to ask you please for some words of hope or encouragement

[canttakeanymoreofteendd]

...re my 13 year old DD.

I literally cannot take any more of her. I am sitting here in tears. She is a monster. Please don't flame me for saying this but she is.

I do not know where we have gone wrong. We have tried and try so hard to be good parents to her. She is consistently rude and horrible and has been for a long time, many years. She gets up in the morning and shoves past anyone in her way, screams at anyone who speaks to her to shut up. Screams at us if there aren't clean plates or enough coco pops/jam/etc. Does nothing to lift a finger herself and has a tantrum if you even try to get her to to the dishes. Shoves her little brother flying if he passes within two feet of her. Totally unhinged. We have to walk him to school as he is too afraid to walk with her, he says she pushes him on the way and is rude to him. By the time she has left for school I am often in tears and everyone else is upset.

I am SAHM expecting child no 5. DD is not my DH's daughter (neither is DS2 - a different dad again, I know, not proud of it) but he considers her his daughter and goes out of his way to be kind and nice to her and a proper Dad to her, she constantly rejects him and sneers at him and hurts his feelings which makes me so sad to watch. Her real dad was an utter psycho who beat me up throughout my pregnancy with her, she has never met him as I left him when she was a few days old. I just cannot believe that she has inherited his personality, if personality can be inherited. He was greedy and obsessed by money and so is she. All she cares about is what she can get.

She sits in her room poring over clothes websites and adding things to her amazon wish list. She doesn't actually get that much beyond what she needs as I can't reward her disgusting behaviour by buying her all the stuff from H & M and Zara that she wants, I try to encourage her by saying if she can behave she can get certain things but she never does. I took her into town for a new jacket and shoes the other day and spent about £100 but she was still raging as she had seen so many things she liked that I wouldn't buy her. Everything you buy she is sick of within a few weeks and says it doesn't fit any more and needs something new.

She says she wants to be rich and constantly moans that we don't live in a huge house with TVs in every room, she's so discontented. Whatever you buy her or wherever you take her she finds a reason to be unhappy about it. But she puts in the bare minimum effort at school despite us telling her that if she wants to be rich she will need to work hard! We have tried to develop her interests but she has none other than watching trashy TV (which we curtail) - she'll just walk into the living room and if her brother is watchign something she literally just grabs the remote control and changes it, and hits him if he protests.

I don't know what I expected, having a child with such a horrible man. I didn't expect her to turn out like a smaller version of him. I look back at photos of me holding her as a newborn and remember how I felt overwhelmed with love for her. I feel that's being slowly eroded over the years and wonder if by the time she gets to 17 I will actually hate her if her behaviour continues to deteroriate like this.

This morning she got up behaving in her usual way and refused to put on her new winter jacket even though it's freezing,putting on a thin summer one instead. I bought it two weeks ago. She said she's not wearing it to school. I told her that I had made it clear to her at time of purchase that it was her school jacket - she CHOSE it - and that I am not buying her another one. She called us all freaks, said she hated us all then laughing, went into the bathroom and said Fuck Off! That's the first time she's actually ever sworn at us. I actually screamed at her repeatedly to get out the house till she left. DH has removed her computer from her room.

I am desperate, she is utterly toxic and spoils everything and creates such a vile atmosphere wherever she goes. Do you just have to accept sometimes that your child has a horrible personality, whatever you try to do? Being a good mum is so important to me, we have little money as I gave up a good job to stay at home, but it seems I am a really bad mum judging by her. Please don't flame me as I am in tears already, my baby is due in 6 weeks and I don't know how I will cope with this as well. I try so hard to be a good mum to her, I honestly do, but it's impossible.

Sweetie, please get this moved to relationships. I don't think you're up to AIBU at the moment.

I don't have a teenager so I won't even try. Chin up.

I feel for you. Have you spoken to her school? Is she like this there? You could also speak to your doctor about her behavior. Either the school or doctor might be able to refer her to a behavior specialist.

You poor thing. Don't really know what to say but really feel for you. Sending you a big hug. Must be so hard being pregnant too and dealing with it all.

She sounds quite similar to my older son in many ways. So I can say something encouraging. We are finding that, at age 16, something has just "turned" in his attitude and he is now more reasonable, more motivated, much more able to reflect on his anger and calm down. For him, a key change seemed to be starting at sixth form.

We battled and battled, saw the school parental adviser frequently, got a referral to CAHMS (with which son wouldn't cooperate), agonised over and revised our parenting strategy. But I would say that it is time and maturity that leads to improvement, not (first and foremost) anything we did (and similarly we didn't, for the most part, cause it by our parenting errors).

It might be worth saying to yourself "I can't change her; but she will change." That might take some of the pressure off you. We tend to think WE are responsible for how our children act, but we don't have the same influence and responsibility over a teenager's behaviour as we do over a three-year-old's. And that means we must lay off the self-blame. Can you find a professional (like our school parenting adviser) who will help you establish strategies for coping and staying calm and optimistic in the face of your daughter's unreasonableness?

And I just want to say it again, because I know that it is so hard to believe: It WILL get better, it really will.

thanks everyone. I am just terrified she will turn into a version of her dad, constantly asking her parents for money and always angry, bitter and nasty. I pray so much that she will change and come out of this.

Sounds like you are having a really hard time. You did really well to get away from the father of your first child - some women don't have the strength to escape from a violent man. I don't have a teenager but I was a teacher until I had my dd 6 months ago, now I am a sahm like you. I also worked in a school for difficult teenagers who had been expelled from school. Most of them had problems at home but some of them had two loving parents like you and your dh and they still didn't realise how lucky they were and couldn't see that they needed to change their behaviour. Talk to her school and see if she behaves like that there. What are your three other children like in behaviour? How do they react to her? maybe she feels jealous of the two kids who are your dh's biological children and feels as if he loves them more (I know he doesn't but teenagers can be funny). She might also be jealous of the baby you are about to have feeling attention will be taken from her even more. As someone else said, teenagers do sometimes suddenly 'grow up' and realise they have to change. Sometimes they get a shock which makes them change their behaviour such as leaving school and not finding a job, their friends getting fed up with their horrible manners etc...so I know it is hard but just keep trying to get through to her - it sounds as if you are setting boundaries in not buying her lots of stuff when she can't behave and removing her computer so well done for that. Good luck x

I agree with calatalie we had the same problems with ds1, we also tried CAMHS, he got into trouble with the police ( mainly due to the people he was hanging around with) was referred to YOTS, nothing worked.

He will be 17 in three months and for the last 10 months he has been a totally different child, which is all down to him maturing

Nothing we tried worked, but we just kept trying anyway. I don't know if anything we did made a difference, I used to dread him coming home as he could change the atmosphere in the house within minutes of walking through the door, his brother hated him, he bullied him terribly and I realy hated his behaviour and didn't like the person he was becoming.

I've recently had a late mc and he has been fantastic, he is helpful , caring and lovely to be around, something I couldn't say about him a year ago! He was just very immature and self obsorbed.

There is hope that your dd will turn out the same

Really lovely to hear of your son's improvement Moomin. That does sound like the way my son is moving (fingers crossed). And at exactly the same age.

I had exactly the same fears as you, canttakeanymore, about my child as an adult, behaving with stunning selfishness and continuing to make awful demands on his parents through life, perhaps also behaving appallingly with a future partner. But these really have subsided. I think he might struggle more than average with these things, but I have totally lost the image of him continuing in the future with a pathological degree of anger and controlling behaviour.

I know it sounds lame, but the "teen brain" is going through a distinctive growth phase that disrupts reason and self-control. And this interacts with whatever personality your child has to make for greater or lesser problems that resolve with time. I think what you need is primarily a "holding strategy", to help ensure the rows don't do lasting harm to any of you, and to keep life bearable. Don't feel you have to have a "curing strategy" for changing what for the time being won't be (much) changed.

And I was sorry to hear of your late miscarriage, Moomin. That must have been dreadful.

I feel for you but people I knew through school who used to be like this have gotten so much better. Some I could not stand to be around when we were teens are now adults that I feel I can have a proper friendship with. It will get better.

I can't give any advice really, but this caught my eye as I spent my teenage years with a mother constantly bemoaning my resemblance (in terms of personality) to relatives of hers with whom she did not get on. I found this incredibly frustrating and upsetting, especially as (like your DD) I did not even know the people to whom I was being compared.

She is being herself, but an upset and angry teenage version of herself. She is not her dad, has never met him and she will not turn out like him. Although her behaviour sounds horrendous, your reaction to her risks being out of proportion and more unforgiving if when you look at her you see your ex.

Living with a teenager can be crap, but being a teenager is probably even worse, and with so many siblings she probably doesn't get much of a chance to just talk to you in an unpressured way. When it comes down to it, spending her time daydreaming over her amazon wishlist etc and wanting to watch trashy TV is far from the worst ways she can be spending her time, she probably just wants time to herself.

Have you tried letting her feel the consequences of her actions? For instance, if she wears her thin jacket she's going to be the one who gets cold. Just let her get cold? She is old enough to learn these things for herself.

That's a good point, elephant, about the unfairness of projecting a relative onto the behaviour of a person who is, and needs to be acknowledged as being, him- or herself. Though it is, op, entirely understandable that you are vulnerable to that: not a cause of self-blame but an invitation to try to react differently to your daughter.

My similar problem was not comparing my son to a relative but always always seeing my son in terms of my own failures, instead of as himself. Seeing my child as a projection of my failure/sense of inadequacy, etc. is not only hard on me, it is also a failure to perceive and support the child for the person they are. Lots of situations seem to become worse when you are saying to yourself "What have I done wrong? What have I produced?" I am always hardest on people when I am projecting my self-dislike onto them. Allowing our teenage children to be themselves takes some of the heat out of the situation and lets us help them better, whilst also feeling a little bit better ourselves.

Really feel for you, it's so hard when you are going round in circles and nothing works

Agree with other posters that it is worth getting outside help sometimes we are tok close to the situation. School may have somebody they can suggest.

DD 1 was very like this, feeling left out and hard done by as she doesn't share the same dad as any of her siblings.

Now that she has had counselling, she is really starting to change and see she has a say in her future and being thankful and positive is better than being jealous and angry

Elephants has made some very valid points, I agree with her.

Somtimes it is hard to imagine that a person can change.

I hope as she matures your daughter does change. Remember she has your genes and not just her fathers, and she is not subject to the influences he was under when he was growing up. You sound like you are doing all the right things to bring her through this phase.

You are at a very vulnerable stage now. Try not to get too down about it all.

I have a house full of teenagers and young adults and have had some bad times with some of them. With good and consistant discipline we have come through the stormy times.

It must be very hard for you when you are at this stage in your pregnancy. I do hope that things get better for you.

Thanks everyone. Moomin, very sorry to hear of your miscarriage.

I have never ever said to her about being like her dad, so she definitely doesn't know I think that. I am going to contact the school about counselling and also see our GP as I think she does need someone to talk to, though it needs to be someone who doesn't make her feel that her behaviour is valid or justified as I know that's what she would pick up on. I just feel so down and wonder what the point of being a mother is if they end up like this, making everyone's life a total misery.

If it is making you really down, could you mention it to your ante-natal care workers? It is tough going towards the birth of a new baby with so much on your plate. It may be that your midwife might be able to look out some literature on teenage difficulties and signpost you to support? Try that and try the school too. I know it took a fair bit of badgering for me to get a good pastoral response from our ds's secondary school, but once it was in place it was helpful.

Do you think that she might be bullied or exploited in some way and that she's reacting to that? You did say it had been going on for a long time though, so perhaps not?

Hi, I don't think she much likes any of her school friends. Some of them are truly hideous. But she's been like this for years.