Really hoping for some advice. I feel I'm at the point of giving up on even trying to discipline my daughter; I wonder if it might be less tiresome just to let her carry on treating me badly and count down the days until I can ask her to move out! Awful thought, of course, but at the moment i really, really don't like her.
She's happy at school. She's nice and polite around other people. It's only me she treats badly. She's an only child and I've always been a lone parent. She's never met her dad (but we've always spoke openly about him and she has expressed no desire to track him down so I don't think her behaviour has anything to do with that) and we only see extended family at Christmas time due to living far away. It's pretty much always just been me and her so I can understand the feeling of getting fed up of each other 12 years later!
She calls me names on a daily basis - ugly cow, fat loser, tramp, lazy (I'm none of these things! I'm active, fit, healthy and take pride in my home but she's started to give me a complex!)
She doesn't do anything around the house and when i ask her to, for example, put her dishes in the sink she will SLAM them in the sink and say things like, for god's sake, do you ever stop nagging? Why don't you do it yourself if you're so bothered?
She will mimic me in an unflattering way when I'm on the phone to someone, she will roll her eyes whenever I'm speaking, she will call me stupid if she hasn't explained something properly and I don't understand.
I spend my evenings doing housework. She gets home half an hour before I do on school days and the house is again a tip: she leaves her clothes scattered around various rooms, rubbish from loads of food she's eaten in 30 minutes since returning home (yogurt pots and spoons on my couch.carpet, banana skins, orange peel etc - healthy stuff so it's not as if I can remove snacks). She leaves dirty tissues lying around, leaves taps on, doesn't close doors behind her (we live in a very old cottage and doors need to be closed to retain heat in rooms).
She used to be very intelligent and in top sets at primary school. This year is her first at secondary and parents' night was a shock. She is failing class tests that I didn't even know about, she isn't doing homework (she doesn't tell me about it), she chats to friends in class and is constantly being told off by teachers and getting moved because she is disrupting others. She's struggling in her middle set class. Since hearing this, teachers have now kindly started emailing me about upcoming homework and tests (though not consistently so there are still some I'm not always made aware of). I have set up a timetable for home for my daughter to revise through the week with me so I can support her and get her up to speed with where she should be but she HATES it. She gets even more abusive and tells me first years at secondary doesn't even matter and i'm forcing her to do work she doesn't have to do. She has no ambition for a future career and just isn't motivated to do well. She refuses to join any of the lunchtime supportive study or extra curricular clubs which might help her with her classes as she says they're only for 'losers'.
I have tried so many things since August to discipline her: banning electronics, going on strike, stopping pocket money, making her stay in her room and not allowed to be in my company, giving her a list of chores, asking my sister to speak with her, stopping her from going on sleepovers and days out with her friends. Anytime I implement these 'punishments' she throws a bit of a fit then goes ahead and silently accepts them. I tell her they will continue until she apologises and i believe she's sorry. But she shows no remorse. She says that she'll say sorry but it doesn't mean she is sorry. She's just so stubborn! She will go on like this for days even weeks.
And of course I've also tried sitting down and talking to her about how she is making me feel. But she just doesn't listen!
It's the emotionless/lack of remorse responses that get me. She just doesn't seem to care that she's hurting my feeling and always argues that she is justified in talking to me badly because i make her do it with my nagging and stupidity.
I'm worried she's going to go really far down the road and become absolutely uncontrollable. We've now not been speaking for two days due to her latest tirade of screaming and abuse which resulted in me telling her to stay away from me until she can treat me like a human being. She said she'll need to stay away from me forever then as I'll never be human! She's just gone off to school telling shouting the first thing she's said to me since yesterday: "Hope you have a crappy morning off!" and slammed the door.
Her swearing is another thing that is awful and something she can control as she only does it around me and not her teachers or friends' parents.
Her group of friends are so nice and doing well at school. And my daughter is a different girl around them. It's me that seems to be the instigator of her nastiness.
Sorry for the ramble but I'd be grateful for any help/advice I've realised that punishments which go on for days and days have no impact on her - she stops remembering why she is being punished. Things have to be instant and permanent to have an impact but then does that give her chance to redeem herself?
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My 12yo is awful to me and shows no remorse.
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NCForDaughterQuestion · 12/02/2020 08:21
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