To dislike my teenage daughter

[Iwishitwasdifferent]

Shes spoilt, rude and downright unkind to me. She can ruin any occasion with her behaviour and just doesn’t seem to care about me or the rest of her family.

Me, my DH (her dad) and her youngest sister who is 10 suffer as a result of her behaviour everyday and it’s getting to the point where we are all on countdown as to when she will leave home. She’s 17 so if she goes to university it will be in the next year or so.

I can see how this sounds and if I was reading it I would think what an awful thing for a parent to write. Background is she has always been a much loved child and DH and I have provided a loving secure home. DH and I both worked part time so there would always be a parent at home which meant DD always had friends back, was able to do lots of clubs and has an active social life. We have paid for her to attend clubs at school and this year are paying for her to go on a school trip to USA. We are not rich by any means so have explained to DD this will mean cutting back in other areas.

I don’t expect any praise or credit from DD for being a decent parent but I have told her I don’t expect to be treated like shit, which we all are.

Went to the theatre on Boxing Day and DD spent the whole time moaning about something or other, why had we got this train and not another one, why were our seats so crap, why couldn’t we pay £14 for a small coke for her, then moaning about the restaurant after, the food was crap, the service was crap etc etc My other DD and I needed the loo and she even moaned about that “why did we not have control of our bladder” this was our first trip to the loo in about 5 hours!

She insults my appearance asking why I don’t dye my hair, why I wasn’t wearing makeup, criticising my clothes and calling DH a “short man”. She feels it is ok to say all these hurtful things despite having parents who love her and try to do the best for her.

I just dislike her so much and am so concerned that this is who she is and will never change. Her personality is just awful. Friends tell me it’s because she’s a teenager but does this mean all teenagers are cruel?

not sure how I ended up typing in bullet points clearly I'm already in back-to-work mode

And how is that helpful?

Oh ffs - another one jumping on the bandwagon to slag off @RambamThankyouMam’s flippant post 🙄 ironic too.

The op has raised this unhappy young woman so it is relevant because there is a 17 year back story - and that includes parenting. Stroppy behaviour doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Thoroughly spoilt. Cancel the school trip, Stop cooking for her and make her get a Saturday job, it will do her the world of good and won’t affect her A-levels, so don’t make that excuse for her.

TBH, I think I'd be telling her to leave in your position. She sounds absolutely vile.

I know that's a decision most wouldn't come to, but I was put out onto the streets at 17, and never would have in my wildest dreams spoken to my mum like your DD speaks to you.

Cut down the amount of time you spend with her. No more trips out for her to destroy

Mate, if you want to sacrifice yourself to the Moloch of Emotional Support for not liking a dinner menu or hotel room, go your absolute hardest

😂

I have a difficult 14 year old at the moment and I agree that (over)reacting to every little thing she gets worked up about makes every thing worse.

Boundaries, consequences are better as they help contain the teenage excessive emotional response.

Op. I was your teen D and I’d argue this is domestic violence Is she seeing a counsellor? I’m guessing she has little to no friends, socially awkward? Probably thinks everyone hates me so I’ll hate them. I’m so sorry OP, no one deserves to live like this. She’ll grow up and she will feel sick at how she’s abused her whole family. This is abuse Can she move in with grandparents or a close family friend. She sounds miserable, you all sound miserable. In Uni digs they’ll eat her alive though.

When our children are hardest to love is when they need our love the most.

I totally agree with this. There is something going on. As her parents, it is your responsibility to help your dd through this. That doesn’t mean accepting to be abused. It means to find the root cause. It looks as though you could do with professional help for this to help you take the right steps. At the very least, some ongoing support with this and asserting boundaries would be very useful.

Posters have suggested this could be hormonal, that your dd may be on the spectrum or that she feels permanently displaced and the bad one since your dd2 was born. These possibilities are definitely worth exploring.

I totally agree with the posters saying punishments such as phone and game removal will only breed resentment, especially at this age. My mother reckoned I was such an awful teen. I was not. I was a terribly unhappy person living in an environment, where I rightly felt unsafe both at home and at school. Yet I was still going to school, doing my work, wasn’t taking drugs, wasn’t getting into trouble and didn’t get pregnant. For me, that’s pretty good going considering the state I felt in. Perhaps your dd feels the same? Apart from her behaviour at home, she’s still holding it all together.

