At wits end with dd

[Xtrabroken]

She lies, she swears at me, she's manipulative, she's aggressive if she doesn't get her own way and she threatens, damages something or goes the other way with a 'poor poor me my life is so bad' attitude.
All I ever hear is that I am getting at her all the time (that counts as NICELY asking her to do something to help me or disciplining her for anything at all), she does nothing in the house, she openly says she doesn't have to listen.

She lies where she is so is grounded so now she lies she's on the way home from school when she is actually with the bad friend. She's turned her location off so that I can't check.

Her latest step is to stick her fingers in her ears if she doesn't want to listen.

I've been to camhs but she won't engage.

No bullying going on and she has friends although one of them is a nightmare and it's clear where some of the attitude is coming from.

She doesn't give a damn if disciplined.

She lies and makes stuff up about me.

What's worse is no one will help me as at school and the place she volunteers she is little miss perfect herself.

I can't stand living with her atm if I'm honest.

Same here 😓 my dd is 16 and i cant do anything right. To the point that shes staying with my mum at the moment. Not advice im sorry but you are not alone. Ive asked for advice elsewhere so i will share anything useful.

Every single reply here is my life right now. Im broken. DD doing very best to destroy any last hope in our relationship. I hope it passes i really do

This is my life too. I thought I had created this monster through being a rubbish parent. DD aged nearly 15 certainly makes me feel like it is all my fault. She is perfectly nice one minute and then tells me to fuck of I don’t even like you i don’t want to live with you in the next breath. This upsets me so much. I really don’t want her in my life when she’s like this. This has gone on for years but got loads worse in the last two. I dream of leaving my large 5 bed house and living in a flat on my own away from all the abuse. If I was the child as would probably remove me! Nice to hear from people who have survived this

I must be the only teacher dreading the school holiday next week. Too many hours at home with DD. I’d rather be at work dealing with other parents teenagers!

I think just knowing others have been through this horrid time helps us parents/carers to understand we are not alone. No one sets out to live this way and I can't help but think it isn't helped with with constant media, mobiles, snapchat etc because there are just too many teens acting out badly. I have given up with trying to deal with bad behavior for the moment and just been concentrating on breaking the cycle of negativity, by that I mean trying to repair our broken relationship. It can be hard to find a starting point to build on when for months or years your teen is just swearing at you and being obnoxious. For me it took our DD to go down with flu and my looking after her broke the ice. It was nice for once not having a troubled teen to deal with but one that was reliant on me to provide comfort instead, that has helped change the mood between us. Therefore anything that can change the dynamic can help e.g. you or her staying with someone else for a few days or if that can't be done just finding something else to focus on. I am under no illusion that we are out of the woods as far as DD troubling behaviors but by getting on better with her I hope some of the angst and anger in her will not be directed solely at me. When things are going wrong in our teens lives I wonder if they need the person closest to them to vent at and blame for their own misguided mistakes. Adolescents tend to be too immature to accept it could be their unwise decisions that is causing their problems and therefore it's easier for them to point at their family instead. The advice I have taken is by other mums here and what is helping me is to try to start each day afresh (therefore I have put the current problems of school, bad friends etc out of my mind for the time being) and I am trying to get to know this troubled teen as though we are meeting for the first time. It's hard when you have worries in your head and to ignore concerns but I felt I needed to get past that to reconnect with our DD. We have a long way to go as she is only a couple of months close to 15 and that I have been told is a challenging age too. But, the times that we are getting on better helps provides me (and possibly her too) a respite, a break from the conflict. Punishment or incentives do not work with our DD but praise does change her mood. Abiamber I really do get what you have said in your message as do the others too. Which is why I have to focus on the brief good times as is easy to get swamped down. Most of us parents/carers will get through this as one day once our offspring will grow up but we need to take care of ourselves. Drop the parental guilt as it doesn't help, offload here where like minds meet and do something nice for yourself today, be it a walk, read a new magazine or a nice hot drink to savour. Something no matter what that you can just concentrate on you for a change (instead of the teen with raging hormones causing havoc with your family tranquility).

I feel your pain. I think you have to bare in mind that her hormones will be all over the place, no excuse though.
You have to pick your battles I think and ride the storm.
Sorry not much help,
My ds is older and can be rude to me. I just remind him who he is talking to, try and stay calm and only address one issue at a time.

Thanks for that. I’m going to try to do a least a couple of things for myself next week. Elder daughter is coming home from uni for a few days so will risk the wrath of younger daughter as spend some time with her. Younger DD resents me spending any time with anyone that is not her but then is mean to me when I’m with her.

Your older daughter may be able to provide the listening ear that your younger daughter needs right now. The younger daughter is likely to resent the special time spent with her sibling (out of sibling jealousy) but you could prepare for that by having something that you and the younger one can do together when her older sister returns to uni planned (try and do something that is unlikely to get withdrawn if she misbehaves though). My DD has stated she hates school and that she can't wait to leave. There is no bullying but with her once high grades now fallen so low (because of refusing to go this past year) she has struggled to keep up. We are unable to find alternative education or educate her at home, she knows this, therefore she is beginning to understand that arguing with us at home is not going to change things for her. It's beginning to click in her mind that she needs to get through the next 18 months of school somehow. The continual obnoxious behavior is ceasing (not altogether but enough to make home life better). I am trying to separate her bad behavior with the times we are able to communicate without it erupting into an argument (those are the times she is able to discuss her worries). I never thought we would get to this stage a year ago but it's a big improvement to what we've had in the past.

