Violent Teenagers

[mrkc]

My 15 year old daughter has a terrible temper. She goes crazy if we dare to say no to her. She kicks doors, walls and throws things about the house. She has smashed my oven door by throwing an object at it in temper. She also hits her sister and hits both my husband and I. We are at our wits end! She is very polite outside and can change her behaviour within minutes if someone comes to the house. She also, swears constantly (which is also getting us down!) and continually calls us abusive names! She can be ok for days , sometimes weeks and we think "she is growing uo" then again it all starts. Any advice?

I have had all this behaviour from my dd who is now 20yrs .
Clamp down on her evil violent temper, and tell her you will not tolerate her violent outbursts any longer. Of course she has to express it when she is angry, she can verbalize it by saying "I am really really furiously angry and i am going out to get away from you lot and cool down" etc etc, But, she must not be allowed to throw things and smash up the house. My DD has broken stuff and i have been furious. Infact , we had a horrible outburst only about 3 weeks ago, when she was upset she had no money to go out and see her boyfriend, and she pushed a large mirror over in her room and smashed all the wooden frame . I was livid, and i knew her anxiety levels were very high before she did it. She did apoligized and said she didnt mean to do it and didnt mean to hurt me .

You MUST at times say "NO", you cannot be held to ransom for fear of her outbursts. Let her go mad, let her kick off/scream/swear/ have her hissy fit, and WALK AWAY. Create as much space between you as possible. Tell her you will talk later when she has calmed down. BUT under no circumstances allow her to break, damage things in the house. If she wants to go and kick a bucket in the garden or chuck something out of the car (school bag etc) let her.

My advice from being there??

Call the police!

It sounds awful and it is not right for her to hit you. Perhaps you should call the police if she does it again.

I must admit I would want to hit her back and so would my DH. There is no way I would put up with my teenagers hitting me. This is where the not smacking children thing really annoys me. It seems it is acceptable for them to assault you but not the other way around.

Faced with violence from DS (who had taken drugs for an extended period and who was on a rapid downward spiral) I did call the police and it did help.

Partly because it was an admission that I could not cope. It shocked him enough to make some changes.

Yes, in our case it resulted in youth offending team getting involved

And dd loved the police so much she now wants to join up herself!

Thanks everyone for your advice!

Are you sure there aren't hormonal problems? What does she have to say about it when she's feeling okay?

She is disgusted with herself and apologises! Good point x