help. so angry at dds i stripped their room

[okheregoes]

my dds have been obnoxious madams for months now. Constantly screaming at each other, calling each other names.

Their room is vile. They have clean and dirty clothes covering the floor amongst who knows what rubbish. They have their lunch bags up there going mouldy.

I got to the point of telling them to constantly clean it so i told them to live in it.

Only now i have just found my makeup in there ruined. My mobile in there broken been trodden on where they cannot see the floor. My psp has also just turned up having been trodden on.

I am so fecking angry its untrue. So i have just stripped their room of their tv/ dvd their karaoke machine and all their bits and bobs. They have no respect for anything so why should i let them have anything.

I know when i calm down i will feel guilty but right now i dont want to even see them.

They are 12 and 14 by the way.

Oh, I am feeling your pain right now, just reading this. I've got a 12 year old, who at times has no respect for me what so ever. You have handled the situation so perfectly. This is a wake up call for them and they need to know it.

When you've calmed down, sit and have a family chat and explain you are not a door mat to be walked over and despite what they think, you do love them very much. Every when you have cleared the air, don't give them their stuff back either! If you do, they'll do it again and they need to know that you are sticking to your guns, even if you have made up.

If you think you're going to crumble, come back here quick! We'll stop you!

Good luck and be assured you are not the only mother of teenagers that walk all over their parents at some point or another.

Just had a note given to me by my youngest dds

Sorry mum you can have my ds.

Now im crying thinking i have been so horrible to them

Ah! Don't you give in to those puppy dog eyes though! Not yet!

You have not been horrible to them. They had it coming, particularly as there was stuff of yours in their pit which they had destroyed.

You have NOT been horrible to them! THEY have been horrid to you! They are both old enough to understand right from wrong and its about time they started to realise that its not all about them.

Stay strong. Hug and love and talk, but tell them in the nicest way, it doesn't change your decision. They will not be getting their stuff back for however long you choose. They've got to learn.

okheregoes - sounds as if they have been pushing the boundaries, but now they know where the boundaries are; no doubt you have given them a bit of a fright, but then you gave them plenty of chances & they didn't listen.

I agree with collision about having a conflab & telling them what you expect. But also, it is their room - so long as the clean clothes are put away & possesions treated with respect, etc. I wouldn't expect it to be pristine - I know mine isn't! But I have had to have sharp words with dd after she took my makeup without asking & then lost it in the mess of her room. Someone told me to pick my fights, in other words be really strong on the important things & let the others go, otherwise you end up as just a nag.

Just one more thing; when I was 15, one day my mother went completely berserk. She tore down my David Cassidy posters, threw my stereo across the room at me & ended up tipping my wardrobe onto the bed. I can't remember what sparked this off, & looking back I think she may've suffered with pmt, but the upshot is that she looked a right prat and I just thought she was pathetic. She went too far. As has been said, do not let yourself get out of control.

i know im not pmt at the moment.

I dont expect their room to be pristine but i expect some level of tidy with clothes i have spent ages ironing being hung up.

I,ve had many a discussion with dd1 about constantly taking my stuff without permission down to trying to sneak my trainers out this morning to do pe in when she has 2 pairs of her own.

I carrie dthe karaoke machine,dvd and tv out their room as that the most expensive and heaviest but the rest i made them do it.

Its strangely quiet in their room now they are not even talking so maybe they are actually thinking about what they have done. That or just think mums a bitch and i hate her

Do you think its time for a calm chat now or are you not up to it yet?

i have ds to settle then im going to talk to them.

i just hope thsi has gotten through to them. dont want to be in this same situation 4 weeks down the line.

I'm a way off the teenage years yet, so what do I know - but:

a) you are not being horrid to them. Horrid would be to let them get away with this behaviour (and not to grow up into lovely polite young women)

b) at 12 & 14, can they not do their own ironing?

Hope it goes OK. Stay strong, stay in charge and remember, you are not the first and you most certainly won't be the last to have to take drastic action to rein in their teenage LO's!

I have no experience of this situation whatsoever but just had to say that it sounds like you handled it right - maybe you were not as calm as you would have liked but you're human! Just don't cave in and give all the stuff back in one go - if you've never been this tough before it might need a good few weeks for the lesson to sink in that you are not a doormat. Hope you're feeling better about this soon.

Well its good they know they have done something wrong. Its also good that you have shown them what they can expect if they dont pull their weight. You as a parent are there to guide them and show them their boundries and quite simply that is what you are doing. there is no need to feel guilty, not at all. you are simply showing them what is and is not acceptable. I would if you can manage it sit them down and explain that what they have been doing is totally unacceptable. If they want their stuff back they have to earn it. They do X Y and Z a week to help you. in return you do X Y and Z. Make it like a contract that they agree to.

