I hit my 16yr old daughter

[crapparent]

again. I slapped her face, grabbed hr hair and was really rough with her.

She is regularly so rude to me and shouts at me. I lost my temper, I know it is no excuse but when she is rude it hurts me so much and i lost it. I dont know what to do, this cannot happen again. DH on business trip. DD is being cold with me nd thinks I need to apologise to her. As I walked away from her, she also hit me on my back. This all happened yesterday evening.

DCs don't want to feel grateful they have a privileged lifestyle-they have no control over it.

Getorf, yes thats the point also. I am feeling very emotional, she will be fleeing the nest sooner rather than later. I cannot bear to think about it. This time together is so very precious and I spoiled it big time. I hope we see eye to eye now as I thought you were being rotten to me and i see that you werent really.

Yeah, completely pointless to tell teenagers they are lucky . They don't feel lucky, they feel uniquely put-upon, misunderstood and beset with existention angst.

I know exactly how you are feeling - it is awful knowing that you only have a couple of years left and then they will be off.

BUT - you can't tell her that. Sje cannot be made to feel guilty that her mother is having mental turmoil at the thought of her leaving. I thinkl the best approach is encouragement for her to spread her wings, and to leave without a backward glance, but all the while knowing that she can come home any time.

Oh I don't know really, I am just making it all up as I go along like the rest of us.

But don't think that it will necessarily ruin your relationship - apologise fully, then just park it mentally and move on. She will be miving away from you - dd goes through episodes where she will NOT talk to me about anything, just wants to talk to her mates - and I think that is normal. It is not a rejection of you and your ways.

I know you probablty think it was rude for me to say to get therapy and of course what the fuck do I know, but I still think it might be a good idea to talk to someone about how your esteem seems to be bound up with what validation you get from others.

The only advice I can offer with stroppy and arsey rudeness is just to be zero tolerance about it - say if you say xxx I will take your phone away for the day/switch the internet off/you are grounded one friday. If you sit her down when all is calm and just set the boundaries like that you can follow them through, and she can't argue. When dd acts up I warn her, and if she carries on I just say calmly 'I will have your phone please'. She will slam it on the table and retreat huffing and puffing but it does work, she has a think (she has to, she wants the bloody phone back!) and calm is restored. Just short sharp shocks really, like you do with toddlers.

I hope all goes well with you both, I really do.

I meant existential angst, obviously.

I just want to say, I have read most of this thread, and Mamazon, your posts are amazing! Alemci made some insightful points too. As a parent of a withdrawn 15 year old, I totally get OP's difficulty dealing with a child who says little and when they do speak, it is mainly "I don't know". I don't hit my son, but I would never condemn someone for momentarily losing control when dealing with a teenager. Take the time to read through the useful posts again OP, as they have helped me see where I sometimes go wrong, and I think they will help you too.

Dumbledor.

I have to say I completely agree with GetOrf. I don't understand why it's OK to hit a teenager (and pull her hair ffs, how old are you?) but not an adult. I'm sure there's a backstory, but for goodness sakes, do you hit your husband when he annoys you?

When I start panicking at the thought of my dd leaving home I tell myself that that won't be the end of our relationship, but that it will still make an enormous difference to my quality of life if she stays in touch and is happy to see us.

I am 47 and am still very close to my parents, speak to them on the phone every week, spend my holidays with them, always think of them first if I have any good news. And I do think the reason for this is that they made it easy for me to grow up; I don't have to feel guilty about being an adult with an adult life to live. If I did, I think I would hesitate before picking that phone up.

I know this took a massive effort from my mother, not to let me see how upset she was when I left home.

They would not have accepted rudeness but that was because rudeness was wrong and nobody should accept it- it was part of the standards they had for their own behaviour too. Their take was always "you have to behave well because this is what decent human beings do", rather than "we gave you love and privileges so you owe us". It was a much better basis to build my adult life on, and it also meant they never had to hear (spoken or implied) the obvious answer "I didn't ask to be born into this family".

Privileged is always relative anyway. My grandfather would probably have thought your childhood privileged because you didn't actually have to eat the bark off the trees and would no doubt have told you so at length (as he was rather fond of doing), but would it have made you feel any better? It never does. For anyone.

Lovely posts cory.

I agree with cory. Parenthood is about gradually letting go and 'easing off the apron strings'. You then end up with a lovely, close relationship where they come back because they like spending time with you. If you treat them like a precious ornament, wrap them in cotton wool, don't give them independence, responsibility and space they are forced to 'cut the apron strings' and once away, stay away because they don't want to get sucked back into old childhood patterns.
As a DC they have no control over the sort of childhood they get, you are providing one to the best of your ability, in many cases it is better or more privileged than your childhood, but you can't expect gratitude or appreciation. Looking back ,when older, they might give it.

Some of your posts do seem a bit extreme, OP. Everything is super-brilliant or mega-awful (in fact, dare I say it, a bit teenager-ish). Perhaps your DD doesn't like to engage with you because she never knows how you will react; she doesn't know which mum she is talking to - will you fly off the handle or smother her in kisses?

Teenagers are sometimes horrible precisely because they know how much it hurts their parents. It is one of the few controls they have. The more you let them know their barbs have hit home, the more they will do it. When mine get horrible I usually diffuse it by laughing at them. It totally takes the wind out of their sails.

PS how are the exams going. You haven't mentioned them at all which I find strange.

I have a 16 year old that literally describes 'seeing red' in those moments when she loses control, it can become quite impossible to communicate and she seems like some sort of monster. We had a patch where she was really quite aggressive as she was growing and started using her size in these situations to intimidate me. A couple of times this led to 'scuffles' between as we confronted each other. I was extremely distressed by this at the time, it was not how I was with my parents and I felt huge resentment at the lack of respect and her apparent desire to hurt me. At the same time I felt ashamed at my own loss of control as I had just joined her in her shouting and pushing match, lost the high ground and was left shaking with rage. It is very easily done if two similar rather volatile people let it.

Give her time to cool down and stop beating yourself up so that you can sort this out and move forward. Don't expect sympathy or understanding from her at this point, she is a teenager. We have a rule in our house that we never go to sleep on an argument, so sorry has to be said pretty swiftly. We found trying to discuss the detail often led to another argument so we went for conflict resolution and agreed terms:
1 Hitting, pushing, any physical intimidation is wrong
2 Shouting is not OK
3 If shouting starts she should take time out and not be engaged with
4 If she is prepared to talk reasonably she should be listened to properly.

We got there, it took some work but most of the time the red mist is dispersed and she is becoming the passionate warm human being I hoped for. Sounds like that's what you will have in the end. Good Luck

I too have a very difficult daughter at times, she's younger than yours and I have wanted to hit her. Remember that your love and approval are the most important thing to her in the world, despite how she behaves. CAn you do things together, like watch telly or a game of cards? I find I can connect with my daughter by doing stuff like that. I think you need to forgive yourself for what happened and forget about it, you're not the first parent to hit their child, and it doesn't mean that you are not a fantastic parent, just a little blip, and we ALL have blips.

Same has just happened with my 17 year old. He has bn getting really cheeky recently with friends and family. Just got in from work & fed up with him sleeping all day & out all night. Had a big arguement which led to me slapping him round the face. He has left the house in a huff. Not sure where he has gone or when I will see him again. I feel really bad but am at the end of my tether