Teenage daughter social skills

[TrumpingtonTowers]

I wanted some advice on my 13yo daughters social interactions as I don’t feel this is normal teen behaviour. Most of this is taking place on social media or in school. She does not have unlimited internet access and does not have her phone in her bedroom. She is obsessed with her phone and messaging, she would go on it all waking hours if she could. Recently I looked at her messages as I was quite worried about the amount of fall outs she was having - hence I’m not sure how to raise things else she will know I’ve looked at her messages and I don’t want her to feel embarrassed, I also feel bad for invading her privacy.

I will try to bullet point it, as it’s a mess altogether.

She will get involved in other people’s arguments and, no other word for it, shit stir - ie screen shotting something someone has said about someone else and sending it to the other person. She tries to be manipulative to get people to do/say things against others and then tells the others what so and so has said.

She will tell people she might have ADHD, autism, that she has anxiety, depression - that she has been crying in her room all night, that she is starving herself, that she never sees her dad (he lives with us) as he is an alcoholic, that she is upset as people she is close to have died recently who haven’t - ie uncle, grandparent. A child who had died in a nearby town was made out to be a good friend of the family and all her friends rallied around to support her grieving - she had never met this child. It is all made up, seemingly to get attention / sympathy.

A boy asked her out, she was messaging him that night asking repeatedly if he loved her, and then virtually hounding the boy with a one sided argument as he didn’t reply quickly enough and eventually said he must hate her, sent lots of heartbreak/pain/angst memes to him, messaged all her friends saying they had broken up with crying emojis asking them to message him to find out why he “hates her”, the lad blocked her in the end. This was not a one off, she has done it to other boys, and is also the same with her friends - expecting an instant response and if she doesn’t get one that means her friend now hates her for some reason or is “being funny”.

Obviously it’s all attention seeking but in a negative way, she comes across as quite confident and does have friends who she also sees outside of school but she can’t carry on like this, someone will find out the stuff she is lying about, or someone will just exploit her obvious neediness.

Well a good reason for removing her phone would be that she's using it to bully and harass other people. I mean, obviously not being able to do that would be a great loss to her initially but I cant see how shed end up with less friends than if you let this go on - they're bound to wake up to her eventually.

Agree with previous poster that she shows signs of a personality disorder. Also, I'm fairly sure aspergers and adhd manifest a bit differently in girls usually. Obviously the only person who can tell you is a psychiatrist but I would say her behaviour is but normal.

Agree with PPs who say that 10pm is too late to be on the phone for 13 yr old,,even if she had normal interactions so that’s something to consider in the first instance.
It sounds like your DD has some massive self esteem issues - whether they come from ASD or a specific diagnosis, that’s for a professional to ascertain, but I would take the first step in restricting phone use and going to GP. Just because someone is popular, fancied by others, into their appearance etc does not mean they have high self-esteem.

Your daughter quite frankly sounds awful. Lying about a dead child is going into sociopathic territory and I'm afraid by not removing her phone for fear of 'socially isolating' her, you're setting her up to fail. She's 13, mentally immature while physically mature. Sorry to be blunt but read her the riot act about lies biting her on the arse, remove the phone, ground her and do some empathy work with her.

How dare she make some poor families tragedy about her? Attention seeking is a bit of friend drama, lying about a tragedy is deeply worrying. I'd take her to the GP & sit her down and explain exactly what you've seen and why it's so wrong.

Did she think that lying about having an alcoholic dad was cool?

I’m with Littlefish. You don’t know what the problem is but there clearly is one.

If you feel so strongly that an expert isn’t going to be helpful then it’s up to you to do the research. Read Tony Attwood on autism in girls.

It’s so easy to jump to attention-seeking behaviour when it comes to teenage girls and their reasons for doing things. It makes me sad.

Trying to think of other things.

She is a terrible hypochondriac, and if she has a small injury/illness it is hugely exaggerated - a hurt finger is bound to be broken, an illness is bound to be something really serious.

The 10pm bedtime seems to suit her - any earlier and she doesn’t sleep, 10pm she will sleep through until 7.30, she gets ready for bed and gets her school clothes ready at 9.45. She is not usually on the Internet / phone till then as she has used up her limit by 8pm most nights. She goes to homework club after school two or three times a week so does her homework there. If she doesn’t go to homework club we can enforce the homework at home for an hour which she will do with a little bit of moaning but nothing major.

She used to be quite sensory seeking, but as she has got older this has stopped.

She shows little empathy for other people, the world revolves around her birthday but she shows little interest in anyone else on birthdays / Christmas / Mother’s Day etc - I know when I was younger I used to love buying my family thoughtful gifts, but not sure if children are generally more selfish these days.