Children although they hate it need boundaries and they have pushed them. Explain that it makes you upset and sad and thats not how you want to feel about them and their behaviour. Tell them what makes you happy and how much you appreciate the little things they do to help you out.

I know its not easy but you have done the right thing

Two years ago I did this with my then 4 year old oldest son. I took all his toys from both his room and the living room, bagged them up and put them in the shed. It took him a month to earn it back. I never had him squibble with his then 1 year old baby brother over toys again.

I took DD's phone and laptop away from her last week, in fact I do it a couple of times a month! The first time I did it, she was without both for a week, now she knows I mean business and 24 hours is all it takes. Her friend phoned her on the home phone last week and asked her to go on MSN and she said, 'nah, I'm not allowed, because I threw a wobbler earlier. ' She was completely fine with it, she knew what she'd done and she was paying the price.

we had a little talk. They both came downstairs and apologised. Told them i appreciated the apology but did they understand what they were apologising for? DD1 said yeah cos our rooms a mess and we broke your psp. Then before i could answer they started arguing between themselves again.

Told them to go to their rooms and come back again when they were ready to talk to me and not scream at each other.

5 minute later dd2 is scraming cos dd1 dug her nails into dd2 arm. Why because dd2 called her a pig.

I told them i was done being referee. They had their room emptied and still thye cannot stop. So i sent them to their room and told them if they wanted to hurt each other and call each other names then to carry on. But for every name called every scream made that was another week before they could even beging to earn their items back.

There pocket money has also been reserved to but me a new psp which they will not be allowed to touch. I do not want a psp as it was really for them but to teach them to share. But i will stop their money until they have repaid what it would cost to replace the psp. They need to learn things do cost money. I dont go in the back garden and wait for the money fairy to visit every night with a wad of cash.

I really apprecaite everyone advise tonight but i am so mentally drained i am exhausted and im having a soak in th etub and an early night.

Lets hope tomorrow brings a more peaceful day!

Thankyou all x

well done!

Stick it out!

just think what would have happened if they had apologised, you gave them back their things, they kicked off again!

They kick off whether you are nice or not! Rewards might be a thought for good behaviour.

have a nice bath.

Good for you! I'm sure they're not bad kids really, they just need a little bit of a reality check at their age. Lets hope this has given them a big enough kick up the bum, to realise that!

Well done for staying strong.

They should put away their clothes - have you thought of going on strike and not washing and ironing anything? They should also ask permission before they borrow anything of yours and take good care of it.

On the bad news front, you probably won't ever get them to stop name calling or kep their room that clean and tidy.

Enjoy your bath

You might consider writing a contract for each of them, and putting down everything they must do, and how they can begin to earn their belongings back. Itemise everything, including behaviour, jobs etc and get them each to sign a copy for you and one for themselves. It might sound OTT but kids are very good at either "forgetting", "misunderstanding" or "misinterpreting " what has been agreed. A signed contract can be referred to if there is any disagreement.

I still have the contract I wrote for DS1 at about this age. Whenever he argued I just reminded him that he had agreed and signed up to it.

I remember reading on an american parenting site about a teenager whose bedroom was so awful, and she refused to tidy or clean it, her parents took the door off. It worked almost instantly. When standards and behaviour improved, they put the door back on again.

I'm not surprised you felt drained. Hope today's a better day

I think you have done the right thing. Sometimes things get a bit out of control and you have to take that control back. Howver, I would expect a bit of arguing between siblings close in age - what I do now is to ban certain words, then if they start to argue, send them away to do it out of earshot of me. Obviously if they start to physically hurt each other, intervene. I would ground them, or take some privilege away, but try to do it calmly, if there's any physical stuff.

Don't tell your mum and dad if they undermine you. they're your children and what you say goes.

I think you have done the right thing. Sometimes things get a bit out of control and you have to take that control back. Howver, I would expect a bit of arguing between siblings close in age - what I do now is to ban certain words, then if they start to argue, send them away to do it out of earshot of me. Obviously if they start to physically hurt each other, intervene. I would ground them, or take some privilege away, but try to do it calmly, if there's any physical stuff.

Don't tell your mum and dad if they undermine you. they're your children and what you say goes.

I wasn't being critical of you, just trying to show that you are right to step in now, take action & discuss it, rather than, as my mother did, let it build up & then lose control, without spelling out what she expected of me. (It was to do with untidy bedroom but I couldn't understand what the problem was - it wasn't that bad.)

My twins are forever arguing. It drives me nuts. A friend also has twins who argue all the time but she doesn't let it get to her, just calmly tells them to go & scream at each other elsewhere. I am trying to emulate her