How do you learn not to take it all personally?

[300Bananas]

When dd does not want to spend any time whatsoever with her family. Goes from her room to the kitchen and out the door. When she cannot see that she is hurting you and pushes you away when you try to get close. When she has barely spoken a sentence to her dad in the past 2 months all because she is given boundaries.

When did she become so uncaring and unaware of the upset she is causing. It makes me wonder if she has any feelings for us at all.

I have been told not to take it all so personally but it is breaking me that the person I love so much could be like this. And she just cant see it.

Sorry. Just having a moment and a rant :(

You just need to remember that her brain is going through an enormous change and she does not understand why she is behaving like this either.

The best advice I got with regard to teen behaviour is make sure you keep them close. Try to talk to her, be friendly, stop focusing on the negative, make her favourite meal, buy her the odd present (nothing big, maybe a creame egg). Let her know that you love her. Choose your battles.

It does pass, good luck.

Bananas, I've been taking things far too personally with my son and I have been forgetting or withholding, demonstrating my positive feelings for him.

It's probably around a year since I started withdrawing from him because I felt his rejection of me so personally. ANd it just made things worse.

His dad pointed out last week that our son wants him mum to love him, and admire him, more than anyone else in the world.

I went away and thought about it and realised that I had stopped being his mum, in many ways, and had just become his adversary.

Since last week I have let go of being irritated/let down/judgemental/hurt/defensive/disappointed/angry etc with my boy and just kept in my mind that he's a new person, all raw and loose; his 'person' muscles are weak and flabby and he makes mistakes and is hurtful (whcih he is). And so I've been able to find some distance from taking it personally. And it's really helped.

He's come and talked to me about nothing much, but the fact he has sat with me and chatted is amazing. And I told him I loved him last week, must be for the first time in months, and he didn't get angry (he did go 'oh mum for god's sake' but there was, I swear, a bit of a smile of pleasure in his eyes).

Hope this helps you - it's so hard having teenagers, a friend of mine said we don't get to grow up ourselves until we've raised our kids through the teenage years. I fear there is truth in that for me, anyway

I was horrid to my lovely mum for a year or two. IMO she knew nothing about anything, was incredibly old-fashioned and out of touch, boring.....

How old is your DD?

What are your boundaries?

She is 15 and in yr 11. The main thing we are asking of her is to be in by 11 at weekends and 10 during the week and have cracked down on phone/laptop use so they are switched off at night during the week. Also asked her to contribute a bit more at home such as keeping her room a bit more tidy and maybe helping me now and again but I dont have too much of an issue with that tbh. ( I have been reading postings from other members of MN who have almost the same problems which is what prompted me to join). We just try to keep her safe as much as we can but she sees that as controlling of course. We only introduced these things quite recently and she is quite horrified with it.

Things are very strained in our household and we dont have much of a family life as DD would rather poke pins in her eyes than spend any time at all with us and this has been going on quite some time. If my mum had offered to take me to lunch and shopping/to the cinema etc I would have been there like a shot. But she is a different person to me and we live in different times.

So I am worn down and upset and taking it personally and somehow I have got to step back. Maybe accept that this is the way its going to be but its so hard as I am an emotional person. How do I do it?

Here's where I always go against the Mumsnet norm. I think it's fine for teens to want to spend time with friends or barricaded in their room, but it is not fine for them to refuse to contribute at all to the family community in which they live, or to be rude and offensive to the rest of the family. All this "growing brain" stuff is fine, but why does a "growing brain" have to be rude and abusive? An occasional slanging match is fine- constant rudeness and being hurtful and abuse with no reason isn't. They need to know that their words have consequences and that parents are people too!

it is not fine .....to be rude and offensive

I was going to post that same advice in my first post, but it occurred to me that we have no idea what the "boundaries" were. FWIW your curfews sound reasonable to me, with the caveat that there is room for compromise with special occasions etc rather than a hard and fast rule.

My advice would be to let her discover the 'natural' consequences of not tidying her room for herself - unless she's extremely unhygienic a messy room isn't a safety issue. (I was struck by someone commenting once that many parents talk to their teens more about the state of their room than about their hopes and fears....)

