At end of tether with dd (13)

[Evabeaversprotege]

She will be 13 in a few weeks time and her attitude is awful.

I know she's a ball of hormones & I have to factor that in, but her whole demeanour towards me just scares me.

When she chooses to be lovely, she can be. But most of the time she fires sarcastic comment after another at me. In fact I have just came to bed as I can't stand being in the same room as her right now.

There isn't one incident that has pushed me to post - I just can't deal with her demands anymore. I'll list some examples below.

If the four of us (ds, dd, DH & I) are all in a room, she spends time correcting us, our pronunciation of words, if what we've said was right or wrong, she screams if ds farts (he's 10!) or if DH kisses me on the cheek. She actually screeches, balls her fists up and demands we stop (we generally do as she has a screaming shit fit that makes DS cry)

Yesterday he was eating rice for lunch, the noise of his fork scraping the plate caused a full on tantrum from her, resulting in DS using a picnic fork to finish his lunch!!!!

She sat & tsked & sighed the whole time we were talking earlier then said God this family is so stupid. (Dh is a foreman at work, I have a degree & hold down a good job, we're not stupid).

I guess I'm wondering if this is 'normal' for her to scream at noises she doesn't like, it's almost as if the whole family are tiptoeing around her all the time.

I heard DH saying to her after I left the room "can you work on your attitude, it's not pleasant" and she screeched "omg daddy, there's nothing wrong with my attitude, you are all horrible to me!!"

I believe she thinks she so much better than all of us. Even her cousins who used to be friendly with her haven't bothered much with her recently.

Just seen you are in rural Ireland, not sure how the system works there, may be better than here!

Hi, thanks grammar.

Yes we're in rural Ireland & I've been told there can be quite a wait.

I'm going to read up on paleo tonight, I think it seems a tad harsh from what I've touched upon so far.

The doctor said to get her on probiotics too - what do you recommend? (Sorry I'm on the app & can't scroll up to namecheck without losing my post!)?

Biocare probiotics were recommended to me by a nutritionist. Sorry I can't remember the name but whatever a useful one is acidophilus.

Natural live yoghurt with no added sugar or fruit is useful for the same reason. DS adds three a spoon of jam to make it more palatable.

Probiotics won't do her any harm at all, though the most evidence of their benefit is reducing upset stomachs while taking antibiotics. No harm at all in taking them though I would question the benefit. It will also be hard to measure, dispassionately, so to speak, as it is not a straightforward situation, many confounding factors, was your GP talking about them in the context of helping period pains or for her 'behaviour'? If the former, then worth a try, I would be sceptical though if it were suggested for the latter.

I would be so careful about the diet though... for the coeliac testing reason but also from a compassionate point of view. These diets are hard and if you (oneself) are deciding to embark on something like this, then you are probably motivated in some way, to maximise compliance, (like weight loss) BUT.. if it is 'imposed' in the name of science (and I have NEVER come across a suggestion like this, to ameliorate behaviour problems, that has any robust scientific evidence; you don't have to look too far to find, for example, cutting out Casein for children with Aspergers or ASD, again, no robust evident at all), my personal advice ( and it is only my personal advice) would be to give the poor girl a break and let her eat what she wants (within reason...too much of anything is not good for you!)
Even doctors can be 'cranky'!

Keep us posted.

It suddenly occurred to me that your DD is 12! An exclusion diet is absolutely out! It's bad enough in a much older teen as I intimated in an earlier post but this just plain wrong!
I still would really like to know your GP's rationale behind suggesting it.
Was just mulling over your situation when I realised her age and felt I had to post.

Grammar, it wasn't our GP, it was a paediatric consultant at the hospital.

She's 13 now (December birthday) but I have to say it seems a bit harsh.

We're all trying to do it with her she doesn't feel she's being "picked on".

I wondered if she may have been one of those doctors with an agenda of her own? She kept talking about the evils of cereal/processed foods & the amount of magna something in certain foods.

Blood was taken yesterday to send away to test for chromed, celiac etc so it should be a clear reading as she hadn't been on any kind of diet.

I'm really surprised that a paediatric consultant can get away with nonsense like this. I'm pleased you felt listened to though. I fear you my be right about her having her own agenda, bizarre!