Am at a loss to how to deal with 13 yo stealing

[applebananagraphs]

My dd2 is 13 and I have no clue how to deal with her. I have tried everything, reminding her, telling her off, explaining to her why its not right, all to no effect. Grounding is nothing because she rarely goes out with friends, and its impossible to remove her phone.

She is really rude, like insulting and hurling personal attacks at her 16yo sister and me. Every night when we have dinner I get called a useless cook and she criticises everything I cook and refuses to finish her food.

The thing that bothers us most is she has the habit of stealing from her sister and I. She uses dd1's perfume without permission and she messes with her stuff. I strongly suspect she has stolen my money before and she definitely steals my skin care and make up from my wardrobe. I have no clue how to deal with her

I don't like the sound of your DH and I think you are ignoring the bigger picture here. You are both her parents so if counselling would help you should get equal say whether you are a stay at home mum or not. You should also have equal access to money and the ability to spend it as you wish within reason.

You have a cold DH who doesn't care about things and who you are afraid to disagree with or spend money without his say so.

I acted out around this age because I was desperately unhappy. She needs someone to talk to. You also need to invest in quality time together but I am guessing your DH also won't fund that.

There is an issue that you're left to parent your children alone for 9 months of the year but do not feel that you have the right or the wherewithall to purchase a lock for a bedroom door, or access counselling for one of your children, who is very clearly struggling massively, because your DH won't like it.

That is clearly a parental dynamic with issues, please do not presume that it is not obvious or affecting your children. It's clear for me to see from here that something is askew. You need to get help for your daughter, this is not normal and should not be left to continue, she needs support that she is not getting from her parents. If you can't work this out for her, you need to find someone who can.

@BarbedButterfly cross posted, but absolutley you're on the money.

Wow. Maybe time for you to be a parent then?

Grounding is nothing because she rarely goes out with friends, and its impossible to remove her phone.

She is really rude, like insulting and hurling personal attacks at her 16yo sister and me.

Every night when we have dinner I get called a useless cook and she criticises everything I cook and refuses to finish her food.

She uses dd1's perfume without permission and she messes with her stuff.

I strongly suspect she has stolen my money before

she definitely steals my skin care and make up from my wardrobe.

If I take her phone She would scream, punch the walls, and would cause destruction to my property and it would end in physical fight

With the exception of the last comment, which I would certainly look into, I am looking at a rude and thoughtless teenager. (Surprise!) Maybe you had an easy run with the eldest.
I am not condoning her rude behaviour, but you are dramatising this. She is 13, 'stealing your make up', for heavens sake. You are a big part of the problem.

Teenage behaviour is not all to do with neurodiversity. It is normal teenagehood to have a brain with messed up wiring.

Smart phones cause ADHD like behaviour too.
It is more and more recognised that they are causing problems in all sorts of ways for children.

Love and clear boundaries, including about the telephone, matter a lot.

If your DH is away nine months of the year then, frankly, he doesn't get a say in whether you buy locks for the doors or look up counselling - he's basically an absent parent.

I also think you're greatly underestimating the impact an absent father is having on your daughters - of course your 13yo isn't close to her dad, he's never bloody there. Are you really not putting two and two together?

The fact that your 16yo seems fine is totally irrelevant btw - all children are different and cope differently with their parents not being around.

Do you not think the kid is already doing a great job of that? Take the phone off her 100%.

There are elements of me in your description when I was around that age. I was probably less confrontational but I did a lot of stealing. Mostly shoplifting but sometimes other things. It’s often said that stealing is for the thrill of it, or because of selfishness or entitlement and while that may be true in some cases it wasn’t for me.

I’m several decades beyond that now and have done a lot of reflection and the bottom line is that I was unhappy. I would steal little trinkets and they would make me feel happy when I handled them and looked at them.

There was no single thing that caused my unhappiness. Looking back I can see clearly what was wrong with the situation and I feel sorry for that girl. Fixing it would’ve meant my parents facing up to things that they really wouldn’t want to face and accept responsibility for. But I resolved it myself by moving out to a city 2 hours away at age 16 - not something available to 16 yr olds these days, I know.

Oh. And to add. I’m really glad we didn’t have the phones then. I agree that that they are massively problematic, I believe the parents who tell me/I read who say that they need to be dealt with and that it is really distressing to sort out.

