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.

If my dcs' rooms are a mess... then that's their problem. I am very untidy myself (not dirty!) and there are numerous heaps/piles around the house that I'm sort of going to get around to dealing with at some point.

I think the problem is differing expectations of tidiness. I know that so many flashpoints in relationships (between any family member, including husbands and wives) is because a tidy person has collided with an untidy person. Just the same way that it is fatal if a punctual person marries a late person.

I would shut the dd's door. Don't look at the mess. Try not to think about it. If she doesn't mind living in a midden then that's up to her!

Please don't apologise or even explain to her. At 10 she knows what the social expectations are if you live in an ordinarily tidy home.
An idea may be to leave her room untidy every morning but the minute she gets home, she has to go to her room and it needs to be tidy before screens, TV, whatever. this would save morning arguments
With a child I looked after like this, I shut the door through the week and Saturday morning was him spending the time tidying everything, dusting and, eventually hoovering when he was a little older. Once this was done he received pocket money plus screens etc.
He didn't like it and it never came naturally. However he'd been living previously in chaos and needed actually showing how to fold clothes, put then in drawers etc.

I think on occasion it's ok to lose your shit and I wouldn't apologise for this. Obviously it's not ideal and should be avoided though.
It is unpleasant when these incidents happen, however she's had loads of opportunities but has behaved disrespectfully.
My dd similar age, generally v tidy but has a habit of screwing up clean and ironed stuff - sends me bat shit too.

No i’m Giving you an alternative viewpoint from the perspective of a naturally messy person and suggesting that you might want to pick your battles. Clearly you don’t No, you are projecting because of your own dynamic. I wouldn't be on mumsnet upset if I was constantly screaming at DD over her messiness. Things came to a head, not just over mess, but over her attitude at home recently. She's very much loved and listened to and we've tried all sort of positive reinforcement to help her. She's lost homework in her room, broken things that she's stood on that have been left on the floor, stomped about because her clothes are creased that she wants to wear when she's the one who's left them screwed up in a tiny ball under her desk. I think I've been pretty patient and tried my best to help her.

If you have high personal standards you have to work at keeping them high! I agree!

Ok.. I have two fairly messy teen ds’s.. Things I would be / am bothered by: clean / ironed clothes scrumpled up or not put neatly away, dirty clothes not put in the wash, rubbish on floors / overflowing bins, plates and cups not put in the sink. Things I shrug my shoulders about and close the door on: unmade beds, pyjamas lying about, general clutter and untidiness. I accept it’s their space not mine, and if it doesn’t bother them, it shouldn’t bother me. I’m not pretending I never lose my rag, but it doesn’t make any of us feel good.
One other thing I’d say is ds2 has dyslexia, which affects his ability to time manage and organise himself. Just in case that could apply to your dd too.

One other thing I’d say is ds2 has dyslexia, which affects his ability to time manage and organise himself. Just in case that could apply to your dd too. No, she's just a messy bugger. I hear what you're saying about picking your battles. Believe it or not we do. She has to tidy her room once a week and help me clean it and apart from that I just ask that cleans clothes go away, bed made and stuff up off the floor. The surfaces look like a small bomb has gone off, but hey ho! The reason I ask her to make her bed now, is because the bed just becomes another surface to leave mess all curled up in the duvet 🤦🏽‍♀️. It takes 3 secs. She just has a duvet, no sheets or blankets.

I unfortunately have two distractable, procrastinaty, mildly chaotic children just like me. One does have a dylexia and dyspraxia diagnosis. The other looks like he may have dyslexia. I find it a right mental battle to keep us all functional.

My morning routine is built around gradually working through the house towards the front door. Something like socks being forgotten can result in a 10 minute magical mystery tour of distraction in the bedroom and is best avoided! (I now have a shoe box of emergency supplies in the shoe cupboard). DS2 has been fantastic this week... having to brush his teeth in the school playground clearly has made a mark on him. Natural consequences of being late are unfair on the other children in our case! Too much time is a wide open door for distraction. Mine have to get dressed to socks, then can have free time (this motivates them to get up and dressed effectively). The last 25 minutes of breakfast, hair, shoes, teeth and bags then have quite tight timings to keep the momentum. Neither I nor the DCs can cope with focusing when too much time is avaliable.

I'd suggest focusing on one thing at a time for her bedroom. Some people do genuinely find self-organisation tough. Could she have a basket for clean clothes to be sorted at a better time? She's getting older so can she be more involved in managing her washing so she feels the consequence of pulling stuff out and increasing the washing. There was one point where I realised that half the DC's laundry was pyjamas so I confiscated them and gave them a fresh set each week. Eventually they returned back to the DC's room when the DCs had learned better habbits.

