Deliberate destruction of furniture - WWYD?

[jennifersofia]

DC (12) extremely worked up and angry/upset this evening, took a family heirloom and held the edge of it in the fire, the paintwork is a bit charred. She wanted to make me upset because she was angry with me. I had told her she must find her phone before bedtime or there would be a consequence. She knows how much this particular thing means to me.
She then went on to have a 45 min meltdown, rather hysterical. This is the first time there has been deliberate damage to something, but not the first time there has been a meltdown, shouting, banging doors, throwing soft things.
How would you deal with this? What can I do that would help her? DH suggests having her do something to give energy back to me, like cleaning two cupboards. I am not sure.

What was the story behind the phone ? Had she lost it , or just couldn't be bothered to find it. Did she need to keep it hidden so she could make a call later on ? Was she worried and stressed that she didn't know where it was ?

I'd make her rub off the charred bits with fine wire wool which she has to buy with her own money. Working on the object she damaged will make her think more than cleaning out a cupboard.

I would firstly ask her how she would feel if you did the same with one of her treasured possessions? Not only the damage to the item but how she would feel about you for carrying out such a calculated act.

I would ground and remove the phone or another treasured possession. Id be fucking livid at the fact she deliberately went for what would cause you the most upset.

Thanks for responding. The phone has to be down here at 8:30 for the night. It has been 'lost' before, only to be 'found' the next morning - she had wanted it to play games on in the night, which we don't allow. I suspected that that is what was happening last night so I said that there would be a consequence of either no computer time the next day or no phone for a few days if she did not find it by bedtime. It was in reaction to this possible consequence that caused her to become so upset.
It is possible that she had genuinely lost it in the house, but that isn't what my instinct was telling me. She has also lost two phones and I am getting fed up - I felt that this possible consequence would stir her into being a bit more conscious about it. She did find the phone after looking for 10 minutes.
It is a good idea to have her use fine wire wool on the chair, but I think that because it is antique we possibly shouldn't do anything to the paintwork - not sure.

I think your DH is spot on

It took me a long time to realise that most punishments for the kids - were actually punishing myself ( grounding, taking away things)

until I hit ..what I think is genius.

clean the toilet
clean the grid outside

y'know - the gross stuff :)

oh and you must be clear on the issues why

1. disrespectful of you
2. Lying

I think the chair is the byproduct - not the actual

She intentionally damaged something important to you, to pay you back for your decision. Which is completely unacceptable in my book.
The over-reaction is worrying too, and the lack of control.
I'd remove the phone and replace it with a basic text/call model around a tenner.

Teenager violence against parents is historically a very recent phenomenon but rising fast. (15% in two-parent families and 30% in single-parent families)

It's to do with family break-down and society reducing power from parents and teachers through legislation while simultaneously empowering children and teens in schools and at-home-parenting.

While all this is of course well intended there is a nasty side-effect and that is the rise in violence of teens towards their parents.

We had a bit of that ourselves and we made a concerted effort to completely and utterly stamp out even the smallest inappropriate ways of expressing anger. The book that helped us to do this is called 'Parenting-out-of-control-teenagers'. The strategies are simple and practical and most of all, they work.

It's been more than half a year since the last violent outburst and DS14 has now learnt to express his anger in an acceptable way. So it's not that he simply represses his anger, he can now express it in words rather than shouting or doing acts of physical violence. DS himself is very glad about this.

There is also a charity - Family Lives - that specialises in helping parents with this problem. Google them.

Good luck with it!

I second removing phone and replacing with basic phone.

Stop paying for phone/cancel contract.
Remove all but the most basic furniture from her room.
Find out what is going on in other areas of her life - school/friendship groups.
You need to get control of this now or you will be helpless by the time she is 15.
Are you sure she just wants to play games on the phone?
Could she be being bullied, or coerced into something she cannot tell you about? Something that requires her to be available by phone?
I would not be surprised at anything, given some of the stuff that went on at my DC's secondary school.

Thanks for the book ref. I will look that one up.
Good idea re: gross stuff, I like the idea of it, but the reality would be huge drama for 20 min and during, resistance, hysterics,me standing over chivvying, reminding etc. and a somewhat shoddy job done at the end. So a lot of work and upset for me and I am not sure about the outcome for her.
Re: replacing the phone, unfortunately we did have a more basic before, but that was lost and DH replaced with this which, though not fancy, is a smart phone, because it is cheaper to have this on a package than a cheaper PAYG (grrrr). But perhaps we should go down that route anyway.

Having said that, I do want to help her learn to self control with phone/ online usage, and I worry if we keep tight controls on it all the time she will find it really difficult when it comes to the time when she is on her own. We have a friend who turned into a computer zombie when he left home (not much social life from what I can gather, doesn't do much other than work and gaming), and I am worried that will happen to DD. I want to help her learn to manage it now.