Of course you can make her, just take it when she is sleeping or not in the room. Get her a non smart phone if you want her to have a phone for security.

Not normal behaviour at all. I would see the GP for a referral to CAHMS.

"Finance is the problem here as I am a stay at home mum and I don't want to make dh mad as he provides for us"

Your DH is the problem I would start with. Your DD needs help, nothing in this world would stop me accessing any help I thought might benefit my daughter no matter how angry it might make her dad.

It's your DH that's the problem, being away 9 months of the year means that he's barely around to parent yet he financially controls you from afar and blocks any steps you could take to help your daughter like disapproving of counselling.

I think you have a very big DH problem and your DD2s misbehaviour is the consequence. Seriously OP if taking her phone off her makes her violent and she's stealing she desperately needs counselling and intervention. Xx

Take care

My advice to you is to Self refer to CAPA first response, they have a free very specialist service to help with exactly the problems we were talking about. I have been through their service and it has helped me stop the issues for my child and I after us being in absolute crisis

I can see a number of mistakes you are making in your approach, your general resistance to solutions, the way you’re talking about your husband, refusing to give you a 16-year-old a lock on her door, … The situation is likely to get a lot worse if you don’t change all of this.

These sorts of problems tend to surface when kids hit adolescence so that’s the big change that happened at 11, hormones and individuation

you are the adult here, you have the power to change this. Your daughter is still a child and is lashing out. Because she is unhappy and you seem to lack insight in what life is like from her point of view. If you simply punish her without addressing the underlying issues you will damage your relationship with her and probably escalate what’s going on

How do you spend your time with your kids OP? What do a typical school day and a typical weekend look like for you and your DDs in terms of time spent together?

Is she having problems at school? Is she like this with other adults, or just you?

You shouldn't have to sneak it off her!

Honestly we take DSD phone off her when she's been in trouble in school / not done as she's asked / spent too much time on it. Yes she has a meltdown sometimes but so bloody what?! She's a child and you're the parent! Let her have her tantrums, scream and shout. Just get your other DD out or in a safe space and let her let rip. You have shown you are in charge, not her!!!

I remember having epic meltdowns when my mum used to disconnect the landline when she'd asked me to come off or when I spent too long on the internet and she would come and unplug the cable (the good old days 😂). We still had the best relationship ever and I came out of my teens knowing how to behave, that I needed to stick to rules and that there would be consequences for my actions!

Of course you can. Stop being wet.

She isn't having problems at school except for me hearing from other parents that she can be mean sometimes. She isn't like this with other adults, just me and sometimes dh when he is around.

So @applebananagraphs, have any of the range of suggestions or advice given in this thread so far felt helpful to you?

This makes it less likely that it’s ADHD or similar- she is only lashing out at those she loves, and is able to control her behaviour around other adults.

What you’re hearing will be the tip of the iceberg. So whatever she is doing is worse than what you’re hearing.

You have to parent her. You won’t take her phone because she has a tantrum. You won’t make her replace what she takes. You won’t put in any consequences. You’re failing her.

It might be hard but parenting is hard sometimes. You still need to do it.

Op, I'd be way more concerned about her eating. You say she isn't finishing meals, is she a healthy weight? Please, please take her phone off her, she sounds so like my sister who was trying to stave herself from this age. It just got worse, only your child has access to the Internet and a hole host of information on how to do it. I'm so glad my sister didn't have that.

I would be very worried about what she is accessing online. Ask for help from your GP and remove her phone.

My kids who are teens have had it drilled into them that their phones are a privilege and any misbehave they will be removed and replaced with a brick phone. DS 13 has had his removed several times for infringements to the rules. He wouldn't dare kick off about it. You need to be the parent and put your foot down. She may kick off to start with but you need to put those boundaries in place to protect her. The Internet is not a safe place for teenagers.

I disagree. Our DD's teachers tell us she is a model student. In fact, they wouldn't even know she had ADHD unless we told them. But when DD is home--it's a whole another story. She admitted to her psychologist that she keeps her feelings pent up till she can get home and unleash on her family. Her doctor explained that she does that to us because she knows we will tolerate it and will love her no matter what. We are her safe space.