15 year old daughter has just walked out of the house

[krustykittens]

More of a WWYD. Eldest DD is great most of the time. Funny, smart, great company, is fairly open with myself and her Dad. But she is so arrogant. Doesn't treat her little sister very well, constantly talks down to her and makes her feel stupid, has to argue black is white with us the whole time, ruins days out as result. It is exhausting and tedious. Then when she screws up, it is an all out screaming match, she NEVER admits she is in the wrong. I had a letter home from school today, basically saying she had to be taken out of her maths class for constantly disrupting it and that we are to talk to her. I call her in, not very happy and I read out the letter to her. Of course, it's all rubbish, she's not in the wrong, she refuses to discuss it. Now she has walked out of the house with no phone and we have no idea where she is. I have had enough. Everything is fine until we have to tell her off for something, then all we get is sneering and contempt. She has ruined the last two Christmasses and I am actually looking forward to her leaving home to go to university. It's not a teenage thing either, she has been like this since she was nine. She basically has some unpleasant character traits that she doesn't seem to grow out of or learn from. What would you do to punish her or just get it through her thick skull that admitting you are in the wrong and saying sorry is a much nicer way to live your life than acting the victim and treating others like shit?! Who the hell is going to put up with this once she is an adult?

She has just gone down the field to get her mare in for a hack, without a saddle, which I have REPEATEDLY told her not to do. I hope she gets dumped on her arse. There, that is my revenge.

I also thought about PDA strategies... keep everything low key... refuse to be drawn into an argument.

Can you turn up to school and have a meeting with her and the relevant teacher?

keep calm and stop arguing with her. Just say what is going to happen and don't engage. walk away, go out whatever.

Another strategy is to video her and get her to watch herself. She probably has no idea how badly she is coming across.

DS was sent on a course out of school to deal with his interactions. They taught him transactional analysis ideas - that if you act like the adult, you get treated more equally, and if you act like a stroppy child, you get a stroppy parent figure. Or something like that.
It made sense to him.
I find if I treat him more equally to me I get better from him. He's never accepted any kind of hierarchy. That's one of his issues.

She's not desperately spoiled is she?

My ds is so like your dd. We couldn't be stricter with him. He's 18 now though and we have less 'sticks' to use. He can be very charming but he's so selfish. He just helps himself to his siblings things but goes ballistic if anyone touches his. He has lost a couple of his brothers things and tells barefaced lies to deny responsibility. I'd like to say he'll learn a lesson as others won't put up with it but so far friends and girlfriends seem to tolerate it,

I actually think its a good thing that shes walked out to calm down and then come back......stay calm about it she obviously wants a bt of drama as she didnt have her phone but often in anger management stuff they always say walk away/count to 10 etc....

just act cool now, carry on evening as normal then maybe tomorrow /weekend talk about how her acting/behaviour makes you feel....I would praise her for recognising she's getting angry and going out but maybe she should a phrase like 'going to walk the horse ' so you know thats what she's about......
leave school to sort out the school stuff yes you need to know and tell them you'll support them in what they do but not double punishment your relationship with her is more important...
try and pull the plug on the drama as much as possible if you can...

I was an 'interesting angry smart alec' teenager and my mum really struggled, one day she did slap me and 2 months later I left home.....(16) so if between you you can find away of letting each other calm down I would recommend it...

"She does';t get away with this behaviour, no, it normally ends up in a screaming row with her stuff being taken away from, grounding, etc. But she doesn't learn."

And yet you persist, doing the same thing over and over, even though it doesn't work.

The way you talk about your child is pretty depressing. Her "gob"? She's arrogant? Doesn't like being told off - well who the fuck does? You say she's lovely but you are still on her back a lot of the time. Give her a break or you will drive her away. Seriously

Eh. This saying she'll grow out of it- I know a few adults like this, she might not.

I'd be interested in strategies to deal with someone who is Never Ever Wrong. Because I have two of them here. It drives me to drink because I will always look at a situation and think I could have said something different/done better/not said something, but dh and dd will never admit to having ever made even the smallest mistake. As OP said, it's always someone else's fault - or something's. It's amazing how many defective power tools/gadgets end up being sold to dh...

Can I just say I would never hit her? We are all rather hot tempered but my father beat the every loving shite out of me as a child for just about any reason he could think of off the top of his head and I wouldn't do that to my kids. Doesn't mean they get away with stuff. I will ring the school and talk to them tomorrow and until myself and her father get an apology, some sort of acknowledgement that her behaviour can do with improvement, then the taxi service stops as do all treats above room and board. SDaddy007 we are a family that can give our kids a lot, that does not mean my children are spoiled. They gave up holidays abroad so they could have their ponies and work hard every day to care for them and exercise them.