My dd feels safe both at home and at school. That is a massive priority to me. Partly as a result of this, her behaviour is more within the teen norms, albeit I appreciate I am also more lucky on that score. Pretty shitty at times, I must say though. But I try not to sweat the small stuff and try wherever possible to not have battles over inconsequential stuff such as food and sometimes being on her phone at silly o’clock on a school night. Natural consequences fall into play. She’ll be tired. Or hungry.

What I find with dd is that the more anxious she is feeling, the more her life shrinks. This includes things like food choices. She was nightmare to feed from a very young age and for many years after this, liking a very limited number of meals. She changed school at the beginning of year 9 and is so much happier and more relaxed. Still has a lot of anxieties but getting there.

Idk if my life experience both as a teen or mum to a teen will be helpful to you. I hope they will and you can see that life isn’t as bleak as you’re feeling right now. Plenty of posters have said to drop the rope and the arguments. I found that worked with dd some time ago and it really is breeding good results. Dd feels more listened to, feels she is being treated more like a person growing into adulthood, more respected and less suffocated.

i definitely wouldn’t withdraw your dd from the trip. It sounds as though a little time apart from each other would be a good thing. At the end of the day, you do love and wish to support her. The trip is support for her future life despite how she’s acting right now.

Instead you both need to find a way of reducing the arguments. If you can find a way to sit down with her and say, ‘Dd I love you very much. We keep on arguing so much and I don’t think that makes either of us happy. I want to do better. I want both of us to do better. I’m going to try my best to do things differently.’ Then wait for her to say something, maybe nothing, maybe a torrent of hurt. If she says nothing, you can ask her if there is anything she would like to tell you.

She may say nothing, get angry and accuse you of getting angry if she says anything etc. But if you can maintain your composure of a loving mum, who wants to help her through this, perhaps she will open up to you and you can reset this destructive communication pattern and find out what is going on in her life. It may not happen all at once, which is why it is essential not to take things personally and to maintain this position until she is ready to trust you.

This doesn’t mean accepting to be an emotional punch bag either. It means not getting into screaming matches and staying calm, biting your tongue. Getting family therapy or even just therapy for yourself will help you to bare this burden. Being a parent can be incredibly hard.

Intense emotional support should not be provided for these everyday situations.

Can you give an example of the intense support given to a teen who say, doesn’t want to eat a certain meal? I agree that should not need any kind of OTT reaction but I am struggling to visualise what you mean here?! What are some parents doing to provide ‘intense emotional support’ to teens in everyday situations?

OP this all sound hideous for you. I honestly think it’s luck to some degree. I certainly don’t deserve any parenting awards but managed to end up with lovely polite and respectful teens. Maybe it was my husband’s more patient approach, who knows. I certainly have shouted more than the average MN parent, didn’t carry through with ‘threats’ when young etc.

I think it can be a mistake to attribute all our kids’ behaviours to us as parents, both the bad and the good. They are a function of so much more than us; their environment, peers and generic make-up have an impact too.

I feel that you need some specialist help as the behaviours sound quite entrenched. Can you pay for any family therapy? Ideally with your daughter but you can also go without her. Don’t make it just about her, but say how things feel difficult as a family fit you all right now and you want advice as to how to break the cycle.

I am not sure straightforward ‘punishment’ will work here, even though she ‘deserves’ it at times. I think it might make things worse.

I would certainly put in boundaries and calmly tell her that her rude and disrespectful behaviour is unacceptable. Don’t engage in fights but walk away when she she is being nasty and don’t make her endless meals etc.

I may have missed it but have you tried short trips out with her, like shopping? Where you can chat and indirectly try and see what’s bothering her? Rather than having a direct discussion?

What are her friends like? Do you know their parents? Do her friends know why she is like this? Does she trust any adult in your extended family and friends network who could chat to her?

I don’t have answers. Family relationships are so complex and your situation has gone on for some some time. But I don’t think you can sort this on your own now.

Good luck. And I would try and move on from blaming yourself, and shouting matches. Neither is helping right now.

Hang in there, it will get better. I had a good awful teen. Now a wonderful and thoughtful young person. Time changes them even if you can't. The Teenagers board in here was a godsend, especially the advice and experience shared by MaryZ, a much missed poster.

She sounds spoiled. You need much firmer discipline, absolutely no privileges until she learns respect or she's out.

