Have I got my parenting of teen DD all wrong?

[Flapjackninja]

Any advice or strategy's that other parents use would be very welcome. Everything I seem to try with DD 13 seems to be a losing battle.

We've had ongoing problems at school for some time now, school do seem to really try they have set up a weekly meeting in school with cahms she has a time out pass if lessons are getting to much etc..

But she just won't behave school are losing patience with her .Take last week for example she was very rude to a member of staff and refused to do as asked. As a result I grounded her and removed her phone. Now were at today school has rang again yesterday she truanted a lesson and vandalised some toilets very bad she has a one day exclusion and I have a meeting with the head.

I don't know what to do obviously grounding is not working maybe I was stupid to try that. I just really don't know no one every really brought me up or through my teen years I just kind of got my way through them.

There so many other little things but I don't want to make my post to long that no one responds.

I just feel shit, shit mum what have I done that's made her this way. Were am I going so wrong?

What's it really about? If you ask her, kindly, what she's feeling what does she say?

This is one of the problems when we ask what is wrong what's making you feel this way why are you so angry. She can't explain it she says she doesn't know. I'm at a loss I made her an appointment to go to doctors to see if it was anything more but she refused point blank to go.

I live in Nottingham and our council has a team called Family Service. I presume your council will have something similar. They help with behaviour and attendance providing counselling for the child and courses for parents. The one they run on NVR Non Violent Response is brilliant. You don't have to be alone with it. Start making some calls and get the support you need. Hope it all goes well.

No, you are not getting it wrong. She is making poor choices and you are supporting the school. It'a a long haul and you will doubt yourself, but she needs you to set boundaries and expectations as well as explore emotional support for her. That might lead to changes in how you parent, but it will be in addition to consequences for poor choices not instead of. Good luck!

She can't explain it she says she doesn't know.

She doesn't have to know.
Try to get her to talk about what was happening, who did what, and how did she feel about what each person said or did. Kids lash out because they can't deal with feelings. Don't look for logic in what happened, but see if you can both better understand the sequence of events, the how.

You're looking for triggers. When you can both better see what triggered everything to kick off, you both start to have tools to do something different next time.

You're not doing anything wrong, btw.