If your teen dd and dh didn't get on, when did it get better?

[bendmeoverbackwards]

My nearly 14 year old dd and dh currently have a terrible relationship. She is diagnosed ASD. I'm not sure how much of this is attributed to her autism and how much to being a teen girl.

She finds him very annoying and is rude and hostile to him much of the time. He has been trying to rebuild the relationship with very little success and feels completely worn down.

He is exhausted with trying and just getting hostility back. He's wondering now whether to stop trying for a while and hope things improve with time.

Any experience of this please?

Is DH her dad

Yes

Why does she find him annoying? Does she have good reason or is she just being an intolerant madam?!

He is a very kind devoted father. She just finds fault - he’s ‘always’ talking to her, he laughs too loud, she doesn’t like his eating etc

I can't tell you when/if it gets better I'm afraid as I'm in the same boat. I have three children. The eldest is 12 and has ASD, then they're 10 and 6. The 12 year old and DH have a really difficult relationship but they have done for a while. From my viewpoint his ASD does play a part in affecting the relationship. He has selective mutism too and so really only speaks to me and his siblings which I think DH does take personally. That said, if he's rude or in the wrong I will still pull him up on his behaviour. Things were worse than they are now about three or four years ago and as my son matures I see very gradual improvements in their relationship so I'm hopeful. We have found that DH stepping back a bit has helped improve their relationship because sometimes just asking DS to do something would make him immediately confrontational. That's calmed down a lot know though. I hope you manage to work your way through it, sorry I couldn't offer more advice.

What will his behaviour be if he "stops trying" ? What does that mean?

What does "trying" look like currently?

I was like this with my dad unfortunately, and it only fully stopped when I moved out at 18. I think we were just too similar. I do remember my mum sitting me down and telling me my dad thought I didn’t like him, which shocked me into better behaviour and did somewhat repair the relationship while I lived at home.

Well just trying to be positive and nice to her, give her compliments, offer to make her a snack etc. But even that is often met with hostility.

I'd just reiterate to her that she is free to like or dislike whoever's she wants, but rudeness is not tolerated. He is who he is and if she finds his laugh annoying then she needs to just get over it. As long as he doesn't eat like a slob then she needs to find a workaround for the noise while eating - maybe research misophonia (I think that's what it is called).

If she wants to spend time with her family, then she needs to keep the rudeness in check. Maybe she could pour her frustrations into a journal instead of using them to hurt her parent.

The comment above about being too similar is likely bang on.

That's teenagers for you - or about half of them, anyway.

Read up on how teenage brains are being rewired and how it messes with their sense of fairness, entitlement, embarrassment and screws up the balance of their social signals.

Poor kid is effectively temporarily brain damaged, when compared with what she'll be in say two years time. You'll have to work with her to some extent, while still training her to be a complete human being.

Wanting to throttle your teen is normal. Please don't, the paperwork is horrendous.

@HerNameIsIncontinentiaButtocks I am well aware of teens, she is the youngest of 3! My older two are 19 and 18, they had their share of teen ups and downs but did not speak to dh the way dd3 does.

I understand the brain rewiring thing but does that mean dh has to be treated like dirt in the meantime?