1 day of holidays over! Can it get worse? Ended the day with me and husband watching the same tv programme in different rooms. Source of disagreement was guess who-DD. Him having a go at me for not standing up to her. His idea of sorting things out is either shouting at her or telling me she ‘has to go’ surprisingly this doesn’t help and is why she hates him and won’t be in the same room as him half the time. I have considered leaving but would I be more or less able to cope with her on my own. He absolutely wouldn’t have her with him because he would blame her for the split. No wonder she has issues. Is it her behaviour leading to our relationship difficulties or the other way round. Either way one is not helping the other. My husband is of the mindset to blame somebody for everything but never himself of course.

Goodness me, it's like reading about my all consuming worry although my dd has only just turned 9.

She has been accepted finally by camhs, and I'm certain she has add although unfortunately the school don't so she won't get a diagnosis. She does get in trouble every day for daydreaming however!

I'm worried it will split our family up eventually, and I'm so worried for her future.

The only way I cope in the school holidays is to spend £££ going somewhere by the sea or with a pool, as she's so calm in the water (although she refuses swimming lessons of course!)

So sorry to hear so many of you are also suffering, it feels like loss a lot of the time :(

Aliamber, do you think you would be having these problems with your husband if it were not for your daughter's behavior right now? I understand that a adolescent who is acting out badly can cause a strain on a marriage and family relationships. Do remember there are many families trying to cope with the same problems that you and your DD father are trying to deal with, and we are all human and deal with things differently. Last year I thought I couldn't manage any more with our teen causing so much trouble and was directed through counselling to Syd Banks '3 principles' which was insightful, it is NOT a religion or a coping technique but it did help me lots. Now that our DD is not behaving badly ALL the time as she was last year, it is giving us a respite. I can see how her continual obnoxious behavior was having a detrimental affect on us all, it's like a dark cloud hanging over the rest of you. I understand you don't want these problems and the anxiety it causes the rest of the family. Currently I have no idea why our DD has stopped behaving badly this week (or for how long this period of her better behavior will last!) but the break from worry is good. I wonder if adolescents eventually run out of steam and by that I mean if they eventually tire of their own bad behavior, poor decisions and the dire consequences it produces. I have no idea, but even though it seems relentless what some teens can get up to I am sure that eventually this horrid time will pass for you too.

Hi all, my 2 DS are now 17, it could hsve bern me writing the current posts any time over the last 3 years. However i must admit that them leaving high school and going to college has made my life so much better. Yes, they are still obnoxious at times, and yes, I still have stand up fights (physical as well as verbal! ), yes, they tend to spend their free time glued to their computers, and yes, DH still retreats to another room as he has times when he can't stand them, but things are...slowly, oh so slowly....getting better. I have even had them admit that I was right about revision for GCSEs last year! The fact they both decided to do vocational course rather than A levels made a big difference, and I am slowly getting human beings back in my house!

I have stand up fights with my daughter on occasions. Its her sheer anger and hatred towards me that causes her to act horrendously towards me. Im ashamed to admit that my reactions are not the best. This causes rows, fights and arguments. Shes staying with my mum for a while but i cant see light at the end of the tunnel at all. She initially agreed to counselling but now flatly refuses. Please can someone tell me if this gets any better?

Currently we are going through a 'good period' how long it will last I have no idea but we are gaining strength from this calm time. This time last year ALL the outside services were called in to help us (that's an indication of how bad things got). Our DD either refused to go to counselling and meetings or she sat mutely with eyes occasionally looking up at the ceiling and only uttering 'don't care' to everything, it was a complete waste of everyone's time. I mentioned before we had got into a negative cycle and we couldn't see any way out either. My sister who had gone through this with her own boys, gave me some good advice, don't get into conflict, don't argue as it brings you down to the teens level and that's what they want, so walk away (both are hard to do when your teen is pushing your buttons and boy do they know what buttons to push). We also managed to get some breaks like you are having now with your mum taking her, only on our DD return it always seem to go back to how it was before. BUT during the Christmas period I did note that our DD was trying to behave better (even though this was short lived and she messed up badly in the new year - it did give us confidence though that she too wanted things to be better). Fast forward to this month, she got ill with a virus and that help to change our relationship as she enjoyed the care and comfort I provided (she even said thank you a few times!). Whilst I'm beginning to think it was more likely our DD had started to tire of her own bad behavior and it's consequences of looking an idiot at school in front of her peers. I also think if there ever is an opportunity to 're-set' your relationship that can really help. There are many things I wish I hadn't said, done or thought a year ago too but it doesn't help to dwell all you can do is move forwards and learn from mistakes. I'm pretty sure we are not completely out of the woods as DD is not even 15 yet but this year is not as bad as where we were a year ago. Don't beat yourself up it's a hard task looking after some adolescents - you're only sad because you love her so much.

Thank you. A lot of wise words and helpful tips there. I definitely need to regroup, assess and make positive changes where i can. by reacting i do stoop to her level and she then revels in the drama/attention. I need to learn to walk away more often to avoid a huge confrontation. Im willing try anything and everything! I hope you continue on your good run.....good luck.

Donaldo8
I'm only able to be calmer now because we are getting breaks from how it was one year ago. I really do understand how the relentless bad behavior of an adolescent at their worst can physically, mentally and emotionally drain you. I would be very surprised if we don't get a few more challenges with DD as she is still young, but the more good times we have does help us all to start to enjoy life again, as it becomes all consuming when you are going through it. It may take a few attempts at trying to re-set your relationship but it's worth a go. Good luck too.