To be so furious with my DDs that I can barely speak to them

[piellabakewell]

They are 12 and 14. Eldest is at boarding school and only home one night a fortnight. Youngest likes being an only child while her sister is away and tends to be attention seeking when both are at home. They spent less than three hours together before I saw Dd1 push Dd2 hard and she fell against the sideboard. DD1 reported that she had asked DD2 to move aside and she had refused.

DD1 fractured her elbow 6 weeks ago and it has not yet healed. DD2 stubbed her toe really hard yesterday and now her big toenail is coming off and bleeds frequently. DD2 did not trust DD1 to look at her toe without hurting it. Just when they should be nurturing each other, they are worse than ever.

I was horrified and furious. I sent them to their rooms and told them I was disgusted, disappointed and ashamed. I barely spoke to them after that, although I did tell DD1 that she was being insulting and it had to stop (over the last few days she has made numerous 'jokey' comments about me).

Now what? How can I turn my gorgeous, intelligent caring daughters into the people they are with others but lose sight of when they are together? They have apologised to me but this has got to stop.

holy pretty sure I am not your DH as I can hear mine snoring enticely as I type!

OK. Coming home from school is always difficult. My mother says I was toxic for about 48hrs when I came home in the holidays (or for the whole weekend if it was an exeat). I too spoke to my parents nightly and wanted to board.

2. Siblings don't always treat each other well.

3. Children don't always treat their parents well.

4. Divorce is disruptive to children.

Personally (I don't have teens of my own so this isn't from a particular point of wisdom). I would make it very clear what you consider to be appropriate behaviour and sanction for serious infringements. If that means removing things eg. treats/ visits to friends then do so but you will, I think, have to accept a degree of irritation / maltreatment of each other.

Being a teenager is hell - would you do it all again ?

To clarify, her dad and I agreed with DD1 to consider boarding school when she was in year 5. She was offered a yr 7 place in sept of yr 6, but the decision to accept it was made six months later. She started at the school in yr 7 and was halfway through yr 8 when her dad and I decided to separate. We lived together for another year, and that was the only time things were unhappy at home. Her dad did not leave, I had to move out but I only live 2.5. Miles away. He still lives in the family home because he refused to leave.

She did not go to boarding school to escape an unhappy home life, for it wasn't, then. Her dad loves her very much and she knows that. He was very detached from me and quite uninvolved with the girls, which has improved greatly since I moved out and he has them on his own for contact.

Lurker, thanks for not lurking! Your insight is very helpful.

Didn't any of you want to board when you were younger, after reading books like MAllory Towers!?

I kept on at my mum to send me to boarding school. We are as close as anything.

Oh. And I fought with my brothers, hellishly. I pushed my middle brother through a glass door. He pushed me downstairs. I told him he wasn't wanted. all during our teens. We were horribly violent toward each other on occasion. and more than a couple of times, my mum went crazy at us.

Now we are so so so close.

How did your mum stay sane in the meantime, flibberty?!

I think you are overreacting. Honestly. Siblings fall out and the odd push and shove is not the end of the world - presumably they are not routinely hitting or fighting.

I think quite a few posters have made very strong negative statements about your family without knowing anything much about your lives. If you can afford boarding school, then clearly your DDs have financial opportunities denied to others. Agree with Holy really.

Piella. My mum was a single parent also. My mum used to separate us and send us up stairs. One time she through a fish slice at us (sounds awful), but it was highly comical. The fish slice became a boomerang and came back at her and sliced her hand. She ended up having stitches. My brother and I bought her a sponge brick after that.

She often got exasperated with our high jinx, but always lots of cuddles and empathy.

My two DC's 5 (DD) and 2.5 (DS) can be awful toward each other. My DD used to be terribly jealous. I always remind them that they have the most special relationship in the world, a sibling one. and I explain that they have to look after each other and support each other and try not to hurt each other.

But at the same time, sometimes Sibs do hate each other and there is nothing we, as parents, can do about it. My older brother ( I Have 3 brothers) hates us. He wishes we were never born. He is PFB all to himself and there are 8 yrs between he and I.

