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Your daughter is obviously going through a tough time, have you actually sat down and listened to her? I mean REALLY listened? Teenagers are known to be moody, self-centered, etc., this is totally expected. What you don't want to do is alienate her, it's so important to keep the lines of communication open at this age. Otherwise, you risk losing her to drinking/drugs, sex/pregnancy, etc., which I'm pretty sure you don't want. Keep your heart open, and remember it's not you
I wonder about this too. Actually, I'd pack her up and take her on a girls' weekend, so you would have each others undivided attention. Stop the screaming, and definitely stop the pushing/pulling.
Punishing her by removing privileges hasn't made a difference, and I fail to see how shipping her off to boarding school or military school would help. It might make the OP's life easier, but parenting isn't a matter of convenience.
Teenage girls are snotty. They grow out of it. The worst thing she is doing in my eyes is bullying her sister. Start with that problem first. Find something to praise on a daily basis. Stop the constant battle of wills, and realize that that same stubbornness will be an asset in her life. Attend her track meets, be her biggest fan.
Hello,
I am in need of some suggestions. As my name suggests, I am at my witts end. My oldest daughter has about pushed me to the end of my rope. She is a good kid at school, gets good grades, runs varsity track etc. But at home she is a HUGE bully to her little sister (14yrs old - 15 months younger), is disrespectful to me, her Dad (who lives in another state, and her soon to be step dad who does EVERY thing for these girls. