DD13 called us f****g idiots. I'm fuming

[BrieFree]

I have nc'd for this.
DD13 and I have a complicated relationship. I have always struggled to show her affection and the love she deserves. DH fortunately is a great dad.

We have a severely disabled child too for whom we have to really fight for so that she gets support with therapies etc.

Anyway we were trying to get DD13 a smart phone- her first one. DH had chosen a few in our budget but she absolutely hit the roof, saying how ugly and awful they are. We are talking about pretty good Samsung phones.

She started hitting DH, then hitting her own head, then called us twats, told us to f off and said we are f*g idiots.
I told her to get out of the room and she told me to shut up .
I told DH that we are no way getting her a phone for a long time.
I want to give her a screen ban (she has an iPad and a laptop) and ground her for a week.

But tbh, I don't know if that's right. I feel such a rage and yet I blame ourselves for raising dd to be so entitled.

I do struggle in my relationship with her and counselling points to my own difficult relationship with my mum. In fact, this goes back to my grandmother and great grandmother - all had difficult relationships with their mothers.

I hate that I am perpetually angry with her. I don't feel like this towards younger dd. I want to show her love.
What is right to do in this situation?
Only helpful answers please. I don't need criticism as I get how upset dd must be. DH says she picks up on my irritation.

Drama? She has tics, self harms, and has expressed suicidal thoughts to her parents. This is a girl crying out for help, not bloody drama.

I'm asking for help here too.
I don't know how to be the loving mother she needs .

As someone who grew up with a disabled (younger) sibling and watched my parents prioritise my sibling and themselves before me - I completely empathise with your daughter.
13 is a tricky age as it is. Navigating that with a disabled sibling and an emotionally unavailable mother is fucking HARD.
She sees you with her sibling and wonders why she is not worthy or good enough for your love. Let me tell you how absolutely soul destroying that is.
Please work on yourself and your relationship with your daughter as a priority or you will absolutely lose her.
Have a google of the meaning of ‘Glass Child’.
For the record, I’m 52 and I still struggle daily to reconcile with my childhood, my upbringing and I resent my disabled sibling. That’s not easy to say but it’s the truth.

Thank you for sharing this. I don't know what 'working on myself ' honestly looks like in practice.

Being maternal hasn't been instinctive and yet I'd love to have a closer relationship with my dd and I can see she her rage but the counselling I've had hasn't helped me too much.

One counsellor pointed out that I was not in touch with my feelings and that I was emotionally stunted. I can see this but there was never any progress made beyond that.

I think what I can do is every two weeks take dd13 out to do what she wants.

It sounds like she is having a really hard time. As someone who had a difficult relationship with a mother who was emotionally unstable and therefore emotionally neglectful and at times abusive I can really emphasise with where she is at.
I think you need to step back from any form of conflict with her if you can’t set your own anger aside. Her being violent and shouting isn’t ok. But it does sound as though she hasn’t been heard nor her emotional needs met.

I agree with other who say please look at the bigger picture. She sounds like a child in distress. Hitting herself, tics, 'joking' about killing herself, aware that she has a mother who doesn't love her as she should, a mother who admits that she's 'perpetually angry' at her. Come on.

Stop indulging yourself by allowing yourself to remain fuming over this phone incident and give her the help she needs.

I’m really sorry but that isn’t enough, or the answer. You need to get her assessed by a medical professional.

If cost is the main issue, you can get refurbed older iPhones (most look similar once a case has been put on, no one will know!)
13 years is such a difficult age at secondary school. Friendships / hormones and it also sounds like she is dealing with a lot at home,

OP you do sound negative when talking about her make up, hair, style and her school! Why didn’t you choose a school together? You are saying she choose the school herself?! Have you spoken to her about all of this, actual calm talking and listening to each other?

Shouting is her way to get your attention, she needs you.

Why have you struggled to show her affection?

I am a fairly firm parent and really believe in keeping rules and boundaries, but the blasé way you have described your lack of relationship with your older daughter is really very different to how I feel about my children and step children.

It is going to have affected her, in a quite profound way.

In this case I’d just get her whatever phone she wants.

There is a bigger picture. Your child needs you. And you, with your limited resources, are going to have to try and be there for her.

It’s a tough situation and I say this with sympathy but you need to gather up yourself to give her the love she needs: it’s not about the phone.

And she is, isn't she. The problems of this family extend far beyond a bit of swearing.

You have to put aside your own feelings about your parents - they are clouding your relationship with your daughter and I would suggest you also need independent therapy to get past that.

Having a disabled sibling is extremely tough and she is displaying her emotional fragility by self-harming and I expect the tics are a symptom of a deep-rooted anxiety. Happy children don't make jokes about suicide.

The language is a problem but she is acting out and I suspect is desperate for you to set boundaries, to listen to her and actually support her.

I would compromise on the phone; we bought DD13 an iPhone but it was a refurbished one. I wasn't prepared to spend £600 on something she'd potentially lose/break and she was delighted with it (and it cost £200 I think). Maybe go back to the drawing board and use this as an olive branch.

On an aside, being allowed to wear that much make up but being put in 48 hour isolation (which sounds Dickensian) for a forgotten bag is completely crazy. Has this been raised with the governors??

Being the loving Mum she deserves…it’s not taking her out to do what she wants, it’s loads of little things.
Curling up together with popcorn to watch something fun, you putting a hot water bottle in her bed before she goes up, making her cups of tea/hot chocolate for no reason, showing how happy you are when she returns home every day, remembering her minutia of her friendships, running her bubble baths, playing a boardgame together, cooking together and chatting, complimenting her not just on looks but on personality and work ethic, drawing ketchup hearts on cheese on toast for her for her lunch to make her smile…the list is endless and teens will take a lot of it without seeming to appreciate it but that doesn’t matter.

I’m a firm parent, and I had an incredibly scary Mum who never once showed affection and I wasn’t allowed to touch her my entire childhood, but I refused to have that go down another generation…we have silly times and fun and my adult children all are secure that I have always loved them as I’ve shown it in every way I can. Do things even if you don’t feel comfortable doing them, they get easier and tbh even if they don’t your DD deserves your effort.

You do know how to be a good mother, you've already said you do everything and have great love for your younger child so remember, the love is there. Start small but give your dd some time, love and attention she needs. Could your dh take more time with the younger sibling and free you up for your older dd.

None of us came with guidelines on how to be a good mother, but you can work on it. Move past your own relationship with your mother and move forward. Don't let that be a crutch you keep coming back to.

Why would you even contemplate punishing a child that you have pushed to the edge through emotional neglect?

You’re her mother. You need to stop navel gazing and step up. Fake it even if you don’t feel it.

13 year old girls can be really difficult. I had this, during lockdown with my DD. I would never tell her this, but it was so bad I think it contributed to my divorce.
I don't even want to think about those times now - but I will tell you that I tried the authoritarian approach - banning her from screen time, taking her phone away - and it never worked, it just made things worse.
My therapist helped me to see things from her POV, and it revolutionised our relationship. I feel so bad for being the mother I was then - all we did was lock horns. My relationship with my DD is very strong now.
A bit of empathy for her - she's not stupid, she can tell your feelings about her, she can tell you're prioritising her sister. She's not mature enough yet to understand why. She doesn't want the Samsung - kids all have iphones IME. She has low esteem and doesn't want to be the kid with the crap phone. Show a bit of understanding, even if you can't get the phone she wants.

You need to spend quality 1 on 1 time with her. I appreciate that may be difficult with your younger child being disabled, however you and your husband need to work together to facilitate this. But taking her out to let her do whatever she wants isn’t the answer. It’s almost like bribery.

Your daughter is a glass child. Read up on it - https://www.ousiacounselling.co.uk/blog/glass-children-the-invisible-siblings-of-trauma

You need therapy. I am pretty sure that your daughter will pick on the fact that you don’t love her the way you should. You need serious and urgent professional help to work through your issues.

You also said you don’t understand why she wants to wear makeup and fake eyelashes. I’m sorry but are you from the Victorian times? Most teenage girls are occupied with their appearances and experiment with makeup and beauty at this age.
I really do hope you aren’t outwardly judging her and making her feel shit about this.

I had a similar outburst over a console when I was 13. I had a strained relationship with my mother like your family, but had a lot of material stuff, as you say your DD is well provided for materially.

For me, the source of the anger was along the lines of - ok so I don't get my emotional needs met, but at least I get xyz stuff that I want, and that sort of compensated a bit. But now I can't even get the version of the console I wanted, does this mean that now I just get nothing forever? Have they stopped caring about me completely since I stopped getting the one from of affection I'm used to?

I'm sure it came off as me being "spoiled" but I'm a very non-materially focused adult. I never have an answer to "what do you want for Christmas" as I never really want anything.

I did eventually build a better relationship with my mother but it took years of effort. The only thing that helped was blocking out time once a week to do something together and do it every week without fail. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, we mostly just watch TV shows or YouTube channels together and then chat about what we watched over a meal. But knowing "I get her full attention for 4 hours every Wednesday evening" and being able to trust that it won't be flaked on let me start building general trust and to open up a bit. Reliability is far more important than stuff or fancy experiences.

It’s not really about love at this age. Your DD knows you love her but probably doesn’t believe you like her.

Kids want to be liked and need to believe you enjoy their company.

Things I would suggest. Work on the underlying irritation first - in the sense that you work on making sure it doesn’t manifest outwardly to your DD. A good exercise I’ve found for that as someone who has struggled with the same thing at times, is flipping my interpretation of events and behaviours. We often interpret things in the worst possible way, when it would be just as easy to interpret it in a more empathetic l way.

So make it a game in your mind and verbalise those more positive/ empathetic thoughts - she screams at you- she is hurting and really needs help and it’s good she’s communicating that in any way she can. She takes hours to do her makeup and hair - she’s not shallow or obsessed with her looks, she takes great pride in her appearance and could be a talented makeup artist/ hairdresser.

In terms of connecting with her- take genuine interest in her interests. Do you know what makeup/ skincare brands she likes? Have you asked her to teach you? It’s not the big days out but the little moments of interest that shows her your care and actually find her interesting. I know almost very Pokémon known to man- do I like Pokémon? No? Do my kids think I like Pokemon? Yes. Because I pretend to be genuinely happy for them when they find a catch a rare one so that I can stay part of their worlds which are becoming increasingly independent from me

Also humour to diffuse a situation. Often before things blow up, making a joke or just smiling at your own reaction and acknowledging you may have overreacted can prevent things from escalating.

I do think this is urgent and your daughter is crying out for help. I think your task over the next few weeks is to step into her shoes - you are asking her to walk in yours, her sisters’, but you need to really step into her world and try to understand her deeply so she can open up to you before it’s too late.

You are getting a rough time on here. I applaud you for acknowledging you need help. That is the first step. I have no advice but sending love.

If this is one off behaviour I’m not sure punishment is the way to go, talk to her find out what’s going on. If this reaction is not normal just talk to her- punishing her will only push her further away (especially if you say you don’t love her like you should), she’ll be picking up on that.

This. Some mostly really sensible advice from posters here for a change.

@BrieFree also why can’t you buy her an iPhone!? What difference does it make if she has an iPhone or a Samsung- is this the hill to die on for you? Especially if for once your daughter feels special and chosen by you for once- it would be worth the money to give her that feeling, especially if you say you know your lacking in that department.

Samsung and most other brands ARE smartphones! They're just not Apple ones.