My daughter is becoming horrible to everyone

[attheendofmytethernow]

Hi,

So my daughter is 11 coming up 12 soon. Recently she's becoming terribly behaved with bad attitude, nastiness and overall very gobby to the point you could say the sky is blue and she would say it's yellow- that's how bad and petty it's becoming.

She answers back to everything and always thinks she knows best. I'm at the end of my tether with it and seriously don't know where I've gone wrong. She was always nice, polite and kind to people.

Now she's mean to other children, she seems to get pleasure out of annoying other children and winding them up.

Has anyone else had issues like this when they're preteen? She's started developing- no periods yet.

Her period may be due any day ....
Not an excuse for bad behaviour etc but if a usually nice pleasant child changes , it can be due to hormones . My dd is 12 , am absolute darling of a child , but last week or so she has been very testing , short tempered , whingey ... yesterday she started her period for the first time . Normal service has been resumed , she seems back to normal now .

Sounds like a typical pre-teen/teenage girl! I'd blame hormones like the PP above. Has she started her periods yet?

No she hasn't started her periods yet. I can remember being naughty and testing for my parents but I don't believe i was ever this bad. It's very hard to handle.

It's been going on months now, I have tried every punishment going. But she isn't bothered. Taken her phone off of her, less Christmas presents to normal, no sleeping out when being naughty, no tablet/laptop, banned from tv etc everything, and yet she continues with the bad behaviour. I feel like I've been using hormones as an excuse for her behaviour for years- some little bits of the bad behaviour started when she was 9 but nowhere near as bad as this. I don't know what to do next.

Oh I was pure bitch. I really didn’t have great control over my rage and anger at everything for no reason. And my parents were too kind and diplomatic to tell me to get out of the room if I couldn’t be respectful.

The thing is that it must make her feel unhappy, too. Everyone knows how rotten you feel if you're being horrible to other people. She must know some people are avoiding her as a result.

What does she enjoy doing? Does she get enough exercise?

Most children go through this
There are some really good reasons why - hormones rapidly increasing - and some great articles that helped me understand and cope
I'll try to find them
Be right back

This article was freaking awesome and really helped me understand their brain and how to approach outbursts

www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/well/family/how-to-help-teens-weather-their-emotional-storms.amp.html

To quote from this article:

"Early in adolescence, the brain gets remodeledd_ to become more powerful and efficient, with this upgrade retracing the order of the original in utero development. The primitive regions, which are just above the back of the neck and house the emotion centers, are upgraded first — starting as early as age 10. The more sophisticated regions, located behind the forehead and giving us our ability to reason and maintain perspective, are redone last and may not reach full maturity until age 25.
While this process is underway, young people are put in a rather delicate position. Though they tend to be highly rational when calm, if they become upset, their new, high-octane emotional structures can overpower their yet-to-be upgraded reasoning capacities, crashing the entire system until it has a chance to reset."

This following article has some great practice advice on how to respond - for example "you sound frustrated - do you want my advice or do you just want to vent ?"

www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/drama-queens-whats-really-going-on-in-a-teenage-girls-head/article28549947/

In short, I've found (and I have a 14 and 15 year old in my house so it's all stations go around here) the best reaction is to stay calm - super calm - super hero calm - and say "how can I best help you with that?" I do stand firm in manners though and frequently say "I want to help you but I can't if you continue to disrespect / be rude to me" or "we can disagree and I respect that you gave your own opinion - we don't have to agree on everything - we do have to be respectful though" and "come talk to me when you've calmed down and can speak to me with respect - I'm not going anywhere"

When you face their irrational awful disrespectful behavior with love they tend to have the wind taken out of their sails

Hope this helps

Oh and sympathize and share your experiences growing up - it's helps them to know that you've been through it and that they are not alone

@HollowTalk it doesn't seem to have any affect on her that people may avoid her or that she's hurting anyone else's feelings. She just says well they shouldn't do this or that. Like it's a game or a constant battle.

@LadyBrienneofTarth thank you for those links I'll be sure to have a look through as I definitely need to find a solution. I'm going to try the very calm responses etc and see how that pans out.

Fingers crossed. She is belittling my decisions as I write this reply... 😠

@HollowTalk yes she does enough exercise she takes part in activities 3 times a week and they're all part of her hobbies

The calm loving responses throw them off guard as they are looking reasons to be upset

Even if she initially yells or throws it back at you, keep up the "you can yell at my all you like but I still love you - when you are ready let me know if you want to talk or how you need me to help"

I knew when I saw this that she'd be the same age as mine. No advice but much sympathy and .
Watch Better Things. I watched it with my DD...bits of it are inappropriate but it opened up a fair bit of discussion and helped a lot!

Sounds daft but are you sure there is nothing else going on and this is her way of communicating she isn't happy ? You mentioned it started around 9 , was there maybe a change in home life , school friends , death of a relative ? It could be that there is something else and she hasn't the age or maturity to even realise it herself . Agree with pp too , sometimes to be kind and loving in spite of what's being thrown back at you can catch them off guard and may open up a discussion about their behaviour and it's effect on others ? X

Thanks for your responses everyone. A lot has gone on in the last two years as we've moved house and schools etc. But she likes her school, has made many friends and she is happy at home. I just think she's got so much going on in her head that she's arguing with everyone over nothing for that reason. If there is ever any issues at school she tells me straight away which is great, we do/did have a great bond and she feels able to talk to me which is nice. She's at the "I know everything" stage.

She is happy to discuss tasks and nice little ideas with us, but can snap immediately if we advise her of something that wouldn't work for instance when she's saying it would. I discussed this with my mum and she has been saying since she first started being like this (9 yo) that she'll probably end up with her periods soon.

I will try watch the film that was recommended too with her and see if it sparks discussions for us.

It's not s film, it's a kind of comedy series about a single mum with 3 girls, think its on Bbc iPlayer. Just lots of parts resonated so we watched a few together...pick your episodes, some of it really is inappropriate!

@attheendofmytethernow

Sometimes you just have to let them learn by themselves - as long as they are not going to be put in harms way, often it's better to let them get on with it than argue with them that's it's a bad choice (because you know nothing and they know everything)

I use often "let me know if you'd like to talk about different options" "or I'm here if you want to talk through the choices you have" or when presented with something you disagree with "yes that's one way to look at it, I have a different way" or "yes I can understand why you see it that way, would you like to chat through how I see it?"

It's about giving them space to think through issues rather than providing all the solutions for them - hard to do but often quells the screaming

Thanks @Mokepon I did wonder when I'd wrote film if it was a film or series. Also good luck with your daughter. It's so hard when they're going through this isn't it.

@LadyBrienneofTarth thank you for all your replies, you sound so cool headed with this situation and I haven't been completely cool headed I've ended up in arguments with her over trivial things. Im definitely going to try a much calmer approach and see where that gets me. She may just need someone to listen to and talk to and be her friend at home (she's been grounded for two week for bad behaviour) so hasn't seen her friends (school hols) she's not all bad. I just need to find a way to bring out all of the good and caring side again.

LOts of useful advice here. My daughter is younger (just 10) and acts young for her age but we’ve started working through the ‘my hidden chimp’ book which seems to be helping her understand and (hopefully )control her reactions and behaviour.

It’s also helping me as my main issue (and one which I can only imagine will get worse as she gets to teenage years) is that I react too much to her behaviour and struggle to maintain the calmness that seems to be needed

I was your daughter OP. The worst reaction for me was a calm one. As in when they shouted, it fuelled my rage more.

I couldn't shout when they were indifferent or calm in my rantings. It's a horrible age tbh. Don't take it personally. The closest to them are the quickest to get the wrath.

I was never nasty to my friends either. Just family.

@attheendofmytethernow

Hang in there
I learnt to respond with love and calmness - it didn't come naturally - I've had 5 years to practice so far - and sometimes I just have to walk to another room or around the block or lock myself in the toilet

Yes, the calm approach is definitely one to aspire to but not always the easiest.
We had a rough few weeks recently so I backed off hugely, whilst not putting up with backchat etc, and at least the house feels a bit more chilled out. Removing the fuel so to speak.

Mine is a massive churn of emotions so I'm finding letting her work it out them come and talk to me/sob and have a hug is mostly working. Not always!

My friend has a daughter a few years older so I feel not so alone. You're not alone either, op,we'll all.make it out the other side somehow .

Thank you everyone. Yes I think she is just wanting me to add fuel to the fire so to speak by shouting st her etc when I'm not happy. Yesterday wasn't so bad after all she seemed pretty ok. I kept calm throughout the day and she was helpful towards the evening when I had toothache she was caring for me, kept asking if I was ok etc which was nice! I saw a nice side to her again. Thank god!

Make sure you acknowledge the good behavior "thank you so much for xxxxx - it really helps me when you xxxxx - I can see your really growing up" or similar

When they get good feedback on the good stuff they are more likely to do it again