Why does my 16 year old daughter hate me?? :(

[amberskies]

There is absolutely NOTHING I can do right in my daughter's eyes, yet my husband is Mr Nice Guy and she totally adores him!

DD has become very opinionated and I only have to make a joke (which any normal person would find funny!) and she gets furious and starts giving me lectures on how what I said is totally wrong! I understand that all teenagers think they know it all, but why is she so negative towards me??? We even had a row over cereal last night!!!! Arrgghhhhh!!!!!!

The nicest text I've had of late is "what's for dinner?" !!!!

Anyone else feel my pain???

I agree with Nocomet, in that I don't allow anyone to be verbally abusive, least of all my children, and there is no way I would be cooking, washing etc for them and I would expect DH to have a united front and be tough on it.

In a way, it's a bit of a compliment, no really, bear with me whilst I explain....

behaviour is a form of communication. She has all these feelings / hormones running riot inside her at the moment and basically doesn't know what to do or how to handle them, that comes with emotional maturity.

She will only allow these feelings to get out of control / to release them with the person which she feels the most secure with i.e. you. She can only do this with you because somewhere inside she is secure in the knowledge that you love her / accept her / will always be there for her. I would bet that when she was younger, you were the one she wanted when she was ill / hurt and that you used to be close.

So this type of behaviour actually shows the strength of your relationship in that she trusts you wholeheartedly.

Your DH though needs to be the one saying to her when she goes to far. Still shit to live with it though.

Thanks really for your messages. To Nocomet - of course I don't think the behaviour is acceptable in any way. I'm sorry but it's not too helpful when people say 'how could you let that happen? I wouldn't let my kids behave like that! How do parents feel whose kids self harm? I don't suppose they just 'let it happen' or are ok about it one tiny bit! I think my daughter's behaviour is appalling and I make this clear to her but it makes little difference. But you can't just stop feeding your children or stop them leading normal lives at school, e.g with clean clothes, to punish them. I do regularly take her 'technology' but it's a dangerous move. To RhondaJean - yes, it is very shit indeed. Re DH - I know everyone will leap on this and I can see it doesn't help but DH often doesn't involve himself. Emotionally I'm basically dealing with it as a single parent frankly. Re the other siblings - they get upset too, partly for me and because it creates such a horrible atmosphere. She's away at the moment and it's bliss but she's back in a couple of hours. We are watching the clock .......

Nocomet that's not very helpful.

Haddenuff totally been there and just coming out the otherside. Headless is right.

You just have to keep providing stabilty, love, food, clothing and transport, as you say, you are the mum and these things cannot be withdrawn.

I wouldn't 'take things away'...it sparks more drama and conflict. And teens do own things in their own right, they see it as theft, especially if it involves them losing contact with their peers (i.e taking their phone).

My only (small) insight is that all this behaviour is from anxiety and stress, often very deep-seated, about failure or possible failure. Lots of love and reassurance depsite their horridness is the only way. 'They need our love the most when they least deserve it' as someone wise said to me.

My 11 hates me.

I feel your pain.

haddenuff I wonder if your daughter is scared because you the most important [strong] person in her life is ill. She might be trying to show you she doesn't need you, to protect herself from feeling scared witless.

Dd has had her share of poisonous behaviour to me over the years but I am beginning to discern that she hates me to be weak and powerless...and especially finds my lack of physical glamour upsetting. I think she wants to feel I am superwoman, with a hair do to match, then she feels she can be proud of me, and feel safe. Atm she is 12, and very bolshy, but I am feeling so much stronger at dealing with her moods now than when she was 7. It is odd. If she tells me I'm ugly or my clothes are hideous it is code for I'm worried my friends think I (dd) am ugly or my clothes aren't up to scratch. I recently told her I went to uni, (I think since secondary school the idea of uni only just entered her consciousness, and she was suddenly v respectful, as if my status was renewed I think she is really struggling to reconcile what she wants from me, is it comfort, sympathy, or does she want me to model some way of life, be grand, glamourous, go-getting. I think I can only be myself, but the best part of myself, my confident self, even if that means accepting that my pre-teen can be rude and ungrateful, and knowing I haven't failed to have produced this child (who is after all remarkable and lovely in so many ways)

Brilliant post swan. That's food for thought for my situation...my DS who is very difficult is much worse if I appear to be upset or weak. His current thing is to say I am interfering in his life (Uni open days and choices are looming). I think is code for "I want your help but I also want to be able to do this by myself and I'm not sure I can".

I want your help but I also want to be able to do this by myself and I'm not sure I can Yup.

And we're supposed to magically know when they want us to help them and when we're supposed to butt out....

Yes. It's a right pain isn't it?

And whether you help,or don't help they are still angry.

hadenuff -

You deserve better than that. It's horrible, isn't it.

Hope you're feeling better - your dd has no right to talk to you like that. I've suffered from chronic chest infections and know how dreadful they are - you literally have no energy to do anything. :(

Look after yourself first - your dd is old enough to look after herself AND you when you're not well. Not the other way around. You need all the strength you have to recover.

Treat yourself, take it easy. No nourishing broth/hot lemon and honey emoticons, so this will have to do -

:)

I can't be helpful, I wish I could. I just don't understand why so many parent teen relationships end up in such a mess.

I understand, to a degree, the behaving worse where you feel safest. DD2 did it a bit when she was 9/10. She was an angel at school and pain at home.

What I don't understand is why parents let it get unbearable before saying stop that is enough.

Aren't your teens just a tiny bit scared of you or at least their Fathers, is there really no sanctions you can bring to bear that actually bother them.

I'd have thought no washing except school uniform, no money and no meals you don't cook yourself would be pretty effective (well except DD1 likes cooking)

And chest infections are indeed shit and regardless of your DD I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks for your messages.ACtually it doesn't really help when someone says "How could you let your daughter behave like that? I think it's disgraceful". Well I agree entirely and I've made that clear to her myself. Point is, makes no difference to this girl (who used to be so delightful). I guess parents of kids who self harm, etc aren't happy about it either - not one bit ! But you can't just stop feeding them and schooling them, etc. To RhonaJean - yes, it's very shit indeed. Found myself dreading her return from a weekend away yesterday. In fact the whole family were. That's very sad.

Sorry - didn't mean to repeat myself. My messages got a bit confused and I coulnd't find previous one so thought it hadn't appeared. New to this !! I might suggest she (or we) have some counselling (?) Anyone tried that and found it useful?

Haddenuff She does sound like she is pretty miserable. Often when you feel angry or cross about something you find a scapegoat (in this case YOU) to blame for all your problems.
There may be something else going on. Is she unhappy at school, dislikes her work, having problems with her friends? If she is a teen she will inevitably not see anything clearly, and just blame you.
Conversely you have to detach yourself from her in some way, and stop letting what she says affect you, as she is getting some sort of grim satisfaction in getting a response from you, perhaps because she has no control over other parts of her life.

I think counselling is good. Your GP or her school will probably be able to arrange something. But perhaps it is better just for her alone to start? We had FT through GP (as one of my children had ASD), and tbh my children hated it. I learnt a lot though about myself and the reactions I was setting up. I think the FT needed to see the children with parents to see how the family dynamic was working out, but from that point, it was better to do individual counselling.

Also your husband is a critical factor in all of this, he may seem to be not of relevance if she is not cross with HIM but it is all interlinked, and you cannot escape from the additional dynamics with other family members. That is sometimes what counselling reveals.

I think Swan is right, she is angry with your illness and that is how it comes out. Counselling may be helpful.

IME nocomet sanctions up the ante and make situations much worse. And no my DS isn't scared. Why would he be? He's twice my size and very strong. And he's not scared of my DH his dad either. He knows we absolutely aren't going to throw him out or physically punish him because we would never do that. So why would he be scared?

It's an interesting point though...I grew up very frightened indeed of my parents and I was always very sure that I didn't want that for my DC. Maybe I've gone too far the other way....

Thank you everyone for kind words re pleurisy etc. I'm still in pjs, aching ribs and spluttering but out of usual treadmill of tasks so gives me time to think. To Nocomet re 'aren't teens scared of parents?" I was reading some article about rearing teens which said that modern teenager is totally different thing and much much harder to handle + this is only just hitting society, kind of creeping up on us like the technology is. Before, for better or worse, we had a crucial thing - respect and it could be used to get through the rough teen bits. But now teens see themselves as on the same level as adults, boundaries are much harder to define / keep and can be a slippery slope to chaos. Some parents manage to hold on to the respect thing regardless but a lot of very normal families just can't however hard they try (silent epidemic?) We have a new very scary creature in our midst and we get no training in what to to .....

My daughter - good friends at sch., has very full on life but doesn't want to stop any of it. To Swanhilda ... She doesn't SEEM unhappy but maybe she is underneath. Re DH - his tending not to get involved is a problem. The cause? I don't know but sadly no point asking him to change. Sorry to sound so fatalistic but we all know our DHs ..

Hi everyone,
There's a new post in the Media requests thread looking for people with troublesome teens - can you take a look and get in touch if this is you?
Thank you!

My daughter is a teenager (just) - just come home from Uni for Easter (second year) and speaks to me in a way - I would never speak to my Mum. I appreciate that she has been independent for a while but she does not appreciate that because she is home that I must change my ways, diet, social life, hobbies to what she believes that I should be doing.

Today, she is disappointed that this morning, that I have time set aside to do VAT and then prepare for the accountant for end of years stuff when I should be going out somewhere with her.

She is under a lot of pressure on her course which is stressful but I feel that when she comes home that she truly feels that I am the child not the adult. Whilst I often bite my tongue so not to say what I actually feel as this does not often help the situation but any ideas to use to resolve the situation. This is also affecting my relationship and turns into sides.

(She is on a very caring health Uni course dealing with the public but she leaves this behind)

KJW - this could be my daughter; 18 and thinks she's the responsible adult and needs to explain to me what I should be doing. Calls me Mummy Dear in a patronising way. ha ha - maybe she's right though. I just let her get on with it and do things my own way!

I feel your pain. My daughter is still so self centred. I mean of cause children are. At what age do they stop blaming, stomping and slamming doors? She is much better than she was at 13. However, I'd just like a day to not be, when the only time she talks to me is when she wants something. The post the lady put on saying. No, i don't feel your pain, my children can do no wrong. That was helpful wasn't it! Haha xx

My DD finds my breathing "so annoying". She even told school today she wishes I wasn't her mum which I wish they'd not told me this is because I agreed with school that she needed to attend catch up sessions as she claims she has no homework , she does she'd just rather be glued to her phone.

I haven't got any teenagers yet (DC are 8 and 7months) but I was the teenager from hell. The relationship between me and my DM had completely disintegrated by the time I was 16 and we didn't speak for 2 years, I moved out, over an hour away with an older guy she had never met. Hindsight is a wonderful thing so from the other side and my PoV as a teen these are the things that were the main issues:

No consequences, I could do whatever I wanted, all that would happen would be that I got shouted at for about half hour and had empty threats thrown at me but never followed through. I had no boundaries and as a result just wanted to push them to see how much they cared? To get a reaction I suppose.

As my behaviour got worse she started throwing insults into the shouting. I think to shock me, but you really don't need to hear that from your DM!

She was is very controlling. Now I'm older I can see she is a very anxious person and it comes from a good place however annoying it is, but at the time I felt that she didn't trust me because I was such a crap person.

We had no quality time together. Both DPs worked full time, neither were interested in things I was interested in or had time for a proper conversation or anything at all to be honest.

My DBro got a lot of attention for various reasons. Again as an adult I can see why, but back then I felt rejected and second best.

It got to a point where she completely washed her hands of me, and it hurt like hell. She didn't say it but I could tell. The only way I knew how to react was with anger, as I couldn't express my emotions clearly or even understand them clearly at that age.

Looking back I was craving attention and affirmation that I was an ok person! It's so hard though, I look back and I'm so embarrassed by the things I did, but the way she behaved also still pisses me off!

I think PP had it when they said, they need your love the most when they deserve it the least

My DD (17) doesn't hate me but she is hard work. She's glued to her phone, doesn't like it when I ask her to put it down for five minutes unless she wants something She strops for England and everything is a drama. It doesn't help that she thinks the son shines out of her dad's backside.

It was an awful lot easier with my son (22).

But she was a great kid and still is really. She's had a lot to deal with and we do still do some nice things together.