15 yo Daughter hates me

[Scaryfeet]

So today my daughter is supposed to pick her brother up from school, as arranged. She's 25 minutes late according to the school, her brother and my watch from the last time the school rang to say she's just got there.

Anyway, she's adamant the school is wrong and she is right, as usual. I ended up raising my voice and telling her off for arguing back when she's the one in the wrong. She storms upstairs and I knew she'd open up to her bf on facebook so I logged in to see what she's said about me. Probably not the best idea but I've worked so hard in the last year and given her so much leeway to try and improve our relationship and I wanted to know if it paid off. Anyway, she's wishing me dead, wishing she didn't have to live here etc etc.

I know teenagers go through this, but she shows absolutely no hint of love towards me or her brother and hasn't done for years. She cringes if I go near her. I've tried the whole talking to her thing, listening to her. It hasn't helped at all.

I've told her I've seen her facebook messages and that if she hates me that much we should just stay away from each other. Also probably not the best thing but I'm so hurt. It's always me that does the apologising after (minor - we never have rows) disagreements. She never, ever comes to me to make something up.

I don't know what else I can do. Having a teenager is the hardest thing I've ever gone through and to be quite honest, I can't wait until she finally moves out. No one has ever made me feel as bad as she does and has done for years despite my best efforts. I know I'm not perfect and people will say to go talk to her, but she's becoming an adult, isn't it time she learns how to treat her own family?

Now I'm calm, my instinct again is to make peace and aplogise, tell her I know she needs more support and freedom. Give her a later coming in time etc etc. But I do this often and it doesn't help. She has no respect for me at all. Also grounding her, being strict doesn't make any difference. Is what I've done really so bad to get that kind of reaction??

So sorry to hear she's making you feel like this. Have you tried replicating her behaviour? It's really really difficult but I find that not getting upset and being very cool to my DC's when they are really at their worst often disarms them more effectively. Next time she asks you to pick her up, be late, tell her that her watch is wrong and see what happens.

Hang on in there, I would like to say it gets better but honestly, this week the light at the end of the tunnel for me is a train lol

Thanks for your reply. She's not seen me upset (Hid in the bathroom and cried like a baby though). I really feel like she needs to realise that other people have feelings too. She loves all of her other family, her dad, her nanna etc. Just me and her brother she can't stand.

We rarely have any kind of confrontation and she probably needs to express the normal teenage anger. I'm not the kind of parent who will take being spoken to like a piece of crap and she knows that and doesn't do it. I'm okay with her venting to her friends and if this was a one off and I felt she was just angry, I wouldn't be so bothered. But I actually believe she feels like this towards me all of the time. Her actions certainly show it.

If you can show your worst face to your Mum and she still loves you then the world is okay .I was a real bitch to my Mum when I was a teenager and she is my best friend . Don't read her fb messages anymore . It is not worth upsetting yourself with her hormonal rants . I like the idea of a taste of her own medicine . Your watch must be wrong ,classic .

Hate to ask this and don't want to come over as though I'm hoisting up my, "judgey pants" but, is there a reason why she was picking up her younger brother? How old is he? Does she do a lot of, "picking up" or, "taking care" where he is concerned?

I was the youngest of four and quite a bit younger than my older siblings (11, 10 and 8 years older than me) and when my mum had to go back to work because my dad walked out on us and she didn't know where he was and he wasn't sending any money, my older siblings had to do a good deal of fetching me back and forth to school and minding me in the holidays and they really began to resent me for it. I remember lots of arguments along the lines of,"it's not my turn", "I don't want her" , "why do I have to have her"etc and they really, really hated my mum for, "dumping " me on them, though what else she was meant to do in the circumstances I really don't know.

Thanks again. But a taste of her own medicine is showing her no love or affection or pretending like I don't care about her. Wouldn't this have a worse effect? At the moment I'm too upset with her to even be interested unless she's going to come and explain herself. So far I got a "thanks" for dinner which she only does when she's hoping to make peace by ignoring the situation and pretending everything is back to normal. Sometimes that works but it's not good enough for what she's said. Oh, and she asked if I'd got her anything from the shop after I went. Errr... no??

I agree I shouldn't look at her facebook, but I need the password incase of emergencies and can't help but look what she's saying about me :(

I don't think giving her a taste of her own medicine is a good idea, sorry.

She has to know you love her no matter what, but you can be quite upfront about not like her behaviour/attitude/moods. You can also tell her the effect she is having on you, give her food for thought. But you still have to say you love her.

It's tough, but it's not forever.

I wud ov grounded her for being late and for talking like that to me an sent her to her room and then ignored the temper tamtrum that followed. Her hormones will be raging an discussions etc are pointless when She is "in a mood"
Later I wud ov told her "you do realise why your grounded, its coz you were late never offered an explanation or apology and for your attitude towards me" an then let her talk, an i got another mouthful of attitude, left her Sat in her room to vent.
Facebook is full of kids calling their mums, I have also seen mums calling their kids!!!! I wouldn't worry wat She says on fb, She will only txt it to her mates instead, every kids wishes they had a better life, just remember a paddy is still a paddy watever the age, an we all know tamtrums are best ignored haha...
Hope it gets better, my daughter Is 17 an planning on moving out next month, x

I went through a rough time as a teen and it's that period where you don't want to show anyone weakness, so the only person I trusted enough to show that I was upset (with the world, or myself) was my mother. Unfortunately, being a hormonal trainwreck like most teens, I did it by being horrible to her - in that space where you can let your guard down without losing friends because your Mum will always be your Mum, and you lash out. I feel horrible about it now, and I did actually have a conversation with her a while back about how much I appreciated that she kept "loving me and hating my behaviour".

We've got a great relationship now. It's a phase, she'll grow out of it, she'll feel horrible. I'd be careful about monitoring facebook as it's so easy to set up another account that you don't know about, and then you'll lose the emergency lifeline.

(DH now gets to deal with me when I'm worried or stressed in work (it can be very pressured because of the sector at certain times of year), and I've learned to realise that it has an impact on me [and to say front up that I'm going to be hitting a busy period/ distracted about planning an overseas trip with all the kerfuffle of visas, risk assessments and death by a thousand forms on top of usual workload, and thinking about how I'll miss him] so to ignore me if I'm tetchy. I then pull myself together and buy us a lovely takeaway to say thank you for putting up with me)

You both had a row, That is normal.

What is not so nornal is that she hates you and her brother [but not other members of the family] and has done for years.
Do you know why this is?