Feel hurt by my 11 year old

[StunningandBrave40]

My daughter is 11. She’s bright as a button. Kind, funny, sparky, but recently we’re seeing some moods etc. Nothing out of the ordinary. She has some big changes coming up. Secondary school etc. I try to pick my battles.

She is an adored child, to put it bluntly. Shes the centre of our world (she and her little sister, who is 7). I try to give her some independence and we’ve gradually increased this over the last year to a level we’re both comfortable with. I do find this difficult, to be honest, but I allow and facilitate it anyway because I know I shouldn’t let my anxiety hold her back.

I also have a full time, full on career. I scaled it right back for years when the girls were small, worked part time and even took a step down so that I could be around for them in the early years. I ramped it back up when they went to school and now I’m full time (but work pretty flexibly and can work from home a couple of days each week so I’m still around). Its really busy and sometimes I have to work a bit in the evenings to keep up etc. but I think I have always put the girls first.

11 and I had a row tonight (well, she was rowing, I was trying to calm her down). Over nothing really - basically I really need her to go to after school club with her sister tomorrow (for 40 minutes) and she doesn’t want to.

Well she hit the roof. She said some pretty hurtful things. I don’t trust her, I should never have had children because all I care about is my job. She hates me, her life is crap, she doesn’t want to live here any more and when she was away at Guide Camp she realised how unhappy she was at home. Her friends have much better lives, all we do is nag and moan, hates her sister etc etc.

I tried to get to the root of it but got nowhere. Eventually I left her alone to calm down and now she is asleep. I can’t sleep. I feel awful. It’s so fucking hard, keeping the plates spinning, and clearly I am failing her somewhere.

I don’t really know what to do with this.

I'm torn between saying 'buckle up love' as the mother of 14, 16 & 17 yr olds and feeling sympathetic because they can be hurtful.

The good thing about parenting teenagers is that they do have a sense of time and logic so not every conversation has to be immediate and you can be honest with them. Learning to trust your kids to keep themselves safe is really hard and you've never done it before and you're going to misstep sometimes. You need her to go to after school club tomorrow (today!) and I expect that has happened, maybe with a big row or something, but you can talk about it afterwards and say that you trust her but you are new at having an independent kid just as she is new to being one so you need to tread this path together carefully, and work out a future plan that works for both of you. I think admitting you don't know everything buys you a lot of leeway with older kids. Good luck! Buckle up!!

Par for the course unfortunately, stay very neutral, don't get drawn in to her arguments, she's just venting her anger because she feels old enough to be on her own at home, and you, quite rightly, don't agree, that's what makes you a good mum, making sure she is safe Sit with her when she is calm and discuss how she could maybe have some small freedoms going forward, but maintain your boundaries.

If this was today and you’re in the UK then if she is in year 6 she would be sitting her SATs this week?

In which case I would be tempted to go easy on her as she is likely to just be releasing some stress when she comes home each day and anything will trigger her.

Once SATs are over I think then is the time to pick up any behaviour.

My kids try this with me. I am a single parent and if they want to have all the perks that they love then unfortunately that comes as a trade off. I work from home so I am here but sometimes I do have to work late and they have to entertain themselves. I've adjusted and sacrificed a lot for them but I won't be made to feel guilty for working to keep us clothed and fed.

I also love working, and I regularly tell them that while I love and adore them I am a human being and I enjoy working hard in a job I love. Don't feel guilty OP teenagers suck.

sometimes when you disagree with someone and it’s going round in circles it’s helpful to pause and say let’s tell each other what each others argument. So you’d go first and say “you’re annoyed because you don’t want to go to kids club and you feel your life is boring compared to your friends and you wish you were doing more fun thinks like going away on trips, but mummy’s at work late in the evening which is no fun” and then on her turn hopefully she’d say “you are annoyed because you want me to go to kids club because you’re worried about me in the house and your at work not having fun”. And it helps to show the other person you’ve listened and understand what you’ve said. And even if you don’t resolve it there and then you’ve shown each other some empathy

Well. She went to after school club and came home full of the joys today. So it can’t have been overly terrible in the end (and I took them to the shop for a sweetie when I picked them up, just to smooth things over a bit).

We will discuss the way forward. I accept that she can’t go there any more. She only has a few more weeks of school left now anyway.

No SATs here, by the way.