To find my dd hateful, and not be able to rise above the feeling?

[vidaloca]

Have namechanged for this as I feel so ashamed.

DD is 12 and has been 'difficult' for about three years now. When I say 'difficult', I mean lazy, obstructive, aggressive and manipulative. That's when she isn't getting what she wants. When everything's going her way she's actually quite charming and funny, but as she grows older and we expect more of her, opportunities for conflict are multiplying to the point where family life is becoming really quite seriously unpleasant on most days, and the stress is taking its toll on my mental health and my marriage, and also on the health and happiness of my other two dc's.

The situation now is this. She won't voluntarily:
Do schoolwork
Go to bed when we tell her
Get up in the morning for school
Clear her plate from the table
Help with any housework or chores
Hang her coat up/put her uniform and school bag anywhere except in a crumpled heap on the floor
Tidy her room. All her clothes/books/bits and pieces, are in piles on the floor and under the bed
Or actually do anything we ask her to do if it doesn't suit her, without repeated requests, which are then met by rudeness, huffing and accusations of 'nagging'.

So far this probably sounds fairly unpleasant but typical 'tween' behaviour. I could tolerate it if this is all it was, even though it's exhausting and demoralising to have to keep telling a child to do things that they should be doing for themselves.

No - what's really destroying me is the fact that requests for her to help/get out of bed/go to bed/tidy her room, etc, are routinely met by indifference, stalling, rudeness and, eventually, aggression.

She also manipulates and stirs my younger 2 dc's up (ds's are 6 and 8) so that I have great difficulty managing their behaviour as well.

My youngest ds has aspergers and can be very difficult. He's tactless and can be obsessive and hard to divert when there is something he feel he needs to have or do. Obviously his behaviour can be hard to manage and I sympathise with dd for having to share our attention with a sibling who needs a lot of parental supervision, and tolerance from the whole family. But that is the way it is and we can't do anything about it other than try to accommodate his personality. DD refuses to make any allowances for his special needs. If he says something stupid or rude to her she pounces on it instead of ignoring it, arguing with him to the point where he'll explode - and over nothing most of the time. If she's bored in the car she'll subtly wind him up until they end up hitting each other. Almost EVERY journey with them is torture for me at the moment because of this, and I'm scared I'll end up crashing the car one day with them fighting on the back seat.

She constantly accuses me of favouring him and treating him differently from her and my middle dc, of not punishing him enough. Well - I do try to address his behaviour if he's aggressive or rude, but I can't pick him up on EVERYTHING because it simply isn't possible to do this and get from one end of the day to another holding body and soul together. I've explained this to her, and explained to her that he has difficulty with controlling his impulses, and also that he isn't able to read people's feelings in the same way that she or the rest of us do, and that as a family we have to try to find a way of dealing with this. Her response is to say that everything is my fault, that she has a friend who has 2 brothers with autism who manages much better than me. It's because I'm a 'crap mother' apparently, and 'everyone says so'.

She's physically quite aggressive with the boys, although I never see her do it. She always insists that it's an accident - her hand or foot slipped, but I know she's slapped them around the face or head on many, many occasions. She also pulls faces and sniggers at them when I'm telling her or them off, so that my attempts at discipline are done against a background of their laughter. This is a new thing - and when she did it this week I lost my temper and told her that the way she was behaving me me feel so angry that I felt like picking her dinner plate up and cracking it over her head. Obviously that was a stupid and totally out of order thing to say, and I'd never do it. But she took that comment and ran with it. She overturned her plate on the table cloth and walked off screaming abuse. She shouted at me that how dare I threaten to break a plate over her head. When I tried to point out that I hadn't threatened to do this, but that she had made me feel like I wanted to do it she stuck her fingers in her ears and shouted 'shut up, shut up', only taking them out of her ears to shout more abuse at me. I managed to calm the situation down enough to get everyone ready for bed, then went off to work after DH came back.

Last night another horrible scene. She marched over to me and told me to get her blazer out of the washing machine and dry it. I told her I was busy and that she had to do it. After a five minute argument she went downstairs and roughly pulled it out of the machine, along with half the rest of the clean wet washing, which she left lying on the kitchen floor. I politely asked her to pick the washing up and put it back in the machine. Her response was 'no. Are you going to try to make me then? If you touch me I'll call the police'. I repeated calmly that she should put the washing back in the machine. She then came right up to me, invading my personal space and stared in my face with her arms crossed - said she wasn't going to do it.

I walked away as it was clear to me that we'd crossed a line and that I didn't have anywhere to turn. Told DH who (again - calmly) went in and told her to go to bed straight away. It was about 8.30pm by this point. She took her wet blazer upstairs into the office room where we keep the dryer, but instead of then going to bed she just stood in my office, touching one of the tools I use for work. I told her to go to bed and to put my tool down. She ignored me and went to walk out with it. I asked her politely and firmly to give it to me, and eventually just took it out of her hands with a bit of a struggle, as she refused to let go of it. She walked ahead of me down the hallway, saying 'why are you following me' (I wasn't, I was going back downstairs), then as she got to the end of the hallway kicked a bin which was standing there waiting to be emptied. The contents went all over the floor. I told her to pick the rubbish up and put it back in the bin, and once again she outright refused, just smirking at me with her arms crossed.

At which point I completely lost the plot, grabbed her pyjama top, pulled her down towards the rubbish and bellowed 'PICK IT UP!', about 5 times. When she pulled away and shouted back at me, I pushed the bin and the rubbish into her room and said that if she didn't want to pick it up, she could have it on her floor so that the rest of us didn't have to step over the mess.

I was shaking all over and mortified at having lost my temper. DH came up from downstairs, calmly made her go into her room and I went off and sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea and 15 slices of toast. This morning she blanked me and deliberately went off to school without her packed lunch.

I'm shitting myself for her coming back from school. I found her behaviour last night intimidating and horrible and I just don't know what to do.

I'm worn out with all the arguing and the conflict. And over - what?

Our family life should be great - we have lovely extended family, a decent home, enough money coming in, our health and each other. DH and I are ok - we don't argue, but the stress of managing our children's behaviour IS a strain on our marriage because we are both so tired and sad about it.

And last night I had this thought: "only another 6 years to go and then she can move out". That's just so wrong. We should be enjoying our children, not constantly, constantly battling with them over every day life.

And the worst of it is that I'm blaming myself all the time - I feel so inadequate as a parent. And I think everyone else blames me as well. I feel like I've not been tough enough with them in the past, that I haven't instilled good habits and now they're going to grow up lazy, rude and helpless.

And the guilt is making me resent dd SO much.

Sorry for epic post by the way. Well done to anyone who's got this far.

you have my greatest sympathy, OP! I am in the same boat with my 12 year old DS.

Can really relate with the "most popular kid on the block" , "fantastic at school"...

He has been like this for several years, and his teachers literally cannot believe it when I tell them what he is like at home sometimes

He is clever, helpful, nice to everyone - he is often seated next to one of the girls in his class with SN because he is so patient with her.

Sigh, how many years until he is 18?

karmabeliever that is something I have been trying to do too - much better if at all possible. Trouble is ds tends to follow us around...

OP I have enormous sympathy - have been at end of tether with my dd (same age) and have posted about it too. She does many of the same things you describe. She has a 7 yo db who although not diagnosed is certainly very active and demanding of my attention, so some similarities there too, and I am sure jealousy is part of the problem.

She got a Blackberry for Christmas on a contract in my name and we agreed a behaviour contract between us too. I currently have possession of it for about the 4th 24-hour period since Christmas Day!

I found it helpful to look at some positive parenting websites and have tried to change the way I behave - I know I shout far too much and lose my temper when I am tired or overstressed. I also know there are family issues which ideally dd would attend counselling for, but I haven't been able to persuade her so far.

Good luck. Know that you are not alone!

the advice given is spot on, my dd1 has been foul over the last few months and i have been praying its hormonal related, she has run away from home twice, ignored requests shouted and generally been horrible, making me remove priviledges, mobiles etc, whilst being the angelic child when with other people and at school, making me feel like it was my fault and i had done something to make her behave in this way, not saying this is the same with your dd but my dd1 started period about ten days ago and i have found out that there is an ongoing row with a few girls at school which i had no idea about, I have seen an improvement as the days have gone on since her period and we are tackling the friend problem at the moment by re-introducing friends she hasnt seen for a while to widen her circle, point is I had no idea she had friend issues as she is a popular kid with everyone but with her feelings running rampage she couldnt talk to me, good luck big hugs

15 slices of toast??

Having read all the replies most of which are very good I just wanted to ask have you thought about family/one to one counseling? She sounds angry and upset and sometimes being able to talk to someone outside the family can help.

I too have a vast amount of sympathy for you. I myself was tricky at this age - not as bad, perhaps - but consistently foul to my mother. I, too, am the eldest of three. Looking back, I was very unhappy. I was unsure about my looks and the way my body was changing (you mention your daughter has spots, and that she is nearly nine stone with a huge bust - probably all a shock to her, and possibly not a welcome one) and was terrified about the future and growing up in general. There were things that helped (both me and my mother):
I was at boarding school, so the school was on charge of discipling me. Conversely however, I was well behaved there. What if you stop trying to make her do her schoolwork? Presumably her teachers will get cross with her, but it will remove one of your battles.
Secondly, my hobby, which in my case were ponies. Age 12, it was my genuine belief that the only being who understood me was my pony Rainbow. So, it doesn't have to be equestrian, but has she got something that is hers, a passion she can pour her energy in to? If not, can you encourage her to find one? Ideally it will take her out of the house for long periods of time, and tire her out. Tennis? Dancing? These would also help with body image, potentially.
Finally, though I realise that you may think this would be rewarding her behaviour, maybe do something with her to acknowledge that she is growing up and that you love her etc. And will always be there to help her. I remember my mother taking me for a facial to help with my tween skin, and to find out how to look after it ( again, this helped lots with my self confidence), also she took me to get my legs waxed etc. Aside from anything else, I loved having time alone with my mother, and these outings did improve our relationship.
I really hope that things get better soon, for both of you.
P.S. Despite being vile then, I turned out okay. Truly.

Hi I also have an approach similar to "Pranma" with my 17 yo DD when she has her bouts of awful screaming ranting insolent behaviour as follows: I feign indifference to all she says and does (do what they do and shrug your shoulders and say 'whatever' or 'am I bovvered' or similar) and I interact loads with DS 19 and DD2 7 instead. If she's come in late for supper we ignore it having cleared away and say that the kitchen is now closed. We may even laugh and joke amongst ourselves about something we did while she was out.
I don't ask her to do anything for me, nor do I engage with her conversationally except to reply if she speaks pleasantly to me.
She then comes home next time in an artificially smiley mood, all sweetness and light and asks if there is anything she can do to help. Often I'll now say 'sorry, we've done all the chores'. This means that she can't use 'jobs she's done for me' as ammunition to prove that her rant was justified.

I close her bedroom door on the mess or gaily and loudly ask my husband where the bin liners are so that I can clear her (minging) room for the charity shop on, say Saturday (when I know she's next out). She soon tidies it.
I also asked school to come down hard on any absences or shirking as we had a short flirt with truanting recently. It worked. She also can get by in school without trying hard, but she wants good grades so she does work.

This is a recent strategy and is gradually working. The problems have come about because she has taken up with a new BF who is an older man and awful and she wants to be with him 24/7. However, I don't think she likes the feeling that we don't care what she does IYSWIM? Or that we are all lovely and happy when she's not here. She doesn't like to be left out, but she now can't complain if we make plans to do something when she should be here but is not. Indifference is working much better than rows and hate and we can already see her improving. Trying to ban the BF will only make her worse so we pretend we don't care what she does.

In her good periods she is fabulous, funny, good company, articulate (A star student) and really helpful.

Also, it's the tantrum-like behaviour that is really important to address. Messy bedrooms can have the door closed - hers is like something from the 'life of grime' programme. Both my teens have to do their own washing now, so it stays is their room until they do it.

I'm finding family life much less stressful since we took up this strategy.

that is the only part of the OP that struck you lovelydogs??

Sympathies OP, my youngest also has ASD and my eldest has had periods where he has been to an extent like your DD.

I think its partially a reaction to the time my youngest takes up and an immature non understanding of why allowances can be made in with certain issues with my youngest but not for my oldest on similar issues.

Its like the Kevin the teenager 'its soooo unfair' but magnified.

I too second the suggestion that she may possibly have aspergers [I also think my eldest has traits]

I dont know all the answers and am reading the response with interest!

I will say that it does get better as they mature [my DS is now 15]

Pick your battles is something my mum advised me, when there are so many issues I think its a wise way to try and get on top of things.

fishand lilacs mentioned the approach of getting her involved in decisions, I agree this is a good way of letting them think they have some say in what happens eg she wants to go out, you ask her what time she thinks she should be home, she says 8pm, you say 6pm, she says 'ok ok 7pm then' [which is the time you wanted all along] that one always worked with me, I used to think id won as I got an hour later than my mum had said!

I also agree that she probably hates all of this as much as you do, its exhausting being so horrible, but shes got into the habit and its hard to break.

Find a time when shes being 'pleasant' and open up a discussion in a non confrontational way.

I remember one time my DS was being particularly ranty and he stopped for a second, I said to him 'you're not very happy are you' he then dissolved into tears and sobbed on my shoulder.

Its bloody hard work, but it will get better.

No Munchkins, it was the only bit that made me laugh out loud. I genuinely wondered if she really did eat 15 slices of toast (is that even possible) or if it was an intentional joke.

Of course I feel for the OP, what an awful situation for her. I am underqualified to comment and the op has plenty of fantastic advice from all the other mners, as usual. :-)

I think Wibbly has written a great post.

I think maybe you are expecting too much from her, in terms of expecting her to understand that there is one set of rules for her brother and another set for her. Or rather, she may understand this, but actually accepting it is very difficult. I certainly rememer at this age being very literal and sensitive to the slightest bit of injustice. I wonder how much of her rebellion is down to her feeling aggrieved that she has to behave to a different standard (in addition to possibly not having as much of your time as she would like).

Do you have any one-on-one time with her during the week?

I don't mean to excuse her behaviour, but if this is the root cause of her behaviour then I'm not sure some of the ideas here will work. It will just feel like more unfair punishment.

She sounds very unhappy - not your fault at all - but perhaps some form of counselling would be helpful. Could you talk to her GP? I don't mean at a that this behaviour is excusable btw.

Please read Blther and wibble again. Excellent advice there I think. Also < and this is meant gently,>do you think she has a point about the unequal treatment of your 6yo? Could you discipline/manage him out of sight and earshot of her so the differences aren't so stark? Also, when she's asleep, go and look at her. I defy anyone to find a sleeping child hateful

Good point yellowvan. When I looked hard I realized that I was a lot softer in dealing with my younger DS than my DD so she did have a point, although i justified it to myself it was because he was more demanding/not as able/younger/not as confident etc but it did help matters when I deliberately became tougher on him especially within earshot of her.

Letting your DD sit in the front seat will kill two birds with one stone if you say it is because she is "older". It will make her feel special and stop the fighting in the back.

I just want to say poor you and offer a hug!

Oh god you are so not alone here, we went through years and years of hell with DS1 now 19 and still prone to anger but quicker to calm down and say sorry but for years I beat myself up as being a really bad parent. he would be rude, unpleasant destructive and violent and it started in the same ways you have described in your thread. all the advice I was given was to ignore the bad, praise the good and ignore as much as possible and just pick my battles carefully. I found this hard to do as all I wanted from him was some basic respect. we took things off him, grounded him, but it took him growing up and maturing a bit to be able to sit down and discuss things and like I say he still can fly off on one. sorry not a lot of help here but please do not blame yourself, build a wall of calm around yourself and try your best to stay calm and assertive I know this works with DS1 if I shout he shouts back and we have had some truly awful scenes. family counselling may work but you are likely to have to pay, if you can afford it please do it before things get worse. read all you can and do NOT blame yourself op. good luck... it does get easier... eventually

Sounds exactly like my elder sister when she was hormonal. Nightmare. It could be that simple. Even within families hormones can produce really different results. Have you talked to her about periods and how she's feeling? Feed her chocolate and watch a weepy chick flick for a good cry?

PS Teenagers is a good place to get advice and / or get some perspectiveon whats 'normal' behaviour or not

Her response was 'no. Are you going to try to make me then? If you touch me I'll call the police'

Hand her the phone and say by all means ring the police and they will tell you just what a little madam you are being and to stop wasting their time.

Knock that little threat on the head ASAP. The cheek of her!

I feel for you OP. :(

Your DD sounds terribly unhappy.

Can you get a referral to a psychologist?

Threatening the police is emotional blackmail. If I were you I would e-mail the police, outlining the series of events and the words spoken to pre-emp her. This will take the power from her. She is basically saying I will be a tatal brat and you can do nothing about it as otherwise I will inform the police (of what????). If she thinks the police are aware of her current behaviour they will hardly come running, and she couldn't use that threat against you.

I would also praise her and thank her when she is being good and encourage good behaviour as much as possible. More rewards, less stick.

Don't forget to tell her you love her.

OP just read all this and wanted to say just be kind to yourself. I don't have any advice as my DD is only 10 weeks old but what dealing with her so far has taught me is to settle for good enough and be kind to yourself.

For what it's worth, when I was a grumpy teen my mum getting out all the photo albums and telling stories of us as babies/taking the mick out of dad's long hair/looking at pics of her as a teen used to draw me out of my shell and get me laughing. I wasn't stroppy so much as "secretive and evasive" (my mums words) so a bit different.

I might well print all this advice out and keep it for later years!

• I waited to a time when things were ok and the mood was receptive and we list the problems and get the child to suggest possible punishments and solutions to the issue. You have to open the conversation at a time when things are good though and discuss it without agression or accusation.

"We have a few problems we need to discuss-they aren't making anyone in this family happy at the moment so lets sit down and see if we can work through them together"*
I agree with the above from Fish.

Make a fancy letter box (shoebox). Tell her to write down any changes she wants made in the household.When she's angry or tantrumming or whatever, ask her to complete your request but also write a note about why she shouldnt have to do it in the box. You could also do your own notes of your take on the situation (but dont post yet).
THEN
Id plan and have a lovely day either just the two of you or you DH and her. Something she'd really like to do.Regardless of what shes done that week, start that day as a new day and have a lovely time. When you get home and shes still in a good mood, sit at table with Dh her and yourself. Open the box and read hers (and maybe your) comments. Discuss each one. Even the I hate You comments.
Listen to her objections. If you can, try to consider changing your mind on some of your rules. Try to agree to a new or just slightly modified set of rules.
I do wonder if you could keep that meeting calm you could get more of an insight as to whats going on with her.
Also suggest in a non confrontational way that you might go to the doctor with her or that DH might go with her.
Maybe even agree to keep the communication box for now and agree a once a month meeting.
You could also try to keep this as a fairly adult meeting. Hot danish pastries and juice in wine glasses. A whiteboard to make points on. etc.

Also find a photo of her taken on a day that you enjoyed with her. Frame it and put it up in the house where she will see it. When she asks you about it, wax lyrical about how you cherish the memory of that day, that she was really funny, and that she did really thoughtful thing A and B. No mention of how shes not normally like that. Let her join the dots herself.

Got to go out now, but will have another think.
Oh, and hugs, hugs, hugs.
And remember this:
If you want the same things to happen, do the same things.

I think swimminglikeaduck's idea is brilliant, well worth a try.