13yo DD lying & being sneaky

[PiaHall]

Hi all. After some advice and reassurance that my DD is 'normal'. She has always been strong willed and likes to push boundaries. DH is very strict and things are very black and white for him where she is concerned, whereas I am softer, which is uses to her advantage. However, last night she outdid herself!

She is not allowed on Facebook because earlier in the year she wrote a horrible post about DH after he told her to tidy her room. Then she had her ipod taken away because she was on it after bedtime. So she has periods where she does something stupid, gets punished, punishment over and all is fine for a while and then she'll do the same stupid thing again.

Since she was banned from Facebook I have found out that she has created a new account twice, each time she apologises and says it will never happen again. This happened again last night.

She then went upstairs for a bath and went snooping in our bedroom and found her Christmas present and then came downstairs and told me she had found it. I was livid and told her that she is never allowed in my room again and if she does I'll ground her. I'm very tempted not to give her the present as well.

I also told her that because she was on Facebook AGAIN she is grounded for a month.

She then went to bed at 10pm (usual time) and my DH went up to the loo at around 10.20pm and found that she was watching TV when she should have been trying to sleep!!!

So I have decided to take her iphone and ipod off her for the month she is grounded. I bought her a £12 pay as you go phone earlier so she can keep in touch getting the bus to and from school. This is going to hit her hard, it is her lifeline and she spends hours on it but I need her to understand that she can't keep doing the same stupid things.

We monitor her phone, which she knows and hates. She says we are invading her privacy and I have tried to explain numerous times that we are trying to keep her safe and that parents that don't monitor what their children do online are irresposible.

So at the moment we are having a battle of wills, us making it very clear what is acceptable and her trying to do what the hell she wants.

She's only 13!! Have I got another 5 or so years of this???

I think monitoring her phone is a bit OTT to be honest.

Sorry, I don't have a teenager so don't know whether you've got another 5 years of this, and please feel free to tell me I'm talking out of my arse, but have you got agreed family rules, so she has a say as well? It doesn't seem as though existing deterrents are working for you.

If your DD knows she can't have her TV on after lights out, and has ignored that, take the TV away. Full stop, no TVs in bedrooms. Likewise no laptops / ipads in bedrooms - family rooms only.

For me, grounding her for going into your room is a bit much, but I would be tempted to return the present to the shop though.

Are you monitoring her phone or just her internet usage on it?

We check her text messages/BBM and her internet useage. I disagree that it is OTT, some of the stuff we have found that has been sent to her is awful, very sexual. When she was 11, a boy sent her a message asking for a picture of her pleasuring herself!!! So no, I don't think it is OTT at all. We have a responsibility to keep our children safe and there are lots of people out there that want to harm them.

The grounding was because she had gone on Facebook again and the TV was on in her room. This is not the first time that she has snooped around and found presents but I agree that my first reaction of grounding her if she goes back in there was a bit extreme but I was angry that she had done it again!

She knows the rules, they have always been the same. They (we have a DS as well) have regular bed times, they don't have gadgets or TV's after bedtime etc.

We have tried not punishing her and trying to encourage her instead. At the beginning of this year things were sliding at school and rather than coming down on her like a tonne of bricks we had a chat with her and explained that we believed she was better than she was behaving and she was given the opportunity to improve and she did it. She is now in the top sets of all her subjects BUT she still keeps repeatedly doing stupid things!!!

When do you anticipate stopping reading her texts etc. ?

Thank you Flicktheswitch!! I have not read the book but it sounds exactly like something she would say!! I am going to have a look.

Generally her behaviour is ok, she can get stroppy but I accept that due her age. If it is difficult to get her up in the morning then she goes to bed at 9pm that night & 9pm on a Sunday.

My DH is adamant that she does not have FB back and there is no talking him round when he decides. She wrote that she hoped he died in a ditch and one of his friend's kids saw it & his friend rang him to tell him so that is not going to change any time soon.

Hi Pia
I think you do everything right but your punishments are too severe. In order to correct bad behaviour teens need frequent (painful) reminders and not one massive punishment that will just make her very resentful.
So, instead grounding her for a month ground her for 3 days etc. Don't ban her forever from facebook but just for a week.

Believe me, the battle is not over and if you go in too heavy-handed at age 13 you have nothing left once she is 15.

I found the book Divas and doorslammers' much more helpful than the 'get out of my life'. The latter is very defeatist.

Also, remove temptation, e.g. no telly in the room etc. We can easily overestimate the ability of our teens to control themselves. They simply can't and we are helping them by removing temptation.

My instinct reading this is that the punishments are sending her away from you and making her resentful of you rather than actually altering her behaviour.

For example, with Facebook, you (understandably) were angry and hurt that she had publically said unpleasant things about her dad on there. I feel that rather than withdrawing Facebook altogether it would have been more helpful to get her to understand why that was so unpleasant for you both. I would have been inclined to have spoken to her about a time someone said something nasty to/about her and to think about that. "Facebook is fine, but only nice comments about people please" seems a fair rule to me.

Watching TV after lights out doesn't seem THAT big a deal to me - nothing that warrants a month's grounding! Hate to say it but if the TV is there the temptation is to watch it.

I think the most "serious" of the above is the snooping in your room and the finding the present but I do think you need to ascertain which of those things you are angry about - the snooping or the finding the present? It would be the former for me but I can see her point here as well. To be blunt here, children who are given little privacy don't often value others.

I completely understand the phone, or tablet or whatever being 'public' property but I think she needs to understand WHY (for her own safety) and I think any messages between friends or whatever are ignored, completely - my mum found a notebook my friends and I had to pass notes in lessons, it was all very innocent and about "Lee is fit, Maths is boring, I'm soooo hungry" but there were a few swear words and she went MAD! It put me off telling her anything! I think where her phone is concerned you challenge anything that compromises her safety or well being (e.g. cyber bullying) but anything else accept as a life for her and for you to stay out of.

And yes, give her the present! 'Tis her own fault if she doesn't have a surprise now, isn't it!