This. Could also be something like PDA. Even if you don't go for an assessment you could look up symptoms and coping mechanisms to see if anything resonates. I actually think although her behaviour sounds very difficult it doesn't sound like simply spoiled behaviour. It's simply too aggressive without any obvious advantage for her (it's not like she has a tantrum because she's been refused something she has one anyway). It sounds like there's something deeper going on. I don't think you're to blame for it op it sounds incredibly tough.

@Spaghetti201 “she has extreme anxiety about something”

I agree 100% with this - my 17 yr old says things, and behaves, in the most horrendous way when he’s anxious and often it’s not immediately evident to us that he has anything to feel anxious about. He expresses his anxiety with extreme anger. If we meet that anger with our own immediate anger then we might as well throw gasoline on the raging fire. It’s really tricky because it’s taken me 17yrs to build a relationship with my son where he feels comfortable enough to talk to me bout things that are really worrying him. My husband is more firm and he is less likely to talk to him about big things. I think OP and her daughter need outside help to work through this.

Hi OP, you have my sympathy! I'm sure it's in no way your fault that she's like this,

My 12-year-old daughter does similar things a and she's just been diagnosed with ADHD. Impulsivity and difficulty controlling your emotions are typical traits. However, ADHD children can often present very differently in school or in front of friends (this is called masking, a term I don't particularly like but it's commonly used). Other traits are:

• poor organisational skills
• messiness and poor personal hygiene.
• sometimes, moments of listlessnesses
• difficulty starting and completing tasks (getting up and getting ready to leave home, for example).

Does this resonate? If so, the great news is that treatment is often effective and has few side effects.

Good luck, OP. People are very quick to judge parents

I'd guess low self esteem, anxiety and feels 'not good enough' in comparison to her sister.

It sounds like she is constantly testing you to prove that you like/love her sister more than her - and of course she's right because you've said right here that you don't like her and that her sister is the nice, well behaved one. You've also told her you don't want any more family holidays with her and you can't wait for her to leave - I can't imagine what that has all done to her self esteem. You've given her, her role in the family now - the one no one wants around - and she is playing it to a tee.

It sounds like you've brought her up really well but that she's really struggling now. Like almost every teen ever I'd bet she feels like no one understands her and half the time she probably doesn't even understand herself. What she needs is to feel she is still loved and accepted for herself even though her behaviour isn't always great. She needs reminding and guiding and showing her what good behaviour looks like - telling her you can't wait till she's gone is literally the very opposite of that.

One thing I'm sure of is that she won't feel like she can turn this around. In her head you think of her as the bad one who will never compare to her sister and she won't feel like she can change that no matter what she does. That means for things to change that you have to think about how you can change your approach. Teens are literally like toddlers IMO, they need just as much support, guidance and love - and I think this daughter really needs to feel as loved and accepted as her sister is.

Oh and as a pp says, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that she is ND.

I agree I don’t think this is normal teen behaviour at all especially not at 17. My friends with more challenging teens find they starting to improve by this age. Something is not right.

I'm massively missing the point but where were you that a small coke is £14?!
I presume you were all drinking tap water at those prices

Extraordinarily stupid and ignorant post. Really, if you have no knowledge of a situation - which clearly you don't - there is no obligation to advertise your ignorance by posting. Plenty of others who can contribute meaningfully.

"if it was the dh..." honestly, why do people bother to type out such shite. It isn't the dh, it is a child. Stop making things up.

Dp has a daughter and you have described her to a tee. Exactly the same behaviour from an early teen to present day. She is now 31 and still treating the whole family the same, spoiling days out, threatening behaviour, downright horrible day in day out.

She was diagnosed with bpd and npd.

Both parents and wider family acknowledge that she was spoilt. Mainly by her mother, Dp stepped back. Her mother won't stop buying her things as she thinks that is how she will fix her. She attacked her mother recently, so the mother bought her a new phone.

Time for some tough love Op.

@Tootsey11 generally BPD comes from some deep trauma from childhood, I don't think someone can get it just from being bought stuff, and NPD is generally based on by one or both parents, if they are selfish / self-centred themselves. But they are generally quite separate.
Hope she finds some healing. The last thing she needs is 'tough love' tho.

Not 'based', *passed on

I hate my 15 year old sons personality too. We mostly just ignore eachother unless he needs something. It’s sad but he has to learn to be nice and I refuse to be dragged down by his negative energy.