This is more than normal 12 year old drama

[thehorrorspersistyetsodoi]

Earlier this year we discovered my DD(12) had been self harming. She is under CAMHS but is not properly engaging with support at the moment and they know about all of this buy dont actually know what to so it seems. ( she is no longer self harming and stopped immeditely)

Up until this year she was genuinely the happiest, loveliest child, so so much fun, carefree, loved life. She had a steady group of friends from the start of high school and there were never any major issues.
Since this year her behaviour in friendships has become intense and alarming.

It is mostly happening through messaging but im sure at school aswel. She fixates on perceived problems and repeatedly questions friends until they are worn down. She assumes there is always something wrong. She struggles to let things go. Small issues escalate quickly. She can spread information/rumours she has heard ( or made up im not sure) without thinking about the consequences. She will apologise, seem to understand, and then repeat the same behaviour.

From the outside it looks obsessive, dramatic and socially damaging. The other girls seem drained and frustrated. I am deeply worried about the long term impact and also thats shes potentially damaging other children as she is defo the problem.

I am constantly checking her messages and speaking to her about what I am seeing. I have approached this calmly. I have been firm. I have shouted. I have threatened consequences. I have tried to be understanding and loving. I feel like I have come at this from every possible angle and nothing is changing.

Please be kind. I am honestly struggling, im terrified of other parents reading these and approaching me. If she were not my own child, I know I would judge this behaviour very, very harshly.

She comes from a great background, loving parents and wider family, all shes seen is positive relationships.

Has anyone dealt with this before?

I think the best thing you can do is try to connect with her and the emotions underneath the behaviour. She sounds anxious and probably doesn’t know what to do with that feeling, have CAMHS advised with any kind of emotional regulation/skill building sessions?

Lots of validation that managing friendships and relationships is hard, support her to reflect on the impact of her behaviour - for her and her friends with honesty and compassion. Reassure her that everyone can get it wrong sometimes especially online/through messages but also to reflect on what she could do differently next time. E.g noticed when the anxious feeling shows up in her body, when it does to pause before sending more messages, Write her worries in a private journal, talking to you, distracting herself by doing something nice before sending messages?

Help her practice how to take accountability for the impact of her messages and apologise - she can learn to say sorry for upsetting others even if it wasn’t her intention. That will help repair things when it’s gone too far.

Maybe she is too young to be able to manage having a phone?

It doesnt seem like anxiety, it seems controlling, manipulplitive, damaging.

She will seek out arguments, make them last for hours even when the other person is trying to end it, she will push people on how they are feeling because they looked "sad". There is no "normal" conversations at all.

She will argue to me shes right and they are wrong.
She has a big sense of entitlement.

E.g noticed when the anxious feeling shows up in her body, when it does to pause before sending more messages, Write her worries in a private journal, talking to you, distracting herself by doing something nice before sending messages?

Honestly this is exactly what i was doing, i said to her she needs to find a way to stop herself, she can come down to me and say what she wants to say and there will be zero judgement on my part and ill helo her, she just looks at me as if im mental and goes and does it anyways.

She will take ZERO accountability for her actions.

She didnt get a phone until she went to high school last year, its heavily monitered, shuts off at 9pm school nights and has app limits etc, but yes i think itis young to have a phone ( she is almost 13)

Borderline Personality Disorder ? ( I speak as someone diagnosed).

Not ruling anything out to be honest but is that something that would present all of a sudden?

Take the phone away. Complete ban on social media. No money for social activities unless she's behaving nicely.

Sounds like she's figured out that bullying others gives her a power trip. So take the power away.

Girls can get quite nasty around this age. She may have experienced or witnessed similar behaviour from others. I think you've been too soft and she needs a proper consequence.

Take the phone away. Complete ban on social media.

Completely agree with this comment.

Also my first thought was could she be autistic? girls are much better at masking than boys but a big change like moving to high school may have thrown her off, she needs to learn the new social norms in order to learn how to mask in a new setting which is why she suddenly seems to be behaving so differently to what you are used to.

Take the phone away full stop.

It might not be the phone but taking it away would absolutely be the first thing I would try.

Have you checked her internet history? Wondering if she has seen things on social media about “when your friends aren’t really your friends” or “how to tell if they are a real friend” or that sort of thing. None of this would show up as harmful content on parental controls but it gets in your head.

It does also seem like there may be some underlying MH issue going on but it could have been kicked off by online content.

My first thought is that something triggered this.

Second thought was that the trigger is either access to social media (9pm is crazy for a 12yo imo) or something that happened to her in real life that she won’t tell you about.

Sorry you’re dealing with this. Taking the phone away will only be a benefit. Rough to begin with (withdrawal symptoms etc) but in the long run it will give her a lot
more time to do real stuff. Like think, talk to you, daydream, get perspective just by sheer dint of resting her mind on matters that aren’t contained in her phone.

I agree with PP, remove the phone ASAP no good will come of her keeping it. It definitely seems like she has an underlying ‘problem’ but it may well just be hormones, some teens are really affected by puberty.

I agree with stricter limits on phone - although has to be hand in hand with her deepening her understanding of how her communication style is affecting her relationships and her acknowledging the consequences of how she’s acting. When she shows more responsibility she gets more time back?
I see threads with kids like this (argumentative/ picking at others/ attention-seeking/ dramatic) on my daughter’s phone (same age) and one factor does seem to be the access-all-hours approach - they just have time to waste. And she reckons the kids who are known for this kind of thing tend to get ignored/sidelined by the more moderate middle in the end.

Yes. Remove her phone and access to SM. See what happens then

There's definitely something very strange going on in her head

She sounds to be obsessive and compulsive. Also controlling.

Can you afford to see a MH expert privately?

She sounds so much like our DD.
She's almost 25 now, was diagnosed ADHD with autism recently.
I don't know the answer unfortunately

Im not sure if this fits with your DD but the sudden change made me wonder if it could be PANDAS?

The self harming and the obsessive negative behaviour is really concerning, what do th messages say, can you give some examples.

she needs to engage with camhs, can something more be done there,

something has clearly happened and she’s deeply unhappy, she seems to want reassurance there isn’t an issue with her friends, so I’d guess something happened that caused her to spiral?

Something might have happened to her that makes her feel unsafe. Unsafe, full stop, everywhere. And she's being punished for feeling unsafe and trying to acquire safety (however dysfunctional her methods) which spirals out of control because now even her parents get angry.

Assuming you're her mum, I'd try to tell her "If somebody ever insists that you must keep a secret, or if they do something to you that they claim you can't tell anyone, I want you to know that this doesn't hold for your mom. You can tell your mom anything. I think something bad happened to you. What happened?" (Substitute "mom" by "dad" if needed)

Keep in mind, she might not tell you immediately. And she might lead with something that seems minor to you, but that's testing if she can tell you the big thing. (And what's big to her might not be big to you so don't dismiss anything with "oh honey don't worry about that it's not a big deal" because she might have just told you something that's gut wrenching for her)

Where is your DH in all this? Everything seems to be you have done...

How is your relationship with your DH, children that age can be very sensitive to changes in relationships, even if you think you have been very careful to keep it away from the children.

Does she have any siblings and if so how are the relationships with them?

Something has gone wrong somewhere and it's not as trivial as using a phone, unless she has been using it to access stuff she shouldn't which doesn't seem likely.

She’s too young for a phone right now. Remove it and see how things go.

Don’t do this, it will escalate fhe issues, she’s not too young ans she’s clearly texting her friends who also have them,

this is just a way to fix it when you don’t know another way, but it will just make it worse and the issue is not just the phone, it’s her interactions also.

Ex teacher

this kind of behaviour is not particularly unusual amongst teens.

often it has been triggered by some kind of incident which she may be too scared to tell you about. Secondary schools are not anything like primaries and students can be sexually assaulted or physically assaulted and are often too scared of the consequences to tell snyone.

They know full well parents are not able to help them stay safe at school because there is very little parents can do.

this is almost certainly behaviour that is being driven by a very high level of needing to feel safe following an incident.

shouting at her and punishments won’t help - if you imagine that you had been sexually assaulted then your partner threatening you to take phone away etc won’t stop you feeling unsafe and upset.

realistically your only route is a two pronged attack - try to build trust so that she tells you what happened (and I’d bet my house something did) and also try to change the more difficult behaviours into ones that still make her feel safe but are less challenging for others to deal with.

Yes this is what I thought too.

Have you talked to your child's school about this? It would be helpful to have their perspective on how she presents in school, and they may be able to arrange counselling.

@thehorrorspersistyetsodoi transition to secondary school can bring all sorts of issues not seen before to the surface including but not necessarily neurodiversity. Combined with puberty and smartphone dependence a cocktail of issues is not uncommon.
She needs to lose the phone. Not as a punishment but because it is fuelling her problems. You'll have hell to start with but it will cut off the source for a lot of her behaviour and remove access to all the social media opportunities for provocation both ways.
Does she have one proper friend? If so, some intensive work on appropriate behaviour with that one friend can then provide a model to apply more widely.

Under 18s can not be diagnosed with personality disorders as their personality is still emerging at such a young stage of adolescence. I agree with the teachers PP post above, work on building trust and staying in a place of curiosity about her behaviour. If her social context is really as rosy as you say, then you need to be vigilant as to what else might be triggering this.

She only has tiktok which is linked to me and i can see all her watch history and her reposts etc. Sh has no other social media.
Her phone is heaviy managed.

She wasnt allowed out for 2 weeks her behavious escallated and Cahms advised us to dial it back and allow her to go out with pick up and drop off so she still has limited freedom but with conditions.

I really dont think we have been too soft, we have done everything except take her phone away for good, that is still a real option though.