What do you think?

I just wanted to add that I have done a bit of research on this topic and that this violence occurs across all social classes and both in girls and boys.

What this means is that we as individual parents are far from alone with this problem and our teen's violence is not a sign that we have failed in a particular horrendous way. It also does not mean that our teen is particularly bad.

What it does mean is that our violent teen has been swept up in the spirit of our time of dis-empowering authority figures while simultaneously empowering children and teens and showing the worst possible side-effects of this very recent sociological development.

It also means that this new challenge to our parenting requires new strategies and that if we do not embrace a new approach and simply keep on as before things can only get worse.

Yes, quite sure it isn't something dodgy eg. Bullying or coercion, just addicted to watching a manga/ anime series!

She is 12 - and sounds quite an immature 12 year old.
I think she is not capable of controlling/managing her phone and internet time, so you need to do it for her.
IME - admittedly limited to my own 3 DC - they need as much parenting at this age as they do when they are toddlers: clear rules, boundaries and expectations. Peer pressure can be very difficult to manage and having parents who are consistent and present/involved can actually make life easier for a young adolescent.

That's a worrying reaction - I could understand breaking something in an angry outburst or kicking a door etc, it wouldn't be great but it would be fairly normal teen behaviour. To deliberately select something she knows you really value and then hold it in the fire is calculated nastiness of a sort I would have thought unusual at this age.

Not sure what the answer is but I agree that punishments of the sort suggested are only likely to cause more stress all round. Hopefully that book reference will be useful, going along the route of psychology sounds a much better bet.

£10 supermarket phone (text and calls only), £10 credit. Runs out - she does without.

and yes, do check that there isn't a sudden reason for this. Really hoping there is an excuse for this incredibly nasty behaviour.

Teenager violence against parents is historically a very recent phenomenon but rising fast.

Palika, where do you get the idea that it is a recent or rising phenomenon? The academic study from Oxford University that the online newspaper articles are based on definitely doesn’t say that – it can’t, because it also says it is “the first large-scale study of APV in the UK” and it doesn’t seem to look at historic data at all. Do you have other sources for this?

She isn't a nasty person, just got very overwrought!

hardly a new phenomenon, but one that has been hidden and not spoken about in recent times, because parents felt ashamed

a bit like sexual abuse or domestic violence against partners- wasn't talked about much in my young days, but it still happened

Kleinzeit
I looked at English, German and American studies - I can't tell you exactly where I read this but it comes from the German studies. They all agreed that it is a very recent phenomenon.

This is also my personal experience - I worked as a volunteer in a home for badly behaved teens in the eighties in Germany. The teens were there for many reasons but violence was NOT one of them!!! Hard to believe when you look at this board now, isn't it!

Cory and Kleinzeit
'recent' means within the last few decades.

cory
to your have any (scientific) evidence to support your statement?

Does she have any money at her disposal e.g. An allowance? If so I'd be removing it towards the cost of repair of the chair. Her £10 phone credit could easily go towards this. Get a quote & make her see why. I'm not suggesting she pay for all of it exactly because you want her to still have some privileges you can use to reward ongoing better behaviour.

I agree the reaction is calculating and I think a calm talk with her about this is in order. Possibly with a professional present, though that sounds OTT.

It sounds like you do a lot for her so withdrawing some of that and making it clear that its a consequence should help. Also loving the confiscate phone/ replace with basic one idea.

And “historic” just means “past”, not “long ago”. (Apologies for using the word “historic” – it’s just jargon for “past”) The Oxford study asks a long list of questions (on the website) but none of those questions include any comparison with the past, recent or distant.

Different European countries use care very differently from each other and from the UK, and from what little I know they all offer help to troubled families in very different ways, so I don’t think you can judge from the children you met in the home. Teenagers who are just violent to their parents don’t tend to get put into homes in the UK either, and conversely my mother taught in a (UK) home for teenagers who were violent towards adults (including sometimes adults caring for them in the home) in the 1970s. So my own anecdotal evidence is that although it may be a real problem and a big problem, that’s not enough reason to suppose it is a new problem or a growing problem. Without information about those German or US studies, it’s hard to judge.

(Sorry OP if this is derailing your thread – whether it’s recent or not, aggression is still very bad to have to live with )

Kleinzeit
I just checked the German studies again. Der Spiegel is the most reputable German magazine. They had a long article about it and the whole gist of the article was that it is a recent phenomenon (starting with the changing educational paradigms in the 60s) and rising. They were citing numerous experts and studies.

If you are interested in this topic why don't you do your own research - look into other places than the Oxford study.