DD is supposed to be studying for GCSEs/Junior Cert

[AraGrand]

However, her Christmas report had negative comments from 4 teachers.
So I've refused to pay for Netflix for her anymore.

Is this reasonable? We had an all out holy war. Basically, my sister interferes and has told dd that I shouldn't be arguing with her (if she'd fucking butt out that would be a great help). So I said, right, that's it, Netflix is gone.

A bit extreme?

Your relationships sound really dysfunctional, and that includes your relationship with your DD. Withdrawing Netflix over this is definitely an overreaction. You seem to want an unrealistic degree of deference from your DD.

So you need to reset. Yes, your DD needs to stop being disruptive in class. You won't achieve that with this level of hostility. You would benefit from a parenting class that focuses on effective parenting for teenagers.

And you don't have to get on with your family, nor do you have to let your sister make parenting decisions with regards to your DD, but what you are doing now will drive your DD away from you and towards your sister - because your DD will feel she cannot talk to you.

You have a hell of a lot of work to do to put this right.

I’m a secondary teacher, in my school (might be different) it’s a long process to get as far as a negative comment. There are several steps before we get to that point. We then have to justify them, even if I did hate your daughter, I wouldn’t just be able to dish them out because I want to.
I would suggest arranging a meeting with her tutor or head of year and asking them in advance to have a comment from all teachers across the board on her attitude and behaviour for learning.
If it turns out she’s brilliant 98% of the time then good, if you have more concerns a plan can be put in place with school to make improvements.

I would do this ASAP so that if your sister tries to interfere you can explain to her why as her parent you are not allowing her to have luxuries for now (including spending time with her aunt). If it turns out she’s doing well maybe you could save and plan something nice for you to do together as a reward, if not you can suggest what you could do in a couple of months as a reward if she meets whatever targets you and school set.

I think telling her to get her aunt to pay for it was childish to be honest. She may well always have a better relationship with your sister simply because she isn't her parent. But the way you are acting is only going to damage your relationship with your daughter further.

Obviously she needs to stop being disruptive in class, but it sounds like the Netflix punishment was because you resent your sister really. Your sister is obviously not her mum, but as a teacher she may have a better idea of how to talk to a teen so they will listen.

Your sister is out of order, but you are handling this really badly. Instead of trying to be constructive, you are just reacting emotionally to things. Also, your story about the maths teacher seems more likely to confirm your dd's opinion that it's the teacher at fault, rather than your dd's own disruptive behaviour. Just because she behaves for some teachers, that doesn't mean she isn't behaving badly for others.

If you use something like withdrawing Netflix, it should be as a rational step to getting your dd to spend more time revising, not as a knee-jerk reaction from you being pissed off that she values your sister's opinion. Either threaten to ban Netflix if she doesn't do a certain amount of school work each day, or withdraw it and she can earn it back by doing school work. A retrospective, random punishment achieves nothing but making her pissed off.

In other words this is your own insecurity because your DD and your sister get on well and it bothers you?
Yes she is your DD, but your sister like it or not knows more about Education than you, and could be very helpful with your DD.

@minielise You see the thing is, is that my sister knows all this. She writes school reports and obviously deals with miscreants as principal. In her head, she has dealt with my dd, so I shouldn't need to!

Also, your story about the maths teacher seems more likely to confirm your dd's opinion that it's the teacher at fault, rather than your dd's own disruptive behaviour.

It was an effort to identify with her and get her to open up.

I think the problem with the story about the maths teacher is that it is undermining the position and judgement of the Spanish teacher. Students are so quick to justify negative behaviour by saying that a teacher 'doesn't like' them and it makes it worse when parents support this idea. If your daughter has 4 negative comments in 4 different subjects, this suggests that the problem lies with her attitude. As a teacher, I don't really understand this notion that we 'don't like' students. It is disruptive behaviour we don't like and surely parents should want us to address that in order for all the children to achieve their best?

It was an effort to identify with her and get her to open up.

I think it would have been much better to really praise her for the subjects in which she got good reports and then give her some kind of incentive to improve her behaviour/work in the subjects where she's misbehaving/not doing well.

Identifying with her in a "Yeah, school is hard. I had a couple of bad reports but I turned it around." way is fair enough. But agreeing that it's not your fault if you get told you're disruptive because maybe the teacher hates you - that is actively unhelpful and undermining.

@AraGrand it doesn’t matter if your sister knows it or not. You are her parent so it is up to you to get to the bottom of it with school, I wouldn’t even mention to your sister that you are meeting school.