To want to absolutely shake my 11 year old

[notamummyname]

She's turned into a monster overnight. Everything I say is met with sighs, rolling the eyes. She's horrible about everyone, the minute she gets into the car it's just none stop negativity, impatience with her classmates, issues with her friends. I can't ask her to do anything, even come down to dinner, without a big huffy sigh and "ohKAY" in a nasty voice. I finally had enough today and have removed tablet and TV privileges after she slammed a door in my face. She will not get them back until she can speak to me and DH with respect and not with the disgusting attitude.

I am not a shouty mum and I have never laid a finger on her, but today I would have dearly loved to have given her a good shake and it was all I could do to keep my cool

Where has my lovely girl gone? Surely this can't be the teenage years already?

I have a 15 year old FS and I swear he was sent by my Mum (long deceased) to show me how bad I was at the same age !! 😂😂😂

If they want privacy they need to act like humans. A curtain will do for privacy if they’re going to slam doors.

Hi OP is she year 6 or 7? Both are very challenging years.

I will second what everyone else has said about kids turning into little monsters overnight. However, with hindsight there was often something going on at school with friendship groups and bitchiness. So yes she absolutely needs the 'don't you dare speak to me like that' line, but she probably also needs the 'are you ok and do you need a hug' line.

If its constant issues with friends she is probably struggling to hold it together at school and you are the proverbial dog that she can kick out her frustrations on.

I think it gets better - at nearly 20 I'm hoping I'm coming out the other end of it but I can say for sure every time mine treated me like that it was because they were holding it in from school friendship issues.

My dd is 13 and pretty good but she has been having strops since she hit about 10
We tend to ignore and/or take the piss until she snaps out of it but we do have a red line and being rude to us would result in punishment

I wonder if anyone's child goes through adolescence the same way they did?

I was quite angry, but DD is more emotional - weepy outpourings rather than door slammy - when being hormonal.

Either way I remember that feeling of everything being wrong as clearly as if it was yesterday (even though I had DD at 30...), and holding on to the memory makes it easier.

My dad was quite a cold fish but it was him who put into words for me how I felt - just simply that everything was wrong and I couldn't say exactly why - and told me he remembered that feeling and that it was normal. That helped me so much when I was 11 or 12, so I say it to DD too and it seems to help her.

Oh dear OP I have her twin living here. Dd is 13 and driving me up the wall. The tone in her voice when she finally decides to answer reasonable questions makes my blood boil.
I sent her off to school with a flea in her ear this morning. Snapping at me and all the time. I too get reports of how lovely everyone thinks she is, little madam.
We shall all ride it out together.

Hi OP, I went through this with my eldest. Whenever I'd get that behaviour from her I'd say, 'Wow, you must be watching something that is teaching you the wrong kind of manners, so that's the end of your shows.' No TV for a week or two and her behaviour would settle right down, as she desperately wanted to prove that the shows didn't influence her.

Also just as a side note... if she has a yearly check-up coming up it may be worth getting her iron levels checked. Many teenage girls these days are suffering from low iron and it can cause the down/negative feelings you're describing. Getting iron back up to proper levels if it's been low can make an enormous difference.

Best of luck

God 11-14 is the absolute worst.
I hate the negativity, and the whining. It doesn't help that most of ds's friends are from well off families and just have sooo much. (And are turning into arrogant little sods).
I have had "I hate my life. I hate being poor!" I just have to walk away, then in a calmer moment (when he usually comes and apologises), try to explain how compared to most kids in the world he has tons. And that me giving in to his every demand is NOT going to do him any favours in the long run.
I'm pretty strict on the whole, and I DO bloody well demand respect, but it's really hard when they seem to be surrounded by rampant consumerism and competitiveness.
Try, as ever, to focus on their positive behaviour. Praise the things they do right. Its easy to forget to do that when in pre adolescent Hell. ..

I lost it with ds (11) the other day over homework. I ended up shouting out of frustration.

Can she not have a bag of crisps a day or whatever? I’d get some in and tell her she can have a packet every other day or whatever ‘’don’t make life unduly hard for yourself. Removing privileges leads to worse behaviour ultimately as does removing doors.. and who seriously wants to remove doors from their hinges in their own home?

Just don’t sweat the small things or make a stand over ridiculously small things that you don’t need to. Save your breath for the big stuff.
‘And yes, I’ve got two kids myself. 11 and 19. Both fine on the whole. And I put that down to not nit picking every five minutes ..

Reading some of these terrify me 😱 My DD is 5 going on 15 (we say jokingly) but my mother warned me that this is just a pre-cursor to her teenage years!