@EyeoftheStorm it isn’t that I think an expert will be unhelpful, it’s that I know it would be around a two year wait away, IF a referral was accepted in my area. I don’t just want to do nothing in the meantime.

There's something underlying this - i agree she needs counselling.

@StylishMummy we felt the same about the child’s death and more or less said to her what you did - that she shouldn’t be using a tragedy like that for attention, that we were appalled by it and so would her friends be. Saying her dad is alcoholic (he is not) was probably another attempt to pretend she has a awful home life so she would get sympathy.

A diagnosis is not a magic bullet that stops damaging behaviour.

OP, start by explaining how and why DD's social skills will result in 0 friends. And talk through how unkind, manipulative and attention-getting she is being.

DD doesn't need to like you for a couple of days afterwards. She does need to know you love her but not her behaviour.

There are lots of really good text counselling services for young people that are nhs endorsed a really good one is Kooth.com and childline also have one on their website . Also young minds have just set up a texting phone line.
You can ask school to refer or self refer to your school nurse team who can support with self esteem / anxiety.

@JustDanceAddict I realise her looks etc don’t mean she doesn’t have self esteem issues, I was trying to get across that she seems very confident in her looks which is at odds with how she is presenting in her messages. Just trying to give a fuller picture.

Counciling. It sounds like the beginnings of a personality disorder like borderline personality disorder or NPD. These form young and it might already be too late to do something about but you can only try.

Her behaviour isn't normal. This has nothing to do with being a teenage girl. It is disorderd and she needs serious help asap.

Oh and the bit about birthdays n Christmas made me shudder because the friend I had (who is diagnosed NPD) used to say she hated Christmas because it overshadowed her birthday (in early December) and everyone focused on it, 'instead of me'.
Just no compassion for others. Other people were only there for her amusement or to give her stuff and attention.

Don't be the parent that let's her grow up like this with no intervention.

Sensory seeking behaviour, problems with friends and social skills, inappropriate behaviour for age, fixed on her phone, seen as dramatic and attention-seeking.

Please read Tony Atwood. What’s your choice at the moment? Your dd is horrible or there is an underlying problem/pattern that you’re not seeing and that you could do something about.

Just look into it.

@EyeoftheStorm
I obviously do think there is a problem otherwise I wouldn’t be posting here.....

The attention-seeking thing pushes my buttons. Sorry.

Honestly OP, she seems very disturbed and the sort of person who can cause a lot of stress, anxiety and distress to other kids. Take the bloody phone off and get her some help. It may be that she is not able to distinguish where the lines between nice and destructive behaviour are, or it may be just a teen that has gone into an online cave and is being raised by a phone.

OP ... she definitely needs assessing ... could you possibly go private? A diagnosis often helps young people to understand their behaviours, the reasons behind it. My dd was dx with asd aged 11 ... she looked like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders when she found out.

She’s very academic and getting an EHCP was difficult ... but we got there in the end, easily eventually when she didn’t attend school for 2 weeks due to stress and anxiety.

A diagnosis doesn’t bring the help you need unfortunately, but I find you get more understanding from others because of it.

Your school doesn’t sound very helpful .. ours put loads of measures in place for my dc before dx. 3 different schools helped my 3 dc, and also college. Only 1 of mine has a dx yet all 3 were helped.

Saw this online, perhaps google it. See if anything sounds familiar.

There are also a few YouTube videos knocking about what to do if your child displays narcissistic tendencies.

Ok, so this is quite bad to post these - I have anonymised them, she is the one on the right in grey. This is the convo I was talking about where he blocked her in the end, poor lad was trying to be nice to her but she kept on.

That sounds desperate and I'd be mortified but I'm not sure if its a sign of autism?

@Trewser
I am mortified for her, what a way to carry on, if someone was messaging my son like that I would tell him to steer clear as she sounds deranged.

Ffs, take her phones me off her!! 🙄 phones socially isolate people which is what’s going to happen here. Make her live in the real world and actually interact with real people!

I think your dd is just a bit immature.
She loves to act grown up wanting to know if the boy wants to go out with her.
I'm sure shes not the only 13 year old to do this when she likes a boy.

But then when you are in pool she acts like a child playing, enjoy this time with her.
I know you said you are tired after work but if it distracts her from the phone it's better. use this time with her to talk about growing from childhood to teenager and talk about boundaries in friendships
Tell her not to pressure people or tell lies.

I would tell her you looked at phone and saw what she wrote about her dad and that she could cause serious harm to your family.
Tell her you will continue to monitor her phone until she can prove she can be trusted or you wont pay for phone.
If my dd does something i stop her messaging people the following week and no social media at all.
If i catch her out i add another week at the moment she is in week 2 she tried to tell me it was her friend that used her phone but I knew that was crap so I blocked the boy as he was degrading women saying we had no rights and she was arguing back with him.