bitchy nasty 13 yer old duaghter

[febel]

any advice please..I have a child who seems to be turning into a very nasty catty bitchy 13 yr old. She is upsetting all of us, including my 20 yr old who is home from uni at the mo (and saying she will be going back soon to escape her sister).altho to be honest she reacts too much to her sister to my mind. Do I just ignore the 13yr olds bitchy comments and behaviour when she is being so nasty and bitchy to us all? She is mouthy and aggressive, has had me in tears and makes me feel like dirt. she is the youngest (other sisters are 18 and 20) We include her in our stuff, like tonight when we had friends plus their older kids round but I have got to the point of not wanting her to be around at all cos everything is a battle or an aruguement or a catty ocmment. I have told her to try and be nice, watch her mouth etc, but am aware I just seem to be naggin her/telling her off. what can I do..do I just ignore ita ll? she really is upsetting us all and never had this with my other tow at all.

Pretty normal really - "Street Angel, House Devil" is the old saying I think?
My DD went through this stage, up one minute, down the next, door slamming, moaning and whingeing. My DS just got very "grunty" and uncommunicative.

They grew out of it............ so will yours.

I suspected that with our DD it was centred round her cycle.
Try a diary/log and se if the behaviours co-incide with her periods or before them?

It's cycle related here too I'm finding!

Satan so glad you found my post amusing. Its good to know that whilst I'm sitting here sobbing and pouring my heart out people are thinking its a 'spoof'.

vicar you are right, DH is posted abroad hence DD going to boarding school. She was here for 2 years but didn't settle and wanted to return. She genuinely loves it there but believe me, it was the hardest decision I ever made sending her back. Where I live now is not the place for teenage girls.
I have wanted to return home for a while now but it is a vicious cirle. If we return DD will have to leave her boarding school and she has made it very clear she doesn't want that and of course I don't want to interupt her education and can't move her mid-way through GCSEs.

Thefeminist I had to stay at home with the youngest two and as I can't (by law) drive here DH has to take to the airport and deal with visas etc. Of course I would have loved to have taken them but not possible in the circs.

For what its worth, I do try and do nice things with her and want to spend quality time with her. I'd arranged a few times for us to go out this week when I'd got someone to look after the youngest so it would be just us but she wouldn't get out of bed
Why is it you spend the first 10 years trying to get them into bed and then the rest trying to get them up?

Before all this happened last night I had already told DH I wanted to go back for a few weeks at Easter and fly DD back at her half term so I could try to spend more quality time with her

ilovetiffany thank you for your kind words, you had me in tears

OMG You live in a Muslim country, no wonder your dd hates coming home. I assume you're there for your DH's work.....no amount of salary is worth living in a place that you have so few rights.

i didn't find it funny mumoverseas. it sounded spoof like in that i couldn't believe it was for real because it was so classic. maybe you just didn't communicate it well because it sounded like i've done so much for her, i spend lots of money on her so she should be happy.

one of the joys of being home and on school holidays is being able to stay in bed. the time together doesn't have to involve going out and fancy things - just normal homeliness is maybe what she'd like. let her sleep in, say wow you're really tired, what was term like? take her in a cup of tea/coffee and sit on her bed and talk to her whilst she wakes up.

you know - intimacy. i'm guessing that's what i'd miss of family life rather than days out and money and stuff. being able to lounge around in pj's and just be normal and relax and get used to each other again and not feel like you have to put on some performance.

sorry you found my posts harsh but i think they were also constructive if you look at them.

watch a dvd of her choice after the little ones are in bed. keep it simple and easy and let her be a bit. get to know her. maybe she's changed a lot and finds it hard to reconcile that with her relationship with you now. i don't know.

again, sorry if i was too harsh. the devil child business really gets my back up.

MOS - I think it is very telling that your dd seemed happy for most of the holiday & only started acting moody when it got close to time to leave. You obv can't alter the living arrangements now, maybe just have to accept that whilst she loves her school she misses you all & that is manifesting in her behaviour.

I wonder how much money would have to be thrown at me to make me want to live over oceans to get to my children....ah I know none.

What about your dds father MOS - Is he in the UK? Could he or another family member visit her regularly? Am not being judgy but can't help thinking she may be feeling pushed out of the family (even if that's not all true) iyswim, esp with teenage hormones raging...

judging by some of the posts directed towards mumoverseas, obviously some girls never grow out of the bitchy phase

oh the irony of using that face to call others bitchy.

if you just see your daughters as bitchy they'll not grow out of it so much as learn to treat you like a stranger who doesn't care how they feel. someone to put an act on for. tiring.

not nice thefeministparent, you dont know the circumstances.

frm what i have gathered - MOS had her daughter with her abroad, her daughter wanted to go back. i'm not sure what i would do tbh, if i had taken my family to live in a nother country and my daughter hated it so much she begged to go back. I IMAGINE in that situatin, you can't just up and leave and come home. Plus, frm the posts where MOS said she isn't allowed to drive to the airport, it sounds like a strict Muslim country, and she didn't think it best for her daughter to be there. Something non of us could know until we actually lived it for a while - and hindsight is a great thing isn't it.

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on a general note, i think ignoring the tantrums is quite easy compared to ignoring how much their thoughlessness hurts.

My son, drives me nuts = he is 17. at home he is great wonderful brilliant. i got up today and he made me a brew - i didnt even ask him too.

in public - hes a twit, on xmas day in front of the inlaws, he acted like a 3 year old - i could have died.

we had a spat a couple of days ago - and he took all his gaming stuff - packed it up and stormed of to the bedroom - after dh and i both had a go at him for taking our things.

it was an impromtpu 2 min shouting match.

the next day he left a note on dh's desk telling him that he was 'being arsey' LOL

we then had a cht where i said that the way we REACTED was wrong and i apologised as did dh. however i made it clear that the subject matter of the argument, still remained. THEN HE APOLOGISED. ver civilised.

DD1(19) was like this when she was younger (she still has her moments when pushed!) the main triggers were hormonal, tiredness and too much going on in the house that wasn't focused on her

• febel perhaps your DD's older sister being home from uni is changing the dynamic in the house a bit and unsettling her. We get an escalation in arguments when DD1 comes home just because all the DCs are getting used to each other again.

• Mumoverseas we all fall out on holiday at some point(DD1 stomped off in Busch Gardens in August after a massive row about where her and DD2 had wanted to sit on a rollercoaster) because we aren't used to all being together all the time. The change from school to home must be difficult in the short Christmas break especially after all the problems with flights and getting your DS and DD over to you in the first place. After several years of falling out with DD1 and getting upset I realised that it was better to just work on my reaction to her behaviour and not get wound up or escalate things. DD2 is a sulker and so she gets left to it and the number of confrontations are much fewer.

mumoverseas

I'm 34. I adore my mum, always have.

I was an absolute heller as a teenager. Grumpy, a moody old cow. I was also at boarding school. My choice too. Oh and I LOVED it there.

I think it was because I could try our a horrid persona with my mum, or something. I knew she would love me no matter what - it was 'safe'.

Sorry you have had some unpleasant responses on here - obviously some other posters have had bad experiences in their youth and your post hit a nerve.

But I wanted to post to say it's not always because they are reacting against something you are/are not doing. I loved my mum and I knew that she loved me, she was / is a wonderful mum and I was a horrible teenager anyway. I think I was about 17 when I snapped out of it.

Hope you are OK. Did your DCs make it home for Christmas in the end? I was following the Heathrow thread.

Durrr. But obviously not closely enough! I see from above that DD was one of the DCs who came home for Christmas!

No raw nerve, just can't imagine why anyone would move to a strict Muslim country in a world where you can avoid such places. Only Oil and therefore money makes one take such a foolish move....not enough money in the world that would make me give up relative freedom for myself and certainly not for children. Tis materialistic and plain wrong.

TFP - perhaps she or her DH is military - there is no choice over where people are posted.

I have four DCs and I think a great deal of this is luck.

My eldest two (DS now 22 and DD now 18) had their moments as teenagers, but nothing that I couldn't handle.

DD2 (now 14), on the other hand, was truly awful. At 12, she was a sweet little primary school child - hardworking, chair of School Council, nice little friends who came to tea and danced to High School Musical.

Six mths later, and at secondary school, she was rude, bitchy, catty, argumentative. Sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. Hanging out (and having sex with) older boys. Underage drinking and smoking. Shoplifting. Cannabis. Found out my PIN number and stole £500. Got kicked out of school for repeated fighting and swearing at teachers. I am not making this up.

There are no magic answers. I cried buckets, went to the GP for stress, and begged social services for help. They offered me a place on a parenting course (which was useless - designed for parents who needed basic help - eg: don't put coke in your baby's bottle or let your 3 yr old watch snuff movies).

The most useful thing I did was to get her some contraception (an implant - v. reliable, tho doesn't protect against STIs).

Eventually (after about 12 mths) she just grew up. She's still a pain at times, but the stealing, drugs and drinking have stopped. Her tantrums are much less. She's back in mainstream school, and has a really nice set of friends.

Adolescence hits some children really hard. Girls can be dreadfully nasty. Don't beat yourself up about it. Keep repeating "And this will pass". Grit your teeth when others boast about their perfect children.

MOS - Remember teenagers will be teenagers whether they are at boarding school or not. Teenagers at day schools are equally likely to behave badly - no child is perfect all the time. My daughter was a boarder and is now at university and I have been through this too.

I think it is true to say that as families with boarding children we get a concentrated burst of family time which can be great but also we can get a concentrated burst of bad behaviour. For children at day school this type of behaviour can be drip fed over weeks whereas we get through a whole myriad of behaviours in one holiday!! As Mothers we can only do our best. It is not an easy decision to send our children to boarding school; for our family and for yours I am sure it is the best option. Those who have not had to make this decision really can't imagine what it is like hence the slightly thoughtless comments towards you.

I hope things improve soon and that you will be able to skype her soon. Good luck.XXX

breathedeeply Your post gives me hope. You could be describing my DD, even down to the school council thing. She too has had a complete personality change and we have had the smoking, drinking, and sneaking out of the house. I know they come through it, I have a 21 year old DS who was a breeze compared to DD. But it is so hard when you are in the middle of it. We are walking a tightrope between giving her boundries and allowing her the freedom that she needs.

I have a 13 year old DD too. I agree with Cybil, re-iterate that you are on her side, that you love her and can't understand why she is being like this.Try and find out why she is so angry with you and her sister. Explain that you want her to be happy and not angry but their is only so much you can take of being her punch bag. There will probably be an underlining reason. What are her friends like?