To feel this way about my daughter?

[emmamaw]

I'm sitting here crying like a baby over my 11yo dd. I struggle to say dd - as in dear daughter. We've never really been close. Shes the eldest of 3 and often says she wishes she'd stayed an only child. She hates her younger brother (8) and often loses patience and snaps at her baby sister (3). I think she hates me too. The way she speaks to us all is dreadful. I know children are self-centered but she really has no care or consideration for anyone in this house. Every day I wake up dreading what mood shes going to be in. All she cares about is going on the phone/tablet/pc to talk to her best friend and watch videos. I know thats probably pretty normal but if anything gets in the way of that the whole household suffers. If she doesnt want to go somewhere she will purposefully ruin the whole day. We sometimes have to leave her behind when we do day trips etc. just so that the other dc dont miss out. Its like she hates the world around her and wants everyone to know it. Shes always saying she wishes she could go and live with her best friends family, and I truly believe she means it.
This morning I said we would go to town after school, just the two of us, to buy her holiday clothes, as she says she hates what I buy for her and really kicks off if I make her wear them. She shrugged her shoulders and said 'whatever'. Then i found some new underwear I'd bought her hidden behind her bed. When i asked her about it she looked me straight in the eye, and with utter contempt said 'i dont want to wear anything you buy me, and i dont want to go anywhere with you, ever!' I just saw red and smacked her. It scares me sometimes the hate that boils up inside me. I just feel so wretched over her. Shes been like this for years and weve tried everything we can think of. I have great relationships with my partner and other two dcs. I just feel like she ruins everything. She hates me and nothing i do seems to change that. I dread coming home from work and often stay late because I know there'll be trouble as soon as i walk in. I cant live like this for the next seven or whatever years.
How do you learn to live with someone who hates you?

Iamworried - that is so familiar. School think she is perfect but it is sp draining - every single day!

Hi there, I've seen this in a close relative's family and like with you I think early bonding was an issue.

I had PND quite severely and I've had to have an awful lot of therapy, and it has ended up being very complex and layered in ways I can't even go into.. but it is so much more effective than the "parenting skills" stuff. Ironically I used to TEACH "parenting skills" as a health care professional. I hadn't a clue.. and I was confused and bewildered when it didn't play out as I expected it to when I had my own children.

I really feel for you. It's such a wretched feeling, one of the worst in the world. to feel desperately you want to resolve this relationship difficulty with your precious child but feel worn out and beyond it and totally clueless.

Therapy really did help me. It took a LOT of work though.

From your subsequent posts I feel very strongly that you need to seek professional help sooner rather than leave it longer

My DD1 was very similar. She morphed overnight when she started secondary school. Turned out she was desperately unhappy at primary and had never told us.

We had 6 fabulous years with her then she moved out, and has never come back. We aren't close.

If I could turn the clock back I'd do everything different.

OP, your poor little girl needs help now. She isn't the problem. You are.

I agree with others that you are unlikely to improve your relationship if you continue to see this is as your daughters problem and failing.

On the positive side, she trusts you enough to tell you she hates you! This isn't nothing and I was very pleased to reach this point with my 5 yo who had previously not felt secure enough in her bonding to me (due to historic PND/PTSD) to express dissatisfaction of any sort to me.

You will really start to have problems if she doesn't feel safe to tell you how she is feeling which might happen if you continue to be violent with her.

OP - I have been where you are. From 11/12 I had 3 years of dd utterly hating me, wishing I was dead, distancing herself from the rest of the family hating her siblings, sneering and snapping at all of us each and every day. I used to get up with a hard fist of fear in my stomach wondering what she was going to do and say. We all walked on eggshells around her for years, she was so volatile and full of hatred for us.

I took it very personally, and I really shouldn't have done. My relationship with dd prior to this had been great - we were very loving and close. Her adolescence was like a huge, all engulfing hurricane that blew away everything good in our relationship and everything I thought I knew about myself as a mother. I couldn't show her any love or affection without having it thrown back in my face, and I ended up withdrawing and becoming cold towards her. Unless you've been on the receiving end of that level of hatred for years on end it's hard to understand how devastating it is. You can read all the parenting books in the world, but as a human being it's very hard to rise above daily abuse that goes on for months and years, even if it's your child who is dishing it out.

Anyway, what helped was:
The teenage board on mumsnet (I know she's not a teen but she's obviously going through adolescence) - just to let of steam without ending up having responses from a whole load of people who've never been through it themselves but are happy to make judgements about your parenting and advise you how to behave
This book here
Eventually CAMHS and social services, plus support from dd's school.
My wonderful, steady, loving DH, who maintained his calm even though on occasion her behaviour made him actually cry (the only time he'd shed tears in 20 years of our partnership).

