My dd is a year older than yours. She’s coming through it now I think. We are getting on better. I have bitten my tongue a lot, loads. Picked my battles. Some of the things she has said to me are so hurtful. But you move on and forget them. Sometimes I completely lose my shit because it builds and dd can be quite controlling. Like I did last weekend about it when offloading to dh, rather than shouting at her btw - this time that is. I did blow my top and shouted at her a while back after about 3 months of constant goading at me for doing something for her, which she said wasn’t for her bla bla bla, it was for me and I enjoyed making her life hard etc. A couple of months later the penny dropped and she admitted was for the best and she understood why I’d done it. That was bloody hard and upsetting at the time. But like everything else, it’s a phase.
I think the most important thing out of everything is to look after your mental health so that you are still able to connect with your dd through all of the shit. And if you do lose it once or twice to reconcile and talk about it even if you aren’t seeing eye to eye. Hug. Tell her you love her lots and you are proud of her regularly. I remember being a teen and feeling so totally unloved. Part of that for me was being angry for no reason, which turned inwards. Because if you don’t have a parent to say to you: “I don’t like your behaviour but love and accept you”, it’s easy for the teen to lose her way.
Teens one minute are adults and the next toddlers. I absolutely don’t agree with authoritarian parenting. This builds up barriers when they need to be broken down. You want your dd to come to you or to someone else if she’s in trouble or finds herself out of her depth, pregnant, drunk or in a difficult situation with a boy.
Chatting in the car is really is the time when dd and I spend together. Allow her to do her own thing, freedom to see friends, go for walks, into town, take the bus etc. She goes to activities multiple times a week so that helps to keep her busy and time in the car.
As for your dd hitting her siblings. I’d have zero tolerance. I’d also wonder if the sibling did something or gave a look, not that it is necessarily the case. I very much like natural consequences but for something like this I’d go in hard, she’d lose any privileges for the week and be grounded.
I don’t find ramping up works until there is nothing to lose. Dd can become hysterically upset or on the flip side be incredibly sarcastic and put on an air of not caring. When dd was your dd’s age, I did confiscate her Nike Jordan’s for a week. This has much more of an affect on her than her phone, because she knows she has to get that back for school or to go out and then I’d have to take the iPad and so forth. She wouldn’t be handing them over willingly because as you’ve probably worked out, they’re the dc’s equivalent of the Crown Jewels and having to hand the phone / ipad back to do homework or to go to school really does defeat the object.
That quickly becomes a game of ‘well that didn’t work, did it’ and as dd os pretty defiant and the only way to ‘win’ on that score would be to go for the jugular, to crush her spirit and I’m not into that. We’d both be losers and it would have a large impact on her mental health. I was parented in this way and it was pretty devastating for me.
The only time I’d take a phone is if it was being abused - bullying, porn watching, inappropriate apps, sexting etc. On that score I’m lucky. Dd has always been quite mature for her age and on checking her phone I never once found anything untoward. The bottom line is to keep connecting with her and remember that it’s not that bad. She’s going to school, isn’t pregnant, not doing drugs, is coming home when agreed and so forth.
And then you’ve got it all to come with your younger ones. Chin up and remember it’s a phase. That goes to you too @SockGoddess 