12yo DD thinks she's the boss.

[GrabtharsHammer]

We are going to the ILs for lunch and will be out for about five hours so I've asked DD to get dressed and take the dog out for half an hour first.

She has kicked off. The conversation went as follows.

Me- DD can you go and get dressed and take the dog out for a bit before we go to grandmas?

DD- no, why should I? You do it.

Me- I need to have a shower and get ds2 ready. Do as I've asked please.

DD- why should I? You're not in charge.

Me- Er, I think you'll find I am, take the dog out now please or you will be grounded for a week.

DD- (shouting now) What? You can't ground me just because I won't walk the dog! You should walk her!

Me- (also shouting, not proud of that) You are the child and I am the adult and you need to do as you are told.

Cue storming off and tears and Dh getting involved and she's now sulkily getting dressed.

She doesn't have many chores, just washing up after dinner every other evening and taking the dog out once a week, which I rarely enforce anyway as we usually all go at weekends.

This is fairly par for the course, she is hugely reactive and any request is usually met with shouting and stamping. She says I ask her to do too much and that she's not a slave. She speaks to me like dirt.

AIBU to ask her to do occasional chores? And how on earth should I be dealing with her. She doesn't speak to Dh like this at all.

I wasn't talking about your sister Badcat. I was talking about the OP's daughter.

And my oldest DD too if I'm honest.

Sounds like a standard 12 yo to me Sorry OP but I'm going through this for the second time and girls are horrid at this age they act spoilt and full of entitlement. The only thing I will say is think of her like a toddler, their brains are going through massive changes and like the toddler that screams because they don't know how to express their thoughts, your preteen girl works the same. Love, patience and understanding but draw a very firm line and if it goes beyond that you must enforce time out ( techban) hth

I remember the phone thread. I'm not agreeing with a pp that you dislike your daughter but I remember that on that thread, and now on this one, you have compared her behaviour unfavourably with her brothers. Maybe she really is just a pain in the arse - some people are - but just be very, very careful that you're being fair. If you've said twice in the space of a couple of threads in a week or so that your dd is difficult but your ds's aren't, it's not an enormous stretch to think that this attitude might be apparent within your home.

Sil still has tantrums at 47. Full on tears and ultimatums. Having kids of her own hasn't stopped her.

I don't think anyone ever told her to grow the fuck up.

The boys really are different though. I don't think I've ever raised my voice to DS1 (14) and he's a lovely boy in general, he does things when he's asked and doesn't give us any trouble. DS2 is a very sweet 5yo.

It's hard not to compare them. But actually dd gets a lot more of our time, attention and money, simply because she is more needy. The boys don't do anywhere near as much as her in the way of hobbies and days out.

Do more with your boys. Show them you value their much better behaviour with attention for them.

I was always told to ignore a badly behaved child as much as possible.

Your illness may make her feel more anxious than most kids even if she doesn't have to "do" anything extra. Different children have different personalities and your children react in different ways.

I remember the phone thread now. Your DD didn't adapt to your needs easily at that time either - you needed her phone so you took it back without warning, just as now the dog needed to be walked so you asked her do it immediately. Well to her they probably do feel exactly like sudden demands. The various "nuances" of the phone situation were from your point of view not hers. Your DD may feel as if her own needs for stability and predictability don't really count with you.

Maybe what she is getting from you isn't what she needs most. Maybe it isn't all about hobbies and days out and money. Maybe what she needs most is stability and structure and tolerance. A mother who can hear her talk a lot of angry nonsense without getting upset or threatening her or raising her voice. Maybe if you think of it in terms of keeping DD's stress levels down - which is not the same as giving her everything she wants - it will help. She might even want to "help" more if she can see how it helps and if she can fit it into a nice reassuring regular structure.

But it wasn't sprung on her. It says quite clearly in the OP that she is expected to walk the dog once a week. I don't think that is excessive.

I have an 11 yo DD and I think the rages are (when they're not hormonal) are anxiety-driven. She can wind me up a treat. I have massive sympathy for her as I also have extreme anxiety and am only just really learning coping strategies in my forties now.

I agree about withholding the mail order stuff. Grounding for a week seems OTT. My biggest target is to stay calm (I am crap at doing it but better than I was). It is exhausting

Grabthars, I don't think most of us are qualified to comment, as yours is quite a specific situation. You might want to ask in the SEN section, for people who have a wider experience of children with additional needs. The consequence approach is brilliant, do stick with it. You also need to sort of detach your feelings before you respond to her. Save your feelings for showing your pleasure when she behaves well, and organising fun times together. Detach your feelings for when you need to respond to her poor behaviour. Find a different way of love bombing next time, but only tell her why if she asks. Just quietly say, well it didn't end well last time, did it, so we're finding something different this time.

Have you looked at attachment issues? Were you depressed after her birth, or did she or you have a spell in hospital? The heightened response sounds very familiar.

But the OP says she isn't usually expected to do it every week. So on the outside she is lucky because she doesn't have to walk the dog every week. But on the inside she feels unlucky because she suddenly has to do it right away. It seems a bit illogical but it can be better to keep things simple and predictable for an anxious stressy child.

I really want to know, from her perspective, how she is affected by your mental health issues. Obviously enough to be in counselling. If an adult seemed unduly upset over something minor, we would assume there was a bigger picture, but teenagers and near teens just get dismissed as being moody adolescents.

My father quite overtly favoured my sisters and would talk endlessly about how he treated us all the same but I was just inherently more difficult. I would say he showed his favouritism extremely well (he only ever punched and kicked me, for example). I'm certainly not accusing OP of abuse but from my own experience - a parent who showed blatant favouritism and insisted he never did anything that might adversely affect me - make me so wary of parents who claim their kids are just awful shits in a complete vacuum.

It still goes on now. My mother and sisters pretend the abuse never happened and like to tell people I'm just too self centred to engage with family. You'd believe them if you spoke to them, the way they present it and the lies by omission. Again, I'm not accusing OP of anything. I'm just explaining why I would always want the teen's perspective. Especially when the teen is known to be affected by a parent's mental health issues.

Sheba, that sounds horrendous but not like the OP's situation at all.

The dd is being showered with attention, treats etc and the other children don't seem to get the same amount of consideration because they don't kick off and tantrum.

Just to console you my almost twelve year old is the EXACT same unfoetunately.

Well like I said, I'm absolutely not accusing OP of anything. I just feel alarm bells ringing whenever a parent claims their child is just a turd for no reason (I know OP hasn't used this language). And the bells turn to klaxons when they say their other kids are so much better so it can't be anything they're doing. I'm sure Dad sincerely believed that. In this case, we do know that the child is in therapy and Mum has mental health issues. So I just really, really need to know how family life feels for her before I can just dismiss her as an insolent brat with no right to be unhappy.

Incidentally, I never wanted for anything material. That's one reason my family thinks I can't have been abused. I had a private education and lived in a spacious house in a rich area, after all.

Her counsellor has broached attachment issues with us and it's something we're aware of and working with. I left my exH when she was two and he hasn't seen her since. I was very depressed until then and although I bfed her and coslept etc I think there's a whole host of stuff that may have contributed. DS1 was unaffected but apparently not all children are. I've been with dh for nearly ten years and he's their Daddy; he has PR and we have full residency

The lovebombing is part of the strategy to make her more secure. And our home life is very calm, the only person who argues is dd, so its not behaviour she's seen modelled since she was very tiny.

Children need clear boundaries to help them feel secure or they can easily become overwhelmed. I see it every day. Children given adult level decisions to make and not being equipped to deal with them.

Things that stick out:

1. You spent £200 on a 12 year old getting eyebrows and nails and outfit. That is obscene and unnecessary. She is spoilt.

1. You spend more time and money on her than her brothers, but also she is the more difficult. That isn't fair. She will think money=love and being difficult gets her money+attention.

1. She overreacts with you specifically, not her father. Are you the one who is more likely to ask? Does he ask differently? Is their relationship different?

She's testing you. Calm, firm, loving boundaries. Tell her you get it, but you can't let her speak to you that way. That you love her regardless, but can't help her unless she calms down. Her brain is a whirlwind at that age, and once she starts acting up it is easier to carry on because she won't necessarily know how to back down. If she feels like a 'bad child' she is likely to continue acting in that vein.

Shouting, shaming, violence (not suggested by you but others) will not help. many of the more old school disciplinarian tactics may get her to submit, but what you want is for her to feel loved and trusted, respected enough to not engage like this in the first place.

12 yr olds also don't necessarily get money either, so try some love bombing that doesn't cost you, as then you feel she is indebted to you...which is very much not what it is meant to achieve.

Not in any way to denigrate your efforts, OP, but showing love doesn't have to mean lots of expensive gifts. It's more about getting to know her as a person, finding out who she is and what makes her happy. If the only way one shows love is through money, it can feel like being bought....and, I've noticed, can create a feeling in the giver of "well you owe me, I spent all this cash on you". Which is not about love and building relationships.

Cause and effect can be confused. What you see as your son inherently being easier, your daughter may see as him being easier because she thinks you like him more.

Stop over spending on her, especially in comparison with her brothers. Why should bad behaviour = more rewards. That really is spoiling someone.

And your conversation escalates quickly, try to calm it down but also be very clear than she cannot speak like that to you.

What NotYoda said. It's going to be hard but you must stay totally calm when she's like this. Use broken record technique and just refuse to engage. Leaving the room would be another way to do it. That also has the (natural) consequence of her getting less attention when she behaves this way, rather than more.

We often say we are bringing up each of our children the same, but we are not, and neither should we be. Different children need different "handling", because they are individuals with their own personalities and needs.

Your DSs are "easier" because you know how to manage them. That's probably because their way of being fits much better with yours. Your DD is "difficult", because her personality does not fit so intuitively with yours.

I think Kleinzeit's posts are very sensible. I haven't read the book she (he?) suggests but frankly, the rest of her advice is spot on, and I'd be having a look at it, if I were you.

As Kleinzeit says times 100; this rings very true with how I remember feeling as a teen:

In which case... Try to make your DD's duties routine ones, things she can do at the same time every day or week. And do give her warning, don't ask her to do things right now. Extra time will lower the stress for both of you. If you tell her "we're going to granny's tomorrow so please walk the dog first thing after breakfast" then that gives her time to recover from her first "no" reaction, and it gives time for you to do a bit of persuasion, and it gives you time to make an alternative plan if she doesn't change her mind. You might even find it useful to have a schedule or timetable for the weekend so your DD knows what's coming and can plan round it.