Oh and most importantly, the passage of time. She is 16 now and tells me she loves me several times a day, and calls me her best friend. She still says she hates me once a month or so, but she says sorry shortly after.

Basically, buckle up, try not to withdraw, love her as much as you can and HOLD STEADY in the storm of her adolescence. Don't show her how upset she's making you. Don't try to guilt trip her, it'll make her worse. The more difficult she is the less likely she is to admit fault when she's confronted with how her behaviour impacts on her family. Say your piece calmly and then walk away.

Oh, and I'd massively limit her screen time. She'll 11, you can make that work. We let the genie out the bag on that one and I sorely regret it.

Good luck!

And yes to above, having now read the whole thread it is actually VERY serious. You sound so like my SIL.

The irony in our family is that I was the one who got help and am seen as the one with "mental health issues" (though I've not had any for years) and my SIL is the one screaming and hitting her child and calling her all sorts of names and blaming her for her behaviour. She also made the mistake of thinking it wasn't serious and minimising it while making it all about her needs and not her child's. You have to do the graft to change - she's the child.

How on earth is it inappropriate for a mother to brush her daughter's hair?

OP, does your daughter have a different father to the other children? If so what was your relationship like with him?

"She isn't the problem. You are."

How long has she been like this?
DS1 age 9 is like this, he refuses to go on days out/go swimming etc, strops, only grooms and get dressed if we force him, won't wear new clothes (we had to hide a pair of outgrown falling to bits trainers in order to get him to wear the new ones), doesn't let us cuddle or kiss him, would sit on the computer/tablet 24/7 if we let him, will enjoy some days out/activities but melt down when he gets home.

He has aspergers, he is a mild case.
I say this as girls can be hard to diagnose as they hide it well so can come across as just skippy and bad behavioured.
If she had just become like this o would say it's just teenager years coming a little early but you said in your OP that she's been like this for years so might be worth looking up symptoms in girls and seeing if anything jumps out at you, there are ways of dealing with children with ASD and since I've read up and understood DSs way of thinking I have started dealing with him differently and it's made a big difference to the screaming and shouting!!

I am surprised that there are posters on here who are happy to ignore the fact that OP hit her own child because she didn't wear some underwear that OP bought her. Imagine if a woman's DP did that. Everyone would tell her to go to a refuge.

Leaving her alone at 11 while you go out for more than about an hour isn't really appropriate.

lovely post above from minifingerz

Sounds to me like a child in pain. Is your partner her father? Is anyone in a position to abuse her or cause her suffering, at home or elsewhere? Have you tried to get counselling for her? Definitely get help. Sorry if you've answered these, I did skim the thread but I often miss the relevant bits.
Also, if she's being a 'perfect' girl at school, home might just be where she lets off steam - and unfortunately, her family catch it. But she needs to be told that this isn't fair.
You have some fairly negative attitudes - you don't give her much personal choice eg clothing and you describe her as looking like a tramp. And yes, she should be brushing her own hair - hands off, mum!
Why not cut out all your previous thoughts about her, and start again? See how she is, day to day, when you treat her like a responsible young person and expect her to behave that way? At present, you sound scared of her.

Great posts from throwaway and hetero. You need to look at why she's so unhappy, not from the perspective she is doing it to be bad or upset you.

I was the unwanted hated child, and while that may not be the case here from your side, your dd certainly doesn't feel loved, liked and secure, even if that isn't the reality. Therefore my perspective on new clothes and appearance might be relevant.

I wouldn't shop with or wear new stuff bought either. Partly because my tastes were ignored, and partly because I regarded it as another opportunity to criticise me. But the biggest reason was because I hated giving her the satisfaction of having something over me. I wasn't going to be beholden to someone who didn't like me. I wasn't prepared to let my mother pretend she was caring because she bought stuff, when material items weren't what I wanted. And by about your Dd's age I'd certainly decided that I wasn't enabling any pretence at being a loving parent.

As to appearance, that was straightforward to me from a very young age, perhaps about 5. It's better to have your appearance criticised when you haven't made an effort and can pretend you don't care. If you have tried, and openly care about it, then it's much harder when you're criticised. And of course, taking any pride in your appearance implies some level of self esteem, which unhappy 11yr olds don't have.

Screens weren't the same thing when I was a child, and my escapes were sports and friends houses. So while normallly I'd agree screen time should be limited, as it seems to be your Dd's escape route then I don't think cutting back or removing it is remotely constructive.