Don't take it to heart. they are human and just because they haven't seen each other, doesn't mean they want to either.

good luck

OOPs - too tired - threw not through obv

I am usually against private schools and rant about them. But even I am looking at this thread wanting you to piss off judging OP for sending her daughter to a boarding school. Yes question them not both being there but the boarding school itself?! It's not child abuse. It's not going to kill them. She's probably going to end up better off than those not let out of the parents' sight for 18 years. As for the woman who'd rather "gouge her own eyes out than live apart from the children" then good luck in however many years when they move out. You do what you think best for them, which is not always wrap them in cotton wool and keep the apron strings tied.

For the record I grew up with my sister in the same house and we still have a bad relationship. It doesn't always work out and it generally has fuck all to do with school.

Just to clarify, your eldest DD spends 6 days a week at school and 1 day either at her father's house or at your house?

I think that at least some of the fighting is coming from the fact that your DDs are rubbing each other up the wrong way but not having enough time together to then resolve the issues and settle into a more relaxed relationship.
My DH regularly works away from home and we often have a bit of a row within the first few hours of him coming how, then we make up and life settles down (until the next time he has a trip).

Your OP sounds like there was a bit of shoving and pushing, and that neither of your DDs injuries was caused by the other one. It's not really an example of excessive physical aggression, just a brief burst of temper. You need to be giving them tools (when life is calm and happy) to help them choose other ways of expressing and releasing anger. Unfortunately with only 1 day a fortnight in your home, it will be a slow hard process.

School/divorce issues aside I think you've completely overreacted to a standard teenage fight. My sister and I used to have awful fights, ended up with nosebleeds and worse! You sound very uptight!

I can see how the boarding situation came about, and whether that was a good idea at the time given the circumstances at home, it's done now and it makes sense to keep the older one where she is until post GCSE's. I am not at all anti-BS btw. I'm just not sure it was a good solution to that situation.

However, agree with the other posters who have said that you're overreacting to a pretty usual situation- sibling spats. Very few siblings who are close in age don't fight. Perhaps if you are personally very close to your own siblings, you're now finding this odd but I think most parents of teenage siblings would not be using "nurturing" as their description of their relationship.

In short, I think you're overthinking it. They'll get over it.

Op you don't want to debate boarding, you think your reaction was proportionate. Why are you posting in aibu?
Whether or not the oldest chose to board doesn't matter
she is 14 and capable of wanting to board and being jealous of her younger sibling because she is at home all at once. Dd2 doesn't like her space invaded by someone she barely knows and only sees 2 days a month. This sort of fighting is normal and they are not going to fall out then nurture eachother, they are kids. I think you may be finding having 2 kids at home hard as you are only used to one, your reaction was really disproportionate imo. Your in Danaher of making dd1 feel pushed away, again, even though she chose it.

So what actually happened was that one child pushed the other and they ended up bashing into a piece of furniture.

In addition, one of them is giving you some lip?

My sister took a CHUNK out of my back when she bit me.
I kicked the crap out of her on many occassions
I played horrible mind games -
I told her santa was dead (on Xmas eve)
I told her I'd spat in her milkshake
I locked her in the airing cupboard

I could go on.

We love each other very much and now, as adults, are the best of friends.

My sons are great friends and play together all the time.
They also fight. Physically fight.

Oh, and teenagers say vile things. The lip some of them can give is staggering. It's not right - but it's pretty much par for the course!

I think that your expectations are unrealistic. Siblings will be bloody vile to each other sometimes. Your children will give you lip sometimes.

Hell, after I'd been told off I would stand at the top of the stairs sticking my fingers up to my dad (behind the bannister!) He would call up - from the living room - "Stop that."

I'd think HOW the hell does he know?!

He knew because he'd been a teenager once too.

I think the problem here is not so much that your teenager gives you a bit of backchat or that one of your children shoved the other one - it's that you don't see that that isn't abnormal!

