Why is my daughter so horrible to us?

[Harleyheather22]

Our 15 year is making us so unhappy. She's a only child with a family unit consisting of her parents and a grandmother that doesn't bother. My daughter has had 6 month's of up's and down's mixing with the wrong crowd skipping school, boyfriends and self harming. Thankfully the ups and downs seem to be in the past, she has a new boyfriend and the self harming with the help of nurse seem's to be going quite well. But her attitude is terrible she won't do anything and nothing. We ask her to do something and its either a no... or she does it a day later or not all. Its like she really dislikes us and I wonder if she hates us?. She never wants to be with us not even in the house or in our company. We've cancelled our holiday because of how she is and how awful she can be. She has no respect for us or anything around her and I don't no wot to do. I have no where to turn with this and wonder if there's something we've done wrong. We've given her everything, and people tell us how lucky she is to have such loving and good parents as us. But its bringing me down and I feel so unhappy. I would love to be her friend and have shopping days and laughs with her........... I'm crying!! wot do I do.

I feel your pain!My DD would rather be with her friends 24/7 and acts like she hates being at home!When she is at home she never ever helps sulks rolls her eyes is glued to her phone and only chats when she wants to rant or wants money!! If i ask her to do a tiny thing she says "in a minute" then 12 hours later its still "in a minute". Nothing I do is ever enough and she is completly ungrateful! I questioned myself got upset ect but im finding tough love appears to be working better !! Taking her phone seems to be pretty effective after shes cried about it for a few hours so now the threat of it seems to be enough! She is still attitudey ,rude ect so no miracle cure but seemed to curb it a tiny bit! If i suggest going out for dinner or cinema ect i get "dont like eating out" "dont like the cinema!!" think its more our company they dont like! It is so tough and ive found the whole teenage ordeal quite depressing as childish as that sounds i feel more like a slave /bank /taxi than a mum! But its all part and parcel i suppose i was a complete shit till i was 16 i look back and cringe now!

I cringe back at been that age but I had respect. I never would have thought our family unit could be so unhappy where did it go wrong?. I feel like giving up and not wanting to care..... I no I do. There's never remorse to her actions like nearly burning the house down, we try to talk and understand and catch her at a calm moment but it never seem to make no difference. I do talk to people about our situation but I'm never open about it all and feel like people may judges us. Especially when people say there kids are nearly perfect.... wot do I say? when my situation is at it is. That's why I have turned to this page so I can off load a bit and share my experience with others.

Unfortunately this is normal. Girls go through this to different degrees between 14 and 17/18 years. Your daughter is at the top end of it.
I bet you only has to look at her and it's wrong. It's hormones. Self harming stage can also be linked to hormones. They can feel such anger for no apparent reason.
Keep being normal and loving. A big tip is to write down your feelings and give it to her and walk away.
Try not to write you do this and that. But write I love you regardless but when you say you hate me it hurts. Etc.
let her read it and she may reply. Don't demand a reply. What writing does gives the reader time to absorb and think about your feelings.
This won't make it stop but it will help. Only time will help. Honestly one day you'll realise it has all calmed down. But it may be in some time.

Been there, done that.

Put your emotions aside for a bit, possibly by taking ADs as I did. What you have is a personnel management problem. You need to make it plain that you love her, but dangerous behaviour is going to be met with firm unemotional control. Heat sources will only be permitted with supervision, bad behaviour loses privileges, violence means police. Don't expect or require remorse.

Give her tasks. If she doesn't do them, your maximum response should be a raised eyebrow and silence.

Our reward came about years ago, when DD told us that she loved us but "I've had my head on funny". Couple of meltdowns since, but 99% of the time she's a joyful lunatic.

17.5 YO DD is definitely coming out of it too. (crosses fingers and hopes I'm not tempting fate by saying that )

Do you do anything for yourself OP? It's so easy to let your troublesome teen dominate your every waking minute (- speaks from personal experience) You deserve to have some fun doing your own thing away from your family - you'll cope with your DD better and demonstrate that you're a person in your own right.

Btw how much do you ask your DD to do?

Thank you for the messages. I've had a particularly bad week this week and we have decided on the tough love approach. Although we love her we cannot continue living like we do. We have stopped doing the things we do, like doing her room, collecting her clothes to wash, asking her to wash and giving her money. She asked today if she could have some money to fund a trip out..... we said NO!! her answer was get lost then. Me and hubby went for a drive out today and it was like a tonic to us both and we felt better for the break.......... it breaks my heart. We are such decent people, loving and giving. I'm afraid she may have cut herself again to. Its so hard......... I so wish it was different.

similar times in our house... I just feel at a loss with DD1. I have been ignoring some bad behaviour as I feel she is doing it to get a reaction. other times I get cross. I am finding it upsetting. I feel I don't get it right no matter what I do.

DH seems to find it easier than me.

Men, or at least this man, can detach more easily. The ADs were taken in a deliberate effort to reduce my rage at DD's selfishness and cruelty. If your DH doesn't need them he's a better man than me.

I'm glad I found this thread, even if it is several years old. At first it gave me a little bit of relief to know that it's not just us going through this, but then I saw that all the other children are aged 15+ whereas mine is only 11. The change in her since beginning high school is awful - we struggled with her a bit before that, but she is so mean and spiteful now that it's really affecting me and my wife.

My daughter does all of the above that people have mentioned, she self harms, she flies into rages, she tells us that she hates us and wants us all dead, and this happens every few days with sneering and silence only in between. She now refuses to eat or spend any time with us and wants to look after herself completely.

I've personally found her very difficult for the last 1-2 years, but she's getting worse with every passing month. My wife is a lovely kind and gentle person and my daughter reduces her to tears far too often, and she has even driven her to lose her temper - something I'd never before seen in the previous 20 years we had been together.

We've taken advice from a child psychologist in the past, but that was a year ago and she's now worse than ever, so I'm desperate. If she was older I'd just kick her out as she's ruining our lives, but at 11 that's not an option. We're all depressed and at our wits end, there's no way we can cope with this for 5 or 6 years.

Have you read the book Untangled? I've found it to be a valuable resource for understanding teenage girls.

Hello. I can't say I've heard of it but I'll be looking it up if it has worked for you.

We've tried some of the guidance but things just keep getting worse, she's just so hurtful and I'm not sure even she knows why! Shame there aren't any of those military camps for kids like they have in America where they teach them discipline, I think we've been too soft and the lack of consequences for kids these days is setting us all up for a troublesome future.

She’s just being a miserable teen you just need to make sure she knows if there’s anything she needs to talk about your there I mean she could be bottling stuff up and it’s turning into anger, when I was younger that’s how I acted due to personal problems I thought the best way to deal with things was shout and get all mad and that reflected on my attitude, try have a talk with her being a teenager especially in this day & age is hard everything from personal problems to low self esteem etc you get my point, hope it all blows over shortly just give her your love even if she might tell you to do one 😂 never give up mumma x

Tingletop - I read your sad post and it so mirrors my dd who is 14. She has been like this since secondary school. I was in tears this evening - and now I sit in a cafe having taken her and a friend to the theatre (am waiting for it to end) thinking: what on earth is the point because she is so vile to me. I sort these trips in moments of weakness when things seem to improve- it never lasts and I feel such a fool. What’s more I feel ill. If this was a marriage, I would have got divorced years ago. So sorry, no advice - just total and wholehearted sympathy. I honestly feel that by the time she turns a corner- if she does - our relationship will be so wrecked and my health so fragile, it won’t matter.

Hi babe. Like I’ve said above I’ve been a very angry teen, lying to family, causing trouble, thinking I was ten women. Is there anything that could possibly make her “moody teen” phase worse? Have a chat with her and never give up no matter how hard it is. She’ll soon grow out of it and with your help maybe you can get to the bottom of it all. This day n age is stressful for teens too x

I remember feeling all sorts of emotions even alone no matter who was around x