I was pretty awful to my parents between the ages of 12 to 15. The hormones and stress at school made me feel angry all the time!
I'm the most chilled out person ever now.
What I would say is just treat it as a phase, like the terrible twos. She knows her behaviour is awful but probably has less control over it than you would imagine.
Try not to give the impression you hate her, or that she hates you. I know its not easy.

Re: clothes, let her wear what ever she wants and tell her she looks lovely. Unless her clothes are really smelly, dirty or massively age inappropriate. That is one battle you don't need to have.

I had this with my 13yo. We'd got into that awful, walking on eggshells situation where he'd take offence at everything.

In the end I had a Big Talk with him. Very calmly.

Started off by saying that we didn't seem to be getting along very well lately and how sad it made me and that it couldn't be very nice for him either. Asked him if everything was ok at school, if there was anything bothering him etc . and stressed that he could always talk to me at any time about anything because the most important thing in the world to me is his happiness and that I understood that growing up can be hard and confusing, and that sometimes you can just be sad or angry without knowing why (hormones) and sympathised.

Then just as calmly made it absolutely clear that even if he was feeling down or grumpy it was NOT acceptable to be rude. No backchat would be tolerated. Rudeness, arguing and generally being unpleasant would have consequences.

And I stuck to it. Relentlessly. Not angrily. No giving him an excuse to kick off.

Very firm boundaries, always giving him an opportunity to talk to me if anything was bothering him, not sweating the small stuff (like what clothes he wore) but never tolerating unpleasantness.

His dad had the same calm chat with him - backing me to the hilt.

He's like a different boy now. It was almost overnight.

Sure he'll forget himself from time to time but a calm reminder is enough to
pull him up. I also make more time for him - go in for a chat and a laugh before sleep. Grab him for a hug more often. Ask his opinion on stuff. Pop my head in his room when he's on his xbox and trill "Hello my little prince! What would you like for your tea sweetums?" to make him giggle and squirm in front of his friends (he loves it really :-D ).

So love love love and chat and openness - but still an absolute zero tolerance policy on rudeness or unpleasantness.

ImperialBlether Wed 29-Jun-16 12:57:35

"How on earth is it inappropriate for a mother to brush her daughter's hair?"

It is not inappropriate for a mother to brush her daughter's hair if the daughter wants the help. It is inappropriate for a mother to insist on having a hand in the body care of an 11yo. "Inappropriate" as in "age inappropriate", not "sexually inappropriate".

"What I would say is just treat it as a phase, like the terrible twos. "

yes to this!

Your dd is undergoing huge structural changes in the wiring of her brain. Try to remember that and don't compare her to other teens, just as you would accept that some toddlers or babies are extremely challenging to parent, so are some teens.

"I wouldn't shop with or wear new stuff bought either. Partly because my tastes were ignored, and partly because I regarded it as another opportunity to criticise me. "

I had a very loving mother but I can still relate to this- and reckon this is why I am such a rotten dresser today, and such a complete pain to take clothes shopping. Every shopping expedition with my mother ended up, if it didn't start, with me feeling that I fell short because I didn't like the things she did or liked things she didn't. I was afraid to voice an opinion for fear it would be wrong, but if I didn't and just stood there that made me look sullen and ungrateful. It was only as an adult I realised that to most people's thinking my mother isn't exactly a fashion oracle herself.

I quite interested in what the OP considers 'shocking taste and no real personal grooming standard'. Would she be picking out things that were socially inappropriate for an 11 year old if you let her?

I've had similar, but I'm her step mum, so it's almost expected!

If you hit her, then it's gone really far and you probably know this. I'd first apologies to her about hitting her, tell her it was very, very wrong and you'll never, ever, do it again.

Then I'd have a heart to heart if you can, say all you've said here, except say that you want to make it better, and you'll do everything you can. Listen carefully behind any backchat and horrible things she says, there may be clues as to how she is. Get outside help. Tell her you won't engage in anything negative anymore. But spend some time just gradually trying to reconnect. Cook her favourite meals sometimes. Give her clothes vouchers she can spend online. If she doesn't want to spend time with you, don't force it, just be calm in the background. Don't give up on her, she has no other mother.

CORY - It's no big deal (USUALLY) for mothers to brush their daughter's her in a close relationship at that young age. The OP was simply demonstrating that her daughter won't have it - ie. it's another form of rejection.

And why is it inappropriate for a mother to insist on guiding her (not physically) but through persuasion if her 11 year old daughter's body care is awful??