Teen daughter is a nightmare

[Adventurine]

As I write this, she's stomping down the stairs, roughly a month worth of laundry in her arms, scowling her head off.

She was told she has to sort out her absolute pit of a room. They (she and her brother) said they weren't babies, didn't need telling, etc, wanted to decide for themselves when to tidy "OUR spaces." Oh, ok. Right. So we compromised and they were given the option of choosing to listen to our prompts to do a quick tidy of their rooms on a Friday, bringing their laundry down and just staying on top of it all, or they would have to sort out the chaos they created on the last weekend of the month and we would revert back to them being told when their rooms were to be tidied. Guess what DD chose?

Her room is the worst I've ever seen it, and DD is a very messy teen anyway. So, today came. She chose to do none of it yesterday, meaning she has to do it all today. Jesus bloody christ. You would think she was being asked to remove her own kidney. She started sending me abusive texts about how I never listen to what she wants etc. So I took her phone and said she could tidy it up without the texting. Then she spent an hour screaming about her friends and they have plans etc. i told her I would tell her friends she was not coming out until her room was sorted out. Screaming, crying, kicking the door and what sounds like flinging everything off her shelves in a rage. Then raging at her brother because he chose to do the ten minutes on a Friday (he's generally tidier anyway), calling him terrible names, demanding he help her because he doesn't have any tidying to do. He went out to play football and she lost her damn mind screaming out of the window at him that she would never forget his refusal to help her.

On and on and on it went, raging at the top of her voice about what nasty parents she has, how she can't wait to turn 16 and move out.

How long are they absolute beasts for?

Oh jeez bot one of those posts

Eh?

When she starts yelling or throwing a strop press record on your phone. Then play it back to her next time she wants something.

We are at 18, some dark days, some good days. Stand your ground on the basics as this stuff counts.

I think is really 25 before they fully grow up. They are listening and they know you are right and reasonable.

They just don't like it

Mines nearly 18.
Her room is a shit tip nearly all the time. Actually all the time. I last about two weeks then I can't bear it anymore and go in and blitz it...then it's lovely for about an hour!😂
But she is a lovely girl, just a messy, untidy, lazy bum.
However she's going travelling next year and I know I'll miss her and her untidy room so much 😢
Keep strong OP teenage girls are sent to try us xxx

Agree. That’s the best tactic.

I don't like the idea that this is normal teen behaviour.

It's a bit like people saying boys will be boys.

Teens should not behave like this and have everyone just accept it as normal!

Cancel her pocket money for this week and invest it in a nice bottle of wine.
Feet up, pour wine.

On NO ACCOUNT sort and wash her laundry for her.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves
Oh my don't take things to literally. Generalising, give me strength 🤦🏽‍♀️

I always had a rota I kept. (Basically a table I drew on a whiteboard!)

So it had washing, washing up etc on it.

I'd write what time it was being done. Ds was responsible for making sure anything he had in his room was ready to wash up or in the utility area in the basket of washing.

If it wasn't it didn't get done. If it made it in large chunks it got done bit by bit at the times I was doing it. I didn't do extra.

I also had different coloured plates for everyone. So if he took his stuff to his room and it didn't get washed up then his food couldn't be served up at dinner time!

My friend adopted this for her teen dd who was MUCH more strong willed than my ds. She had to go as far as locking all cupboards except one with her dds crockery and snacks in because she just took snacks as she didn't get dinner served up or took all the crockery into her room. She had a dishwasher so she put time dishwasher would be switched on on her plan.

It is easier with children who are complaint (my ds is and I did this to set boundaries not because he was particularly lazy) but he is messy and I've always just let him live in a mess if that's why he wants. At 16 he suddenly had enough of that (being stuck at home learning online during covid I think he got fed up of it!)

He's still a nightmare with rubbish but I Chuck him a bin bag every now and again and remind him it's bin day the following day. Sometimes it's still empty a week later and sometimes it sits full in his room for a week or so. And this is the one I can never work out as taking the bins out is his job!!!! That and hoovering. And with hoovering I give him a choice of when it's done but doing chores was compulsory to get his pocket money.

Jesus Christ. If I'd done even 1% of that my mum would have half killed me. And I'm glad, I wouldn't want to have turned out an absolute brat.

@BirlinBrain nope the smell didn’t spread - I did open her window. Thankfully it was short lived as mine was all for the mess until her friends came over and she realised they judged her! So the rebel 15 year old took a bin bag to the room and it got sorted and it pretty much was ok from then! Not my perfect but enough for home harmony!

For my friend it was when her son got a girlfriend! She was amazed by the change! He changed bed sheets and kept it fairly tidy!

