So DGD (14) has come to stay with us (long story). She's started school, sort of, (with repeated refusals), and the school are being wonderful, building an early intervention plan and supporting me well.
Back at home, I am getting pushback on every thing that I do or say. Apparently she can't possibly be constrained by rules, that's cruel and abusive. Rules about bedtime, rules about the internet going off late in the evening, rules about getting up, rules about not taking your dinner into the bedroom - all totally unacceptable. Mum never imposed rules, Mum always spoke positively, Mum never told her she couldn't do anything.
Is it me? Am I the unreasonable one? How am I supposed to bring any structure into life if all the rules that I have run my home by are suddenly deemed unacceptable? If this was a visitor who was here for a week who was behaving like this I would think them extraordinarily rude and probably have slung them out by now, and certainly never invited them back. But because this is my DGD I am supposed to love, cherish and worship her without ever saying that any form of behaviour is unreasonable. If I get cross I am negative, and if I walk away then I am childish.
My husband is on the point of leaving, because all he sees is me caving in repeatedly. This evening when I said that the Internet would be restricted later on and she needed to go to bed at 10.30, she sat on the sofa and scratched her legs until they were raw, all the while yelling that my cruel abuse was causing her to self-harm.
Is this unusual, or is every 14yo girl such a self-centred unreasonable bitch?