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[buddup]

How to make them stop being cheeky - I leave the room, tell them "this conversation has finished", but they follow me around getting cheekier and cheekier. I am a very non-confrontational person, but they are grinding me down!

I feel your pain.
I'm at the end of my tether with ds (16).
Sick of it in fact.
Sorry no real help there. Can you tell I really dislike his behaviour right now?!

I have two of them so I hear it in stereo!

The only power I seem to have is witholding wifi access / mobile phone top-ups or lifts, so I am not sure I can give great advice, sorry.

A lot of the time they do calm down and come back and apologise an hour later, I think they just engage mouth before brain a lot of the time.

Sadly normal (mine seem to be growing out of it now, thankfully!) We used to send them up to their rooms if it was really bad!

Its a mix isn't it?

Sometimes ignoring it.

Sometimes making a pertinent response.

Sometimes going for the jugular.

I think such a mix keeps it to a minimum ...

It grinds me down horrendously, especially since the contrast between DD 6 months ago and current DD is beyond Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes I end up in a rage, sometimes in floods, sometimes handle it OK. Currently at home with virulent stomach upset which I'm almost sure is psychosomatic after the half term from hell. Didn't go to work as felt sure I'd be sick on the bus. Now dreading DD's looming return from school. Have spent large chunk of life with anxiety but had been feeling fine till all this reignited it, dammit. Does anyone else struggle like this?

I know you're not confrontational by you could surprise them one day by going batshit crazy at them. I agree with the a above poster who said you need a mix. Clearly just ignoring isn't working for you.

Are you trying to get the last word, OP? That's a red rag to a bull.

If dd follows me around going on after I have walked away from an argument or told her we both need to calm down and to leave it til later, I have a tendency to roar.
They wouldn't pester a teacher like that, or anyone else, it's not acceptable to badger endlessly until they think you'll cave in for an easy life.

I ignore loads, just completely disengage.

Ds might win the battle with the last word but he will NEVER win the war

Just been reading 'Get Out of my Life but first take Alex and me into town' - what a great book, self-esteem dial reading near normal again.
Like the sound of Fieldfare's roaring. Might do a bit more of that and a bit less blubbing.

Oh I do my fair share of blubbing too. I'm a hormonal, emotional mess at the moment.
Whatever we say she'll argue the point, even contradicting herself. It's even worse when she's been at her Dad's, and she was there all half term. It makes me despair as she adopts this attitude that is just like him, and I divorced him! It also saddens me immeasurably that quite often I just simply don't like her (or is it just the way she's choosing to be at the moment?) and ponder what it would be like if she went to live there full time with him. Then I feel bad that I have such thoughts. Argh!