My 17yr old DD seems to have changed so much over the last 18 months. She was always a happy bubbly chatterbox, however she just seems to be quiet, quite uncommunicative and moody most of the time lately 😕
She has lost a grandparent in 2020 who she was very close to, to an awful debilitating illness, and more recently has broken up with a boyfriend (which was her choice), but I think he was a bit of an emotionally crutch to her 🤔
I have tried to sit her down and ask her to talk to me, but she says there is nothing wrong, she's fine. Her tongue has become so sharp, I will get snappy remarks and she generally seems to have a bit of a chip on her shoulder about the world and people generally. She is so judgmental about people she doesn't even know, making assumptions about people and being dismissive.
However she is as nice as pie to her friends - always laughing and joking 😕
One by one she seems to have shed the minuscule amount of chores she did have, and if I ask her to do anything, I get the sighing and rolling eyes - it is like she has morphed into the Kevin and Perry character. She leaves mess and rubbish everywhere she goes and doesn't put anything away or tidy up.
She doesn't seem to have any nice conversations with her father at all - he gets one word answers. I saw him tell her he loves her the other day and she smiled at him and walked off. I get the best side of her which can be chatty on occasions, but this could be because I'm letting everything go and trying to keep the peace, so am currently not really pulling her up about everything.
She's not ranting and shouting and abusive but she just doesn't seem to want to spend any time conversing with us at all - we are on holiday at the moment and I am finding going out for meals painful - as she sits hardly joining in, on her phone. You would think she didn't want to be here - but where we have come to was her choice as she knows someone here.
I see these posts where people have got these beaming, happy, confident, sociable teens and I wonder what I have done wrong.
Will it pass 🤷🏻♀️ Any ideas on how to help her. Is this a phase? As I write it all down, I see how much she has changed and I feel sad looking at photographs of the happy, carefree girl she was prior to 2020.
We have a holiday booked just the three of us in February which was expensive and supposed to be a nice celebration and to be honest I'm dreading it. I don't know whether I should just cancel it 😬