HI All,
I'm hoping to get some ideas/perspective/a grip from this thread. My lovely DD (12 in a few days) has for the past few months become progressively more rude, aggressive, disconnected and generally a bit of a nightmare to an extent that feels beyond usual tween / teen stuff. She has started her periods which may account for some of this but it pre-dates these. She is permanently glued to her phone and hysterical (screaming) when separated from it. Her profile at school (graded for attitude to learning) has fallen from mostly Bs with a. couple of As to mostly Cs with a couple of Ds. I have raised this with the pastoral care lead for yr 7 and he has been supportive but none of her teachers have real trouble with her, she just isn't getting on. Her friendships are very intense and driven by drama. One friend is in care and often has crises of different kinds. Another friend is often falling out with the group.My DD is very invested in it all. She is very focused on one friend and we have many arguments about my limiting her number of sleepovers at her house.
She does typical tween things at home- nicking my make up, pinching treats from the cupboards and freezer and refusing to eat proper food. She is slim, not under/overweight. A few things though have now brought matters to a head. A recent longed for and much needed family holiday was basically destroyed (to the point we wished we had not gone) by her relentless search for decent enough wifi to talk to her friends and never ending fighting with her brother. They shout, hit, scream at each other. My DH has said he will never go on holiday with them again and I found that I couldn't even go for a bathroom break for fear of all hell breaking lose between them. The fighting is also endemic. She is constantly winding her younger brother up for the pleasure of watching him pop, which as he has anger management issues (and we are waiting on an ADHD assessment) which his primary school are helping with and which he has started to take control of, is cruel. I work from home a lot and the post school period between 3.30 and 5 is dominated by my apologising to colleagues for the sounds of my children arguing in the background. We used to go to places at the weekends - for example the beach, or local attractions, but the idea of being in the car with the kids rowing there and back has put a stop to this. A couple of weeks ago a row between her and her dad escalated into her physically hitting him, which was so out of character.
She clearly aspires to be one of the ‘bad’ kids (after all the primary school reports we got emphasising what a sweetheart she was and a pleasure to teach). She delights in telling me that she would be violent back to bullies for example, and bad mouthing her (as far as I can see quite nice) teachers. She has started adopting a fake 'rough" accent to emulate one of her friends and insists on being caked in make up to go to school.
I’m a little desperate and can’t figure out how to move forward. Does anyone have any suggestions or tactics? Or am I making a mountain out of a tweenage molehill? Thank you if you have read this far!