Just a friendly hand hold for any other mums of teens

[Pleasegivemeyourwisdom]

I've 3.

It's a 'journey'.

Just in case anyone wants to know another trying her best mum is thinking of them

If she's just started now at 18 thank your lucky lucky stars. It is heartbreaking though. Whenever it happens. But after having this for about 4 years now, you are sooo lucky. I'm sure she will get over it. Maybe she's frightened of A levels or her next life stage.

It's the exact same for me. Rage and then utter rejection. Everyone else says keep busy. Let her see you being happy and busy and doing lots of things.

The only answer I think is just to get on with my life- as suggested. That’s what DH does. He takes the rejection well. Just shrugs. He’s not an emotional wreck like me. I need to be more like him.

My daughter is the same (15), and I feel exactly the same - anger then rejection and dejection, rinse and repeat. Yesterday I found out she has vaped, in addition to everything else. I know teens will experiment, but we talked about this specifically as she's on the pill.
My husband is like your husband, somehow much less affected, the lows are not as low for him.

I have this fantasy that somehow makes it more bearable. Her BF has bad fights with his father (apparently nothing in it, a loving family, just personality clashes), and my DD clashes with me (sullen, secretive, wants me to leave her room). For a month, if we just swapped kids, I think it'd be more bearable for everyone. She'd behave for his mom and he wouldn't yell at us. I'd also be more consistent with a kid I didn't desperately love the way I do DD. Ah, one can dream.

I worry that this is happening now, when DD is 17. Many people say they start growing out of it by now-mine is just growing into it!

She had the usual teen moodiness but it has ramped up massively in last 12 months.

Have any of you watched that film Ladybird? Such an accurate depiction of Teen girls and their mothers. made me cry.

It’s all falling apart here. Nearly 16yo Dd has had a massive fall out with her friends.

I’ve discovered a secret phone that she’s been using at night to access Omegle and take photos of herself. Not explicit but still not ok.

I have wiped the phone and considering next options.

I’ve thought about starting a thread but I imagine I’d be hit with the ‘turn the wifi’ off crowd.

I did turn the WiFi off and then she overslept as her Alexa is connected to it. Doh.

I thought I had been clever having devices out of the bedroom at night. So sneaky.

@Bobsledgirl if it was me, I wouldn't insist on conversation, companionable silence is ok. BUT I would insist on her thanking you for the lift.

Blow me

who knew it would be this hard

and the timings crap —yes I’m looking at you perimenopause—

She does say thanks tbh

Anyone out there? I’ve just had to send my 16dd to stay at her dads for a few days. She’s been becoming more and more obsessed with her phone over the last few weeks and her behaviour has been getting worse. I’ve got covid and feel awful, she’s angry with me for being sick and says I’m being mean to her (I’m just not as chatty as normal as feel like death). I agreed at the start of this year to let her have her phone in her room overnight on the understanding she put it away on do not disturb at 11pm. Found out from older sister that she’s on it until 1:30am every night talking to a boy in the year above so she’s exhausted as is up at 6am for school! I told her that we need to have a conversation about phone use and she lost it. Hit me, smashed her room up, screaming in my face all in front of her 8 year old sister. I’m just done, it feels relentless. She said some awful awful things to me and had now gone to her dads who had no rules whatsoever, and has told all her friends I’ve kicked her out. I want us to get on, I want everything to be okay but she will not accept any house rules or even basic human values. I’m just exhausted. All her friends are on their phones until the early hours so it does feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle.

Yep. Phones are such a big problem here.

see my earlier post. Thinking I’d cracked it by getting her to leave devices out of the room. Scuppered with a secret phone.

I haven’t really dealt with it as I’ve just wiped it and changed passcode- linked it to my iCloud account. I guess I’ll get notification if she tries to resurrect it?

it’s horrible though that she is just such a bloody liar.

Like you - I’ve been asleep for hours oblivious to all the nonsense going on in her room. 😡

My extremely challenging DD17 who I have posted about many times asked if her boyfriend could stay as he doesn't get on with his mum!! I laughed as it she described our relationship without even realising . He stayed (separate rooms!) it hoping he goes home tonight. He's nice enough just don't want anyone else here in the mix as she is so so unpleasant to me and not sure why I should feed him and do her any favours. He's 19 so an adult so I don't feel too bad for him.

@Crocamoc , so sorry to hear about your situation. All on top of covid, too!
The only way I have been able to control her phone/computer messaging use is through screen time (it turns off at 11 on school nights, 12 on Friday and Saturday). No promises to self-regulate on her end, no exceptions have worked for us. Her boyfriend and her best friend both can be on their phones at all hours, it makes it hard. However, her boyfriend can also stay off his phone if he has to study, and she has not been able to. When she comes back, can you try and renegotiate phone use? Perhaps through outside control (you), but calmly.