Perhaps that is because you don't live with it all the time. I am not having a go. tbh, I really don't care about whether they board or not, that's not my problem and not what you were asking about. BUT. They don't live together full time and you don't experience them together full time - and that's going to have an impact.

You need to understand that what you are seeing is not abnormal or indicative of a bad relationship or that they hate each other or you. You are seeing NORMAL CHILDREN!

This does not mean you don't deal with it! It just means you don't think there's something wrong with them!

Many useful comments, thank you. I think it seemed like a bigger deal last night than it does this morning.

I teach 5 and 6 year olds. A large part of my time is spent on pastoral care rather than the curriculum. They need to know that it is not acceptable to thump each other when they are cross about something. None of us would think it acceptable for our children to grow up and assault others, whether they are family members, a spouse, a child, an old lady in the street. At 12 and 14 I feel like my children should have got that message by now but clearly they don't, or while knowing it to be wrong, don't have the self control to keep their hands to themselves. That feels like it reflects more on me than them, rightly or wrongly.

There are times when all the thousands of happy hours we have spent together have been overshadowed by their persistent inability to get along with each other for more than a few hours. Apparently it's normal. I don't like it though.

Hopefully the two years they are at home together before DD1 goes off to uni will give them a chance to build a relationship that will last into adulthood. Despite last night, they do have many times when they enjoy each others' company.

As an aside, re the private school debate...neither of my children go to a private school.

You could contact the people who are raising your eldest daughter for advice about how to handle her.
I was banged up in a boarding school very unwillingly. It alters the family dynamics considerably, but at least my siblings were incarcerated too.

They are practically strangers just because they have the same blood a relationship is not a God given.
Why does she want to board-I use that as a threat " If you do not stop doing xxx then I will send you to boarding school "
BTW my kids fight and then be overly lovey that is kids for you how about organising some sister bonding when together, shopping, cinema or whatever interests them.

I think you've been really near-sighted if you think your daughters didn't pick up on your unhappy marriage well before you eventually decided to split.

You have said yourself it was emotionless. So was my parents' marriage. They divorced when I was 15, but at the age of 7 I remember being round at friends' houses, watching their parents laugh and joke and being affectionate with each other...and wondering why my parents didn't do that. I always just knew they didn't love each other, a long, long, long time before they finally admitted it.

Fair enough, the boarding school situation isn't going to change for a variety of reasonable reasons. But you definitely have your blinkers on about a lot of things regarding your daughters' behaviour. Just open your eyes. Realise these are your children, not your school charges...They are raging with hormones, they are acting out in a normal sibling way, AND they have been around an untenable parental situation AND they only see each other once a week. Of course it's a recipe for tension. Just try to have some understanding of that.

A boarding school that isn't private ?? Do they exist ??

Feeling less analytical this morning and have put my Bowlby and Eriksen books away :-)

On a practical note am thinking DD1 must need to let off steam when she gets home and when they both meet up it may be natural to do some kind of friendly sparring, but it just gets out of control.
Your DD1 probably wants down time when she gets home but was wondering whether there is something about helping to manage the energies which go with the transition of DD1 coming home--e.g. could you take them both swimming so they could "play" and stabilise their energies? god I sound even more of a *anker this morning!!-I'm going back to bed :-)

Don't see what dd2 did wrong

Your dd1 shoved her against the wall and dd2 hurt her foot and
Didn't want dd1 to look at it in case she hurt her?

yes they do exist-ironies of ironies I think it is the one my mum went to. (sorry only ironic to me!)

How do your daughters behave at school and with their father? Are they interacting with their peers like the average child, or have either of their schools got any concerns about their emotional wellbeing?
Do they fight like siblings when they are at their fathers?
Do you have a close nurturing relationship with your eldest, with hugs and secrets and worries shared?
Do you ever give the eldest regular time with you, without her sister?

My sisters have 16 months age gap and they often fought badly as teenagers. I clearly remember the chest of drawers being flung when they were 14 an 15.

They're best friends now but it took until they'd both left school and one had moved out, to get there. I think you're expecting too much and your younger one needs to learn to share when her sister is home.