There's a difference between her being rude and her not wanting to spend time with you shopping or going to the cinema. She might be embarrassed at the thought of being seen at the shops/cinema with you - teens often go through a phase of that. You have an idea of girly fun, but she might be imagining a scene in which you disagree with her choice of shopping(clothes) - her choice of where to eat. She probably wants to complain about how hard done by she is by the world in general, how out of touch her parents are, giggle/look severe, look at horrible unsuitable stuff etc with her peers. And that's normal development for a 15 YO. She just wants to do her own thing and discover who she is turning out to be, independently of you. I don't think you should see that as a problem - arguably it would be more of a problem at her age if she wanted to spend a lot of time with her mum.

Otoh, if she is swearing/slamming doors/saying horrible things then, IMO that would not be acceptable behaviour.

FWIW - I have mixed feelings about the phone thing; these smartphones definitely are the work of the devil, but my goodness they're a big part of the lives of young people - this is the new preferred method of communication. Turning it off at night - although sensible - might be very symbolic of the lack of control over her life she has over her life.

FWIW with our 14 yo dd who is also not at all keen on doing anything at all with the family (which is painful I agree) it seems to work best if you don't do anything to try to "get close" - ask in a non-committal way how her day was maybe, but not much else; keep asking her if she wants to do x tomorrow with the rest of you but then when she says "No" just say "OK" and move on; don't try to persuade her.
I think that to some teenagers, normal friendly overtures spark the kind of feelings of irritation that a normal person only gets if someone is invading your personal space or being too pushy in some way.
It is very upsetting that finally having got to the age that you can do fun things (ie not just go to the playground and push them endlessly on the swings) they don't want to do them. But it's a long game. In 3 years for sure you will have a very different relationship.

Chocoluvva I see what you mean about the smartphone thing and thats exactly how she sees it as us trying to control her by taking it off her. But she cant control her own use on it so it had to be removed during the week. She's in a strop about this as well as having to be in at what we think is a reasonable time.

She's not constantly slamming doors and being rude to us - only when she gets frustrated and usually during a heated argument but thankfully these are quite rare. She does quite often talk to me in that way kids do these days which is disrespectful but I have just let that go. Before all this, she would come and watch a bit of TV with us now and again but not much more than that.

She does refuse to contribute to the family home. Doesnt think she has to. And yet DS does not think like this and they were brought up in exactly the same way. DS thinks her behaviour is disgraceful and has told her so but she doesnt care what he thinks.

So what to do. I am so so hurt that I am inclined to go down the "dont do anything to get close" and just leave her be. Let her make the first move. I do think it irritates her when I try to be overly nice. DH says just leave her and she'll grow out of it. Hmmm when? In 2 years time? I'll have gone crazy by then or be dead from the stress of it all. Only joking! And then she rings me and asks for a lift home coz its raining!! Really? And of course I go and pick her up.

Do you often have heated arguments? I ask because IME it's easy to accidentally slide into a habit of arguing. Don't though. If you're going over the same ground tell her that you've discussed it already so you're not going to go over it again. Teenage girls enjoy drama. Don't provide it.

How does she talk to you in a 'disrespectful' way?

The thread on this forum started by 'sillygiraffe' - what's going on with my DD? - might be worth reading.

I'm not judging you btw when I ask about her/your behaviour. I'm afraid I used to shout and argue with my DD. One day after an awful row I just decided to stop arguing and getting het up and the household became a much nicer place to be in.

Do you have time out just to do things that you like away from your family and home? A bit of me time can do wonders for your ability to cope with stress.

Sorry I left out the most important bit of my advice which was that we've found that when we step back and just wait, often dd will actually reach out (on her own terms and in her own time) and want to connect.

The lifts thing we struggled with a lot - "it's outrageous of her to expect a lift after how she's behaved". Nowadays we pay less attention to how she's behaved and more on the request itself: how much hassle is it for us and what will she have to do if we don't give her a lift. Generally, if we can give her a lift without too much inconvenience to us, we will. If the traffic is bad or we're really busy at home, we say -sorry, can't do it.

Same here.

