13 year old doesn't listen

[Kayla8528]

My daughter just turned 13 in March and did a complete turn around the sweet and innocent tween turned into the angry teen! She's my oldest so I haven't had any experience with this until now.... She has one chore .. Dishes. Which she never does without being told numerous times. She's soooooooooo hateful to her 7 year old brother has wished for him to get hit by a car has wished for him to get hurt really bad she wants to play with him but there's always attitude and fights and pure hatefulness! She doesn't listen you have to tell her numerous times to do anything or scream her name 100 times before she listens . When she does get in trouble she's the victim she does nothing wrong and nothing sinks in!!!!!! She steals from me she steal from her brother she's stolen from stores this has been happening for a couple years now.. So about a month ago her room got cleaned out nothing but bed and dresser. Privileges have been taken away phone .. Tv.. Toys.. Everything and she just doesn't care!!!!! Any advice would be appreciated!

Maybe try to remember what you were thinking/doing as a teen. I remember thinking my parents were coarse imbeciles. Teens have some really odd thought processes, I've read. Something about the way the brain is developing. They say they come out the other side of puberty almost completely different persons. They have too, or they never become independent? Maybe try reading up on teen psychology?

I've just been crying tears of frustration as I'm so fed up with my own 13yo DD BUT we are on the way to improving things. i was recommended a book called 'divas and door slammers' by someone on a thread that i started. the key points seem to be praising your teen much more than criticising (6:1 ratio of positive to negative comments) and a structured system of rewards for one specific targeted behaviour.

its been a fantastic help and we now have some positive strategies in place. but it is bloody hard work, hence the tears of frustration as i do feel like i'm treading on eggshells much of the time.

from what you say, if your dd has lost all privileges etc, she may feel that things are overwhelmingly negative and that there's no point in trying. i totally get how you can feel like there's nothing to celebrate/ praise/ be positive about but my dh and i have finally realised that we need to change how WE react to dd if we are going to change HER behaviour.

sorry to sound preachy but we've been on a steep learning curve ourselves with similar.

HTH

The privileges were taken away after many many many attempts of talking to her about her attitude behavior towards her brother, stealing, she was doing dishes by loading a dishwasher now she does them by hand because what her father and I say doesn't matter. It's her world and she's the one living in it. She gets words of encouragement is praised gets a lot of what she wants but we get nothing in return so that's where we're at a loss . She's good for a couple days then goes back to not Cari g

i understand what you're saying kayla.

we have had a massive turn around using the approach described above. its worth reading the book. I've oversimplified the theory in my post, of course. the author is hugely successful and experienced at managing tough teens in inner city schools and in domestic situations too.

Useful for me to read this.

Having been through years of terrible strife with dd as a result of behaviour pretty similar to the one in the OP, I have realised that getting sucked into negative parenting is very hard to resist, but in the end what you probably need to do. I wish I'd had more help with this.

I'm having to remind myself of this as ds is entering his teens and his behaviour is deteriorating fast: rudeness, lying, obstructiveness, laziness.... DH said to me this morning that we've both got to try harder not to criticise ds so much - it's been relentless recently (because his behaviour has been relentlessly negative - we're not nasty, just responding to bloody awful behaviour in the way which seems most logical).

Liking reading this after my 11 and 12 year old left me sobbing this morning. They are awful to each other and at the moment cannot be in the same room together for 5 minutes without shouting at each other. They are both responsible for this in entirely different ways, but neither of them can see it. I would love to have ccTV in the house so they can see how they act and at least admit that they each do things wrong.

I remember hating my looks, my figure, my lack of fashionable clothes, my lack of confidence, inability to flirt, to make friends laugh, my embarrassing parents, our lack of money.... fortunately for my DM it was many years ago when everyone was quite reserved, otherwise I'd have been like the DD described I should think. Nothing anyone said at home would have made a difference. Getting off with a nice looking lad or having a great time with my friends would have changed things (temporarily).

I did do ok at schoolwork otherwise that would have been a problem too. I spose you just grow out of it.

A lot of teenagers are just miserable, angry, unpleasant bastards people and not nice to be around.

I suspect the trick is to try to remember that they'll change and/or go away soon and you won't have to put up with it forever. And to do nice things for yourself all the time to counterbalance the hideousness of having to live with a Kevin.

I've also read the Divas and Doorslammers book (cheap on amazon marketplace) and it does give you an insight into the teen mind, and ways to improve behaviour. I would def recommend it.

I have no magic answers but do feel for you, it is replicated all over the world and teens can be hard work.

This phase will pass.

The following sketch is spot on, Kevin becomes a teenager.

That Kevin clip is hilarious! I'm going to show it to my 10 yo DS, in hopes that he'll remember it - when he starts doing it!