Want to explain my mane and really need advice

[horridmum]

I am a lurker more than anything else. I started a thread some days ago and just as I got to the end I decided not to post because I guess I was still irritable and possibly still in anger. Now that has subsided and I now have a quiet house and am settling down with a glass of wine. So will try and be as calm as possible which is what I should be except for DD1. She is a challenge to me anyway. I don't even know how to start things.

We have always had a difficult relationship. No matter what I say she will not do what I ask her and she knows how to push my buttons all the time. The other three are no problem at all, it is just her. She angers me to the point of screaming. She annoys the others. She is loved by all others outside of the home, a typical "street angel, home devil" and it maddens me to call to her friends houses and their mums to say "oh she is such a good girl" when at home she is a total nightmare.

I end up screaming most of the time at her, something I don't want to do but I just boil to a certain point and then it is just explosion time. DH is always telling me to ignore but it is difficult.

I do love her to bits but I really think I am in danger of ending up hating her and that is an absolutely horrid thing to say. And I worry about her going forward, she is 9 now so what will she be like in 2,4, 6 years time unless we can resolve things.

I try my best but it just isn't good enough. I feel so hurt when she says the most horrid things to me and I end up feeling so guilty when I let off at her.

This has been ongoing since she was about 3-4.

I am at my wits end, I have tried the nice approach, the praise, the time out, the withdrawing priveleges but it is an "I don't care what you do" attitude.

Why is it just her and none of the others, where have I gone wrong.

Sorry I didn't mean this to be so long. Just thinking aloud.

errrrr. go into another room and count to ten.

or say darling at the end of every sentence to make it sound nice

Or you could sell her on ebay?

you know I love her to bits and I know she loves me but it is just so fraught - I could count to a 100 at times Custy

count to 10/do 10 jumping jacks
take a time out with cup of tea
growl in a way that makes you laugh at yourself

Sometimes these work for me if I catch myself on the verge of blowing up. But mostly I don't realise I'm about to explode with rage until I'm screaming like a banshee, so I do sympathise. I think the key is to recognise that a row is brewing and take action to prevent it but it's a lot easier said than done really.

I'd take a smoke if I smoked LOL

But thanks cousin, Custy and Mummy

I guess I am not alone

Will try yours Mummy next time

Though when they are all fighting I can't handle it. So maybe I should go to the back of the garden whilst they sort it out.

Just another ? do you let your kids sort their own arguments.

Just never know if i am doing right.

i make them kiss and hug each other if i get involved - they hate it

So I am not really as horrid as I thought as it seems, looks like I am not the only one .

No, you're not horrid, change your name!

just lurking really

but I think such lovely advice from custy btw

thoughtfulmum, I think I might have been your daughter - maybe not as early as 9, but most definitely later. The relationship was sort of like a mutual allergy - not that we actually didn't like each other, it's just that we were both hypersensitive, even to something like an imagined "edge" in the other's voice - and once triggered, neither of us knew where it was going to take us, or (worse) where we would end up if we backed down. So exhausting.

I really don't think she did anything to create the tension - it was more an inherent clash of chemistry. So please don't blame yourself.

But I do think, looking back, there were ways she could have been more of the grown-up in it: not saying things like "oh, you're so sensitive" (when it was so demonstrably a mutual sensitivity); not caring so much about being "right" - that's a legacy I wish I didn't have; letting me have to take the consequences of my actions instead of saving me from myself so much; making jokes of things. Giving me advice but not minding if I didn't take it!

For us, the pure saving grace was/is her sense of humour, which always used to pop up again in the end. I think there is a book for kids called something like "How to Manage Your Parents" and I think it says quite a lot about humour. Don't know if that helps? I feel for you.

Gosh Binkie, it is nice to see it from the other side. I could be your mum. We aren't always fighting but I know it is my tone and choice of words that causes the problems. I start off being reasonable but then it is the answer back that kicks it all off.

I try so hard to be calm but a button too far and it is like an explosion from within. Like a firework when its wick is lit and it just keeps creeping until the firework goes off.

I don't mean it but it just happens.

Could you try carving out an area of your lives where she is the one who decides what gets done/how, so she is one in control and tells you what to do? Like, I don't know, a herb garden or something.

(I have noticed that nowadays my mum and my MIL both "manage" me by asking my advice on things. They probably think they're being ever so subtle and clever, but I can see what they're doing. Obviously it works.)