15yr old DD punched and bit me... but may be low blood sugar?

[northernDad38]

My parents had invited our family out for evening meal.

I called for my daughter to get her shoes on and to come with us. She said "no" to every question i asked her she said "No". I tried to keep the conversation light, but she became more and more sullen. I asked why ans she said "I look ugly". I said that we were about to leave the house now and just to come with us. And again with the "Wall of No's". I joked that I would take picture of her with her own phone and she could see how silly she looked and grabbed the phone out of her hand.

This was a big mistake.

When I did that she stood up and screamed at the top of her lungs twice and punched me several times in the body then bit my hand (the one holding the phone) pulling the skin severely but not drawing blood.
(Fortunately my 3yr old DD didn't see this as she was with her mum downstairs at the time)

I remained calm throughout this and when she'd finished I repeated what I'd said earlier and asked her to get her shoes and to go downstairs. She grabbed her boots threw them down stairs and walked out of the house and ran up the street. We found her in five minutes and persuaded her to get into the car and we went for the meal.

When we got home she said she was hungry again and I made her a snack

I found out that she'd had no breakfast and despite gogin to the cinema with her friend had only eaten popcorn and not gone for meal afterwards. So she'd had barely any food until we actually went for the meal at 6pm.

It's possible she had low blood sugar as this can provoke people into anger especially teeangers but should I be more concerned?

Good point about what might be on the phone.

Sounds a bit like my dd - she is unspeakable when she hasn't eaten (or is tired) but then quite human when she's eaten. She's never physically attacked me but is absolutely astonishingly rude and aggressive.

So you have my sympathies. No idea what one 'should' do in this situation - other than feed the child and talk later.

Maybe giving her a (large) snack first and then conversing is the way to go? I know I can be very short-tempered when I'm hungry, too.

there is no excuse for violence
the end

I too think you were confrontational and provocative when you grabbed her phone. Telling her she was silly and threatening to take a picture was humiliating and ignoring her distress.

IMO, antimatter is closest to what could be the problem. I agree with those who have said that violence is never acceptable and should be punished. BUT what you describe sounds very like a teen who has been restricting her food intake all day and the very activity being proposed (going out for a meal) is the one that she finds most difficult. I too thought that similar outbursts by one of my DDs (it was the furniture that suffered, fortunately, not one of us) were variously due to PMT, anxiety, school issues, etc. But in fact it turned out that she had anorexia. You don't mention, OP, whether your DD is normal weight or whether you have ever noticed before that she is restricting her food intake. Either way, I would take her to the drs and ask for an assessment at CAMHS to establish whether she is anorexic/has an eating disorder. There are many types of eating disorder and not all correspond with the typical anorexic that I, for one, had come across before in my life. Don't delay with this because the earlier she gets treatment (if this turns out to be needed), the better the prognosis. I also agree that it's significant that taking the phone was a trigger for what happened. IMO, social media is a huge source of anxiety for teens and their whole idea of what they should look like, should do. It's also possible she is being bullied via her phone; or that there was something "inappropriate" she didn't want you to see.

How is your DD doing now, Northerndad? Did you find out what else had happened that triggered this outburst, and how has she been since?

Several other threads on here have suggested teenagers 'lose it' and display extreme behaviour when their phones are snatched.
I guess phones are such personal pieces of kit with their whole lives on them. The phones feel like a part of them so we can't just snatch them.

Not that violence is ever acceptable of course but that's another matter.

My dd kicked me in the stomache the one and only time I snatched her phone. Now I inform her she must hand the phone over and if she doesn't we'll cancel the contract. This works better. It's always a last resort and a trump card I hope I'm not going to have to play.

The biting is more of a concern than possibly missing a meal.

But you knew that - how have you dealt with it? Have you had other problems with violence from her? Is she neurotypical (at least until now)?

Sorry but her actions have nothing to do with low sugar - I've never ever heard nonsense like it. I have friends, family and work colleagues who have a mixture of type1 and type2 diabetes and not one of them act like your dd has. Your using this as an excuse for her bad behaviour - don't make excuses deal with the behaviour.