Getting cross occasionally is a healthy emotional reaction and is sometimes useful for making a point. You haven't been sweary or abusively personal. Children need to know that everyone has their limits.

After getting cross, it's good to talk civilly about why you were cross and how to manage building up to that point again. That's not the same as an appology.

Have you ever looked into ADHD? I may be way off the mark, but it’s not always hyperactivity, especially in girls.

It struck me because your dd sounds so like me when I was her age - messy, disorganised, forgetful, losing things, seeming to not care about possessions and I have quite severe ADHD. Girls often present very differently to boys.

Can't someone just be messy without having to have a syndrome? Being messy is not a condition that must be investigated, treated, cured - it's just a state of being that offends some people who are much tidier by nature.

I have been in people's houses where there is nothing out of place, where there are no heaps of shoes in the hall, no tottering piles of books/newspapers/pending stuff, no stuff left on the kitchen counters, no detritus at all really. I marvel at their organisation and dedication to tidiness, but that's what pleases them. Just as living in a bit of a mess doesn't bother other people.

4 coats IS quite a lot. Could you not put the summer clothes away and only have some of the things to choose from? Perhaps reintroduce things once she has shown she can keep a minimal wardrobe organised?

Doesn't sound like you overreacted to be honest. She is plenty old enough to be able to hang clothes up and get ready on time. You do have my sympathy as I had the same problem with my DD when she was younger, we seemed to end up arguing every weekday before school for all the same reasons. Strangely, her flat she lives in now is pretty clean and tidy!

Can't someone just be messy without having to have a syndrome? Being messy is not a condition that must be investigated, treated, cured

I agree, but having a friend who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 50 and another who was in her 40s has given me a somewhat different viewpoint. If it's actually something that's interfering with your day-to-day life, it's worth looking into it just to rule it out.

Can't someone just be messy without having to have a syndrome? Being messy is not a condition that must be investigated, treated, cured.

True, but when my son got his dyslexia diagnosis, and speaking to adult dyslexic friends, it helps me to understand his struggles. And many people don’t know that dyslexia isn’t just about reading and writing, but impacts things like organisation as well.

expatinspain Good luck!

We do have some other things in place that help with this... tidyness and being respectful of others time & their own belongings in general.

The kids get a set amount of pocket money each month. There is a list of Non Negotiable tasks... room tidy, help with dishes/laundrey/cleaning etc. for each of these task the kids get a 'token' to put in a jar. If they whinge or moan or make a big deal, or refuse to do any of these task, a token is removed and put in the 'housekeeping envelope'. Each month at pocket money time the tokens are counted up. The one with the most tokens in their own jar gets to chose a family treat (within a small budget) so, a takeaway or pudding out. The housekeeping envelope is then counted up and for each token put in the envelope 50p is deducted from their pocket money. I dont like the idea of paying them to do tasks, but quite happy for them to pay ME if they cant be arsed to do it themselves ;) I made a fiver last month! They are on track for no dedections this month.

We also have a Horror Box... once a week I sweep around the whole house and if its a tip... EVERYTHING goes in the Horror Box and they have to hunt for what they want in their themselves! We very rarely get passed "Muuuuuum wheres my..." before they go and look for it themselves.

The horror box sounds a sodding good idea. . . my mucky pup just drips things around the house, and it drives me nuts! If she were a dog she'd be pissing up the lamp posts instead, I swear it. . .

I think it is fine for children to realise that parents have a breaking point and have emotional reactions.

You didn’t hit her or swear at her.

Perhaps it was time for a shock.

'Poor girl'? No wonder there are so many entitled brats about

I was wondering the other day why it is that my dds are such lovely people, kind, thoughtful, funny. And I've come to the conclusion its because I am not like the majority of parents on this thread. Some of you sound borderline nasty.

She's 10. She had a messy room. If you are pissed off with her generally OP you need to pull yourself together and address it as it happens, rather than freak out over something so bloody trivial.

Sounds like you’re a great parent OP. However you’re following me around this thread and clearly keen to ‘put me right ‘ and tell me what I should think and why. My point is pick your battles.
You can’t control everyone/ everything, including your daughters messy habits, or the fact that I don’t agree with how you acted. And that’s ok.

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

Yeah she was shocked because you've always let her away with it. I don't understand why this has gone on so long, she's 10. I wouldn't apologise if I were you, she needed to see that you have a limit.

She screwed everything up.

You placed it in a pile and made her tidy it up.

Why apologise? She needs to learn it's not ok and she was probably upset because she was caught and had a consequence.

I've often done the same for my ds who is the same. I've also removed all tech in the evening and not allowed it the next morning even if he's ready for the same sort of behaviour.