Thank you @incognito50me the problem I have is that her dad pays for her phone, so it’s all on his Apple account and he refuses to have any rules or boundaries. My daughter has changed the code for her phone so I can’t even access it to download an app that way. I just hate the arguments they cause. I want her home with us, but I can’t have her at home behaving the way she has been. I feel totally lost, it’s like the phone has taken over her brain. I just feel sad and lost and I don’t know what to do for the best. Her dad just always tells her I’m controlling and difficult and loves that she’s there instead of here. It’s so so hard.

This is great, just come home. She’s come home after school, taken half the contents of my fridge and all her clothes and taken it all to her dads. Including my favourite chocolate bars!!

I actually just found this thread after shutting myself in my bedroom for a few deep breaths and a cry. It's comforting to know there are others out there!

My daughter was highly anxious and had very little/no friends most her early years. It was heart-rending knowing she'd sit in the playgrounds alone at school. Then, secondary school started and it was like a switch had been flicked- now at 13 she has various groups of friends, a lovely boyfriend, and to most people, she's delightful go be around. Except me. She speaks to me like I'm shit on her shoe most the time and I don't know what to do anymore.i facilitate her social life, have her friends over for pizza, sleepovers etc. Drive her all over after slogging my arse off at work. I work hard to give her things she wants/needs even though money is tight. But it feels like she despises me at times. Her father does little, 200 a month maintenance despite being a big earner. She's not allowed friends over if she stays at his, so she's wanting to go there less and less. He's not bothered, I have to deal with a 13 year old speaking to me like crap most days.

Just wanted a rant really and to get that off my chest! Teenagers.... 😖😖

Phones have made parenting often pretty impossible. They often destroy the self esteem of our teens and they are nigh on impossible to control as parents. It’s exhausting and relentless. You have arguments taking the phone off them at night, they creep into the room and take it whilst you are asleep. They get up to all sorts of crap on it despite what you thought over the years had been grown up conversations with them about what not to do. Also they can circumvent most restrictions you put on them . With Snapchat they can get any drug they want delivered to the house in probably 15 mins. If Snapchat and other platforms cannot be policed our govt should ban them.
Sorry I am venting and rambling but I think we would have had half a chance of getting through the teen years , many of us without the invention of the mobile phone.

Had a very similar conversation with a friend just the other day. In a parallel universe where the Internet hadn't been invented, I bet they're doing just fine without!😆

I envy any parent who's kids are 25 plus. Much easier without smartphones. Wish I'd had mine younger!!

Ugh…..sympathy and empathy heading your way. I have no answers.

came up to bed upset agin. DD seems to have a limit on her tolerance for me. Sick of hearing ‘get out my room ‘stop talking to me’ ‘I can’t be bothered to discuss this’. I’m just a bloody big irritant to her. Unless I’m driving her or solving some drama for her. I swear if I didn’t initiate conversation we would barely speak.

I think k tomorrow I’m going to make zero effort. Why should I???

Just to add….if this was a partner relationship we’d be suggesting we all LTB be cause it’s an abusive relationship.

Oh it really is.
We wouldn't tolerate it for anyone else.

Absolutely.

I'm beginning to think that I don't get on with hardly any women in my family though.
I got on better with the men.
Female friends were different. I chose kind ones.
The women in my family all want to dominate. Just had another niggle / dominance about soap.

She says my soap needs refilling. I say let's bring up the soap to your floor, in the loft cupboard ( we have 4 floors). Soap is in the cellar. She says no I don't want to do that. I say it's easier. She says you are not letting me not have the soap here.

But she then wants it refilled and won't go down to get it.

These constant micro aggressions send me crazy.

With friends you can avoid it more. My sister is the same. And my husband too. If it's small why argue?

This is abuse. Slow steady abuse. Wearing you down. Breaking you. My mum does her version. The only way I've ever managed is by being louder, faster, getting in first, having so much energy that they can't fight you. I have never been able to state things I'd like and get them through.

Ever. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's everyone's experience.

@Bobsledgirl mine is exactly like that.

It's horrible. it's abuse. I'm absolutely sick of hearing this is teenagers. That's what they are like. I don't think it is. Not as bad as mine is.

AwKe at 2.30 a.m ruminating on today. I read a lot about teens. Advice seems to be about quiet and consistent boundary setting. Walking away from confrontation. Rolling with the punches.

That is so hard to implement with someone you love. I want her to know she is hurtful. I want her to have more tolerance. To stop talking to me like shit. I can’t just ignore the shit she throws my way but everything ends in conflict. If I ignore it and just suck it up I feel like a doormat.

I have no idea what to do and my mental health is suffering.