Anuta, I totally agree with your post. Dealing with teenagers is very tough, tough for a parent, certainly tougher for a SP. It is tougher because there is something missing that helps parents and that is unconditional love. So whereas parents will indeed lose their rag, this will be balanced by a feeling of love and faith in our kids. We might anger our kids but this will be balance by us at other times, doing things to make them feel worthy of being loved. It's like teachers. The problem is when you get to the point of such exasperation that all the focus is on the negatives and a feeling that you have nothing left to give to the teenager to make them feel good about themselves. When a kid gets to the point of believing that they are hated and reminded how unlovable they are, they respond by being rude, uncaring and ignoring.
Of course there are kids who we are just never going to like no matter what. I can think of three children of my friends who I have never felt anything positive for even though of course they are adored by my friends.Its just the way it is. If they'd been the children of my partner, I just wouldn't not have continued thexrelstionship because the like of anything positive for the kid would haveinevits ly got in the way of our relationship.
This is about kids who were pleasant or OK and turn into teenage monsters when even as a parent, it becomes a real challenge to like them. I totally agree about not having the internal resources to deal with it, it's really tough. Even as a pare t, I felt really helpless when I was first faced with it but what I learnt that totally changed my way of dealing with it is that as I struggle more and more to like my DS, the same happened to himself, he too find himself harder and harder to love, and it's that self loathing that made him an aggressive, rude, unpleasant twat. It was almost as if it was easier to act like that to validate how he felt about himself.
I tried the strict, disciplinary, punishing approach and it was a disaster because all it did was make him withdraw even more into himself and his self esteem took even more of a dip. It was actually showing him that whatever his behaviour, whatever he threw at me, whatever he thought of himself, I still love and believed in him and gradually slowly, he started to see good in himself and believing that maybe he wasn't a lost cause. Its taken some time but he is now starting to show appreciation for what I do for him, not because I expect it but because he is not so focussed on his internal misery any longer and can start to look around him. His thank you are now genuine rather than just blurted out.
Speaking with other parents who had difficult kids and friend teachers, this is all too common behaviour and indeed, seem to be more common amongst kids from seperated household who struggle to feel they fully belong to the two families they share.
I'm a person who wants to resolve problems, but I didn't feel that I could just ask SD to take time away from her phone and ask her what happened with her feelings. I wouldn't even know how to go about it!
I know, it is so hard to speak to them because it's the last thing they want to do. I used to ask ds to do things 1to1 thinking that's what he wanted to do but he would just refused and it infuriated me and hurt my feelings that he would rather stay in his room but continued to ask and incredibly, one day, he's the one who came to me and ask about us going out for dinner just the two of us. I made sure when we did to only talk about the good things to make it a pleasant experience. Since then, we go out once every 3 weeks or so, he is always up for it, we have fun, he is pleasant, polite and thankful and it is now even himself who will bring up some difficult conversations.
It takes so much patience and understanding and yes, how can step-parent be expected to have it when it is enough of a challenge for a resident parent? I only post because I strongly believe that when you are faced with difficut teenagers, being strict and demanding can often have the opposite effect and if that's the case with a parent it certainly will be with a SP. This is why partners can appear weak because they know that the best way to go a out it is to focus on showing their kids that they understand and respect their turmoil rathercrhsn confront it.
That's why I think that if getting invested in trying to be patient is just too much of a ask (rightly so), the best attitude to have is one of not getting involved. Not ideal but better than growing mutual apathy and resentment.
And yes, hormones certainly play their role! I'm going through the menopause and I feel like I'm 14 again! Thank God my OH is being patient with me. It's not me, I don't know why Ive gone from a confident self assured adult to someone with low self esteem and who doesn't like the person she's turned into. I know it's not me and I'll come out of it but the quickest way to do so is to have my OH support that despite being grumpy, miserable, moody and the rest, instead of expecting me to sort myself out, he reminds me that I'm still worthy of his love and affection. So yes, I think I'm in the right state of mind to understand what my DS goes through although he still infuriates me at times!