You, as a mature adult think about her previous behaviour, but your DD won't make the connection between having a strop and then asking for a favour.

Teenagers don't do grateful till they're 17ish IME...

She is not nasty to me on a daily basis as such and we dont have that many heated arguments tbh. Just now and again but they usually escalate as DD never backs down and neither does DH. As for the talking disrespectfully, its just the tone of voice and the way she responds and refusing to do stuff when asked. She can talk to me like I'm stupid and know nothing. Dont even mention schoolwork! Not a lot different to other teens I suppose.

I am just finding it hard to cope with at the moment.

Teenagers are such a shock to the system.

Make some time to go and do something fun and forget about her for a while.

Please read 'Get Out of My Life but First Take me and Alex into Town'.

It is a fantastic book and explains many of the above comments about living with a teen - e.g. the expectation of lifts despite being horrible only minutes beforehand.

It is an eye opener and if you read it I'm sure you will find it all easier to cope with because you will understand her behaviour more.

I've read it already. Maybe I should read it again.

Second vote for the book above, but it's not just reading it it's referring to it every now and then for reinforcement. Much as the book explains why things are happening it does also reinforce what your role as a parent of a sultry teen is.

And that's not to be ground down.

There's also Hiw to talk to teens so teens will listen and how to listen so teens will talk, or something like that which might help if you're having more than the usual trouble in communicating.

And it's not unusual for teens to seem to want to cold shoulder you and get out of the house as quickly as they can when you're around.

Social life is incredibly important to them but it's not unreasonable to separate her from the Internet at night time, though she'll probably complain she's missing out on everything that happens after you turn the router off! If you ask her what she's missed, she'll have nothing to tell you though.

You might find she reacts quite well, and by well I mean speaks to you, if you start to engage with her by making simple statements rather than trying the 'how was school?' Type open questions. Same thing goes for family events, just tell her their happening with plenty of notice.

Won't work 100% of the time, but it resets her expectations.

And don't forget you have the levers of money, lifts everywhere, food, clothes. All those things to remind her she does actually need to consider how she reacts to you if she wants any of them to continue.

I'd also recommend Nicky and Sila Lee's 'parenting teenagers course' - the section on the five languages of love might be very useful.

Right it is not ok for her to be rude it is not ok for her to talk to you like dirt. On her shoes and her being a teenager isn't a reason for you feeling like you do, she is controlling your household wirh her temprement. Yes teens can be like this but we can't let them treat us like crap. Being 15 isn't a reason to opt out of family, you need to decide what you will or wont put up with and go from there ans do not pander to her moods for a quiet life

I agree with pp too just I'm on my mobile and can't quote but it is fine to take internet away the world does not end it is ok

My eldest Dd is in her 20s and when she was a midteen she had a tonewhen she spoke to me I used to say " ooh harsh " stopped her in her tracks and made her think and change her tone

I'm in such a bad way with this at the moment. I am really too emotional to deal with it all properly (I keep bursting into tears all the time!) I dont want to punish her any more by taking things away all the time. That might just push her even further away. I think I have to really sort myself out first as this has taken over my life just recently. Cant think about anything else tbh.

Have to focus on the positives. She's not a bad kid. Hasnt done anything bad. Ok she is selfish, untidy, late for everything, not bothered about school work, stays up far too late, irritable, annoyed but is that any reason to punish her? Can that not be said about many teenagers?

She's definitely not a bad kid!!! Doesn't make her teenage ways any less tiresome though.

I'm sure you're right to concentrate on yourself - bursting into tears all the time is not good . Do whatever you need to get yourself better - GP?

I do think you need to take w break from this but you do need to remember she needs to take personal responsibility for herself and how she behaves you sound like you are a bit defeated by her atm but her behaviour isn't acceptable teenagers push our emotional buttons but be strong

No she isn't. A bad kid

I also think you need to concentrate on yourself. When ive had a particularly bad time with one of them ive gone out the house - a coffee shop, the cinema is great to distract.

It's also a bit of a mourning period. You are not going to be as close as you were to them for a while so it's a good time to take the focus off them and onto the next stage of your life - take up hobbies etc.