbial with impunity, then eventually you are going to snap and become Mrs Angry I've had esoddingnough not so nice Mum.

Or maybe I should just sit down and talk to her calmly about why I was so angry, rather than apologise.

I wouldn’t apologise tbh. I don’t think that you overreacted at all. It’s not as though you were taking out your frustrations out on her because of something someone else did. You are frustrated because she is extremely messy and despite giving her time to change, she hasn’t
Your dd is old enough to sort out her own bedroom