Re the doors...DD hasn't had a door since she was 2 because she used to slam it, stand behind it & headbutt it (we now know why). Doors removed, curtain up. Solves the 'privacy' problem & removed the temptation to slam it. Much quieter household 😂😂

I know what you mean. DD 12 is the same, especially if she is asked to do something she doesn't want to. We get the eye-rolling, the stamping upstaires (though to be fair she seems to have mostly grown out of that) the sarcasm (we used to get the 'oh thanks!' meant as sarcasm until I started replying by singing as theatrically as possible as Maui 'What can I say except Your Welcome!' so we don't get that one anymore).

With DD though it is worse when she is tired, so we make them go to bed earlier, not that she likes that much either.

Following with interest

Batface that's the thing, she doesn't even particularly like crisps! I asked did she want some for her lunches a few weeks ago, she said no, and she chose the crackers and yoghurts I can't keep up.

I'm going to start her back on her vitamins, she has a respiratory issue that means she can get a bit run down at this time of year, so that might help a bit too

I'm so glad I posted, I have a tendency to catastrophise and had decided that DD hated me and was going to be a juvenile delinquent and/or Mariah Carey

She's a very bright girl who does extremely well in school [...]

I'm sorry but those things are irrelevant.

I wouldn't be so sure they were irrelevant. I was considered bright and "good" at that age and I felt as if adults couldn't see beyond that and take any notice of other aspects of my personality. I didn't rebel in any major way (though I was quite stroppy between about 13 and 16) but it did really annoy me that I'd been pigeon-holed like that. It's also an age when other children can be a bit mean about academic brightness, although you said she has good friends so she might be protected from that - people tend not to pick on someone who's surrounded by allies. She might just be trying (maybe even subconsciously) to show you she's not "just" a bright, successful girl, and even she is entitled to be fed up sometimes. The health issue you mention in your last post could play a part in that too, maybe she feels overprotected (even if it's justified) or frustrated that she can't always do things she'd like to. I think you're right to crack down on the rudeness (although you'll have to be consistent or it won't work), but if you can get her to talk about what she feels she needs to make her happier, you might find some useful insights and compromises you can make to help her through what's always a difficult time for most kids.

My DD is almost 10 and this has been going on for about a year. She's developing fast - boobs, spots etc so its definitely puberty related.

We showed our 11 year old the Kevin turning into a teenager sketch and whenever she huffs or flounces we all shout "Kevin" which she loves as you can imagine. Does work sometimes though...

I don’t want to read this. My daughter is currently 7 and thinks I’m the best thing ever

I think this is the hardest thing, one day you are just the best thing ever then overnight you go from being adored to despised. I could never have imagined that my always smiling, lively, chatty affectionate little girl could morphe into a grumpy, negative teen. I really felt quite sad about it. However, we are slowly seeing less of the grumpiness and more of the happy chatty girl. Hang in there.

I know it's almost impossible but try to remember that she genuinely is feeling all these things and as confused and miserable as it's making you, it's 100 times worse for her. Her head is all over the place. I vividly remember as a young teenager crying on my mum and just saying "I'm so sad and angry all the time and I don't know why!" You're right to punish appropriately but try not to let it make you dislike her or feel it's representative of who she is as a person - it's just an overload of monstrous hormones that she doesn't have the tools to deal with yet. Good luck!

Gin. Lots of gin.

I have found my people.

Yr7 DS who is exactly like this. We toook him to a west end show on Saturday - could he be nice? No, still moaning, grumping apart from when he’s sitting transfixed and then thanking me for bringing him.

Thank you to the PP who was describing feeling like ‘everything is wrong’. That’s it exactly and it makes me feel better it isn’t just me. I feel like we are constantly at him at the moment and I hate it.

How far do you let standards slide though? We have never tolerated physical violence or rudeness. I’m getting both backed by what feels like a massive amount of disrespect and i lose my temper.

Not helpful I know so I try not to but I find I can’t let it slide. We also have DD (7) who is on the receiving end and picks up the bad behaviour but I don’t want to be on at him constantly?

peachgreen wise words - thank you.x

dd is also 11 and is trying the same shit out.
I absolutely would challenge this behaviour. Depending on my mood with tickling, taking the piss out of her, (I don't mean being cruel but imitating teenage brattery back at her, OTT complete with flounce and hairflicks works a treat) correcting what she said with 'i think you meant to say xxx' and full blown don't you dare speak to me like that if you want to see your new phone again.

It's a combination of moodiness with testing boundaries. tired, hangry and too much screentime doesn't help either.

(if she wants tired and hormonal then right back atcha, kid! I can do tired and hormonal! )

My 7 year old DSD is like this already.