Krusty your 17:44 post sounds as though you are expecting a 15 year old to be the bigger person and make allowances for the fact her sibling is "hitting puberty, is hormonal and always seems to look for offence in everything her sister says" ...

I do remember being the big sister who was always, always the one to blame in my parent's eyes because I was supposed to be "old enough to understand" - the problem with being the older one is the younger sister is always going to be younger (obviously) - so when you are 6 and your sister is 4 and breaks your toys you have to turn the other cheek because she is only little and didn't mean to... and when you are 10 and she is 8 you have to put up with her constantly pestering to join in when you have a friend over and are never allowed to have a sleepover without her joining in, and when you are 13 and she is 11 you can't shout at her or slam your bedroom door when she mock innocently asks you in front of people why you have such a big tummy/ such a spotty face/ your breasts are different sizes (as of course they are when they first develop for lots of girls) because she didn't mean any harm and doesn't understand why you are "so sensitive"... and when you are 15 and she is 13 you have to tread on eggshells around your little sister because the poor lamb is hitting puberty and hormonal and it's only natural that she's "a bit sensitive" and needs handling with kid gloves - you are older and should know better...

And when DD2 is 15? What is the betting the older sister is still expected to make allowances for her, be the grown up, not take offence when DD2 is spiteful or arrogant because she's (still) hormonal and always seems to look for offence in everything her sister says...

Sometimes parents expect rather too much of their eldest - and at 15 DD1 is also hormonal and deserves the same allowances as her sister - or they both deserve no allowances, but play it the same way for them both and remember it isn't your DD's job to be nicer to her sister than her sister is to her, nor to be her default friend or companin or entertainer...

I may be projecting I freely admit - but I remember so well how over a decade of being told I was older so I should understand smarted, and how pointing out that I'd been expected to be the mature one and rise above things when I was younger than the sister I was still being told to make allowances for was punished as cheekiness ...

Hmmm. My OH is a little bit like this-sweetness and sunshine 99% of the time but when he fucks up-even when he knows he's fucked up-it killlllls him to apologise. It's a mixture of pride and wanting so badly not to upset me that he can't handle it when he does. I guess I'm saying it might come across as arrogance-and there's probably quite a bit of that going round-but maybe she also just can't deal with the idea of you being cross/disappointed in her? I wonder if it would help to give it a couple of days and then have a chat about separating 'making a mistake' from 'being a terrible person'. She's only 15, though-feelings are WILD at that age-she might just flat out not be ready for this. Source: was a furious teen, am now really close to my family.

Send her to boarding school.

Sorry to be a shit disturber... can I just say riding bareback is one if the most soul soothing things that exist?
Also a fantastic workout for balance, core strength and posture. When you are skin to skin, you really feel each other, and you move as one. It's the best.
Falling off happen with or without a saddle, it's a risk we take every time we mount. Tbh, you are at far more risk of a serious head/spine injury on the ground, just mucking stalls/tacking up/grooming or picking feet.
What I mean is, if she is angsty, let her have this one thing?

*Just to add - it was HUGELY liberating when I finally learned that it isn't a weakness to admit you were wrong and to say sorry.

But I had to learn it for myself. No amount of people taking my phone away would have helped*

This , so much this !

The thing is, OP - and I'm sure you know this - is that she will grow out of this, and probably more quickly than you think. The teenage years are ones of transition and research shows that during the teens, the brain is actually undergoing profound change in readiness for adulthood. One temporary change is that emotions are suddenly predominant and the faculties of judgement and reason are overshadowed. That's why teenagers get the emotional highs and lows we associate with them. The teenage brain is actually more akin to the toddler brain (with associated tantrums!) than the adult one. Teenagers in the throes of tempestuous emotions - one of which is a fierce desire for independence and resistance to adult control - are often quite miserable themselves and are not at all confident inside whatever their outer bravado.

She will come through this and all her good qualities, which you've already listed, will come to the fore again. Fifteen is often the worst age - both for teenagers and their parents. What should you do while you wait for nature to take its course? I would completely ignore the "attitude" - the sneers and bad manners. Try to cultivate an amused indifference, as you would to a toddler's bad behaviour. Where she has actually done something serious - disrupting lessons at school or nastiness to her sister - I would tell her calmly and firmly that she was wrong and that this behaviour must not be repeated or she'll lose her phone/privileges for a period of time. And then follow through.

The most important thing, I think is not to meet her emotion with emotion of your own. I would not be chilly to her, no matter what she has done. I would dish out the agreed consequences and then treat her completely normally. What an emotional, hormone-laden teenager needs is a calm, dependable environment, with sanctions for bad behaviour but no sense of generalised disapproval. Teenagers may seem infuriatingly arrogant and supercilious, but that is often an outward defence mechanism for inner insecurity and self-doubt.

As others have suggested, stop arguing with her because it's completely pointless. If she is going to act like a spoilt, bratty little girl, she will be treated like one, and you should tell her that. I'd also take away the horse. Her outrageous behaviour needs to stop, right now, before she really spirals. I knew girls like this when I was in school, and most of them are still like this to this day.

It sounds like her behaviour and reaction were really unhelpful BUT that she's trying to manage it as best she can by removing herself from the situation, even if she hasn't done it perfectly. Once she's settled down, and back to the lovely girl you describe, would it be worth chatting to her with curiosity to learn what it feels like for her when she's being corrected? Then you could try to work out, together, where her anxiety and anger come from? That may lead to her recognising it more and coping with it better.
It's no excuse but teenagers brains are basically rewriting their frontal lobes and they have to relearn boundaries and appropriate behaviour. It's nice to have an eco,a nation but doesn't make it any more fun to live through!

Julia001 Thu 14-Sep-17 18:39:57

*Just to add - it was HUGELY liberating when I finally learned that it isn't a weakness to admit you were wrong and to say sorry.

But I had to learn it for myself. No amount of people taking my phone away would have helped*

This , so much this !

Following on from this

krusty do you ever genuinely apologise to your children when you have messed up?

It needs modelling.

I realised when I became a parent to children (as in when they were no longer babies) that I needed to genuinely apologise to them when I'd messed up. My own parents never ever genuinely apologise - my mother constantly "mock apologises" - she does a melodramatic smirking "mea culpa" set piece in which she says "a mother's place is in the wrong, of course, I've got it wrong again" which has to be responded to by the other person reassuring her of her faultlessness and backing down, otherwise she escalates to tears and theatrical monologues on how hard she tries and how she "just wants everyone to be happy" - this is the only kind of apology she can do.

She never just simply says "I'm sorry, I got that wrong" even about something tiny. Never has.

We were also forced to apologise - or rather, most of the time I was because I was the oldest and my younger sister would cry if she thought she was going to get into trouble - that coupled with parents who never apologised made apologising seem like a ritual humiliation, when in fact it should actually be in some ways liberating and cleansing, as others have said.

Nicely put BetterCallSaul

I think knowing everything and never being in the wrong kind of comes with the territory at 15. Especially with intelligent and confident teens.

It took me a long time to learn that an admission and an apology got me off the hook much more quickly than a raft of excuses.

Does she ever apologise, OP, and how do you handle it when she does?

Learning how to accept responsibility for your actions is such an important lesson, but a really hard one to learn.

This was my dd2 from a young age.
It hit its peak at gcse age.
Disappeared almost the second she left school and had to inhabit the grown up world

I used to say things like
"Mr Brown tells me that you have done x y and z. You are going to deny it and tell me hates you. I therefore believe him. Because he had better things than make this stuff up. School are going to do xyz punishment. I am going to do a. No further discussion"
Then I would leave the house 😂😂

PDA strategies.

Second you seem to have a very fixed idea of what your DD is like and how she should be. She may have argued with you since 9 but is that her fault or that you've expected too much from her?

Why does she flare up? What kind of language do you use to provoke her? How stressed is she about school/friends?
When she is nice is she trying to earn your love? When she flares up is it because she just can't swallow her feelings any more? Is there a lot of shouting in your house?
Shouting always escalates things. No one has ever been shouted at and then calmed down and said "thank you I really see your point now".

And I'm not perfect, just a little further along the road maybe. My DD does now apologise if she shouts at me (eventually), but did shout at me to "fuck off" at the weekend, to which I just went and did my own thing rather than trying to help her.

I've noticed with some family members that not being able to admit they are wrong ever seems to be a sign of very very low self esteem. In my DB's case my DF was very very critical of him, probably what you would call emotional abuse. He can never admit now that he had made any kind of mistake. He's not the only one with this problem in the family. I would suggest to say to your DD that you find her behaviour very difficult when there is family conflict and ask her to go to family therapy with you. Sounds to me like she screams and roars to get herself heard but of course nobody wants to listen to somebody screaming and roaring.