Mine is just coming out of it, 20 and 2nd year at uni
It only took me about 15 mins to sort her room/bathroom when she went back this time! Last year it was 2 days

Hang in there, it will get better! It is mindblowingly annoying while it's happening though. My mother didn't help by telling her i was an absolute pigpen myself (true!)

I’m still messy at 38. Also going through a late diagnosis for ADHD. One of the things on the list. Messy room 😆

Could she be struggling to organise it? Don’t know where to start. I look at my doom piles at home and I just don’t know how to organise it so it’s accessible and easy to reach. My brain actually hurts trying to!

No excuse for the attitude but could have been the stress coming out.

xx

We've been remarkably blessed with teens who have been pretty easy to live with.
DSD was very messy though and the laundry situation sounds familiar! I provided a laundry basket in each of the kids rooms and would wash anything in the basket. I would not pick clothes off the floor or put them away.
If the room was messy I closed the door.
Every couple of weeks I would put in clean bedding for them to change their beds (teenagers and quite capable of doing this now) and cheerfully suggest that the hoover was out if they wanted to use it. No pressure to do so but they usually have their rooms a half hearted clean at the same time.
No one is allowed food in bedrooms so we never have piles of mouldy cups and bowls to deal with! Just a general house rule.

It ebbs and flows. At one point there was laundry everywhere and chaos. Two years on it's bed made, carefully chosen throws and pillows arranged, and house plants everywhere. It's all so very Insta-ready, which makes me grin.

Being slectively blind/deaf helps with teens. Don't see the pigsty room, don't hear the meltdowns. It's all hormones and emotions and you're the worst meannest parent ever to walk the earth and everyone else's parents are so very supportive and helpful.

Then your child goes to someone else's house and is a paragon of good manners; utterly charming.

It does get better. Hold your nerve.

Shut their doors and if they run out of clothes then tough. DS was only very briefly like this at 14. I find the more you engage the more attention you give them and for some well they want to argue. It’s like oxygen. I remember my friend using her precious days off to sort out her two teens bedrooms. Times have changed if I had argued back my Mother would have beaten me with the bamboo garden cane she kept for that reason. But I was running the entire house at 13 when she had a huge MH crisis when she became widowed. I suppose the only good that came out of her strict regime is I could do everything by that age.

reason the

There came a point where I just left the door shut. Then came a time when she was away and texted, asking me to check something in her room.

the chaos!!

i removed two black bin bags of empty cans and juice bottle. Plus food wrappers. Huge pile of clothes on floor. Makeup ground into carpet. It was a health hazard and I was furious.

so that was a ban on anything other than water upstairs

IMO there are three types of teens:

feral

semi-feral and

house-trained.

they do rejoin civilisation at some point. Going away to was the turning point for DD.

I have one of these!!! The one rule she does abide by is no food or drink in bedroom unless it's a glass of water - learnt the hard way with a stained carpet

I know it’s miserable but honestly it’s so much better than the drugs:alcohol/staying out/risky behaviour.

Try to be glad that she is alive, healthy, safe and at home. Pick your battles, do a lot of ignoring, and a lot of prising when she does do good.

Ha not just my daughter who's happy to live in a hovel then. If it's any consolation, I've just had to take her to college myself so she actually goes. Toddlers are miles easier.

Mine never cleaned his room, and it was a filthy pit, until we watched the Marie Kondo series on Netflix. He then, without any prompting or hassling by me at all, went and Kondo'd his room. It was AMAZING. What neither of us had realised is that his mind works on finding the right set of instructions for something before he finds it easy to do. Once he's found the instructions for something, he's off.

I do not allow food in bedrooms. But otherwise I do not care if it is chaos. It is their rooms, up to them. I do just shit the door. If they stain the carpet, they are not getting a new one. I will replace it when they leave home.

Well no, but in that point…does anyone else’s teen boys smell? Mine does! He showers daily, I wash his sheets weekly, but one day of leaving the door and window shut in his room and it reeks! It’s not even a sweat smell. Just..,.I don’t know, a really strong smell of human.

Can I ask why you are insistent she tidies her room once per month if she is in charge of her room. Why didn’t you leave her to it.
I have one who is tidier than the other and although I just wanted to go in with a bin bag I left him to it until it got too much even for him. He needed help to tidy it and I helped because he asked nicely.
His room is still a mess but he does randomly clear it of his own volition and it has never got into the state it was after the first big tidy.

He is getting there but if you are going to say her room is her space then you have to be consistent.

Friend hasn’t tidied her children’s bedrooms since they were 11 years old.
They know where the washing machine, hoover, cloths, sprays and bin bags are and they know how to use them.

You have to hold strong and not try to step in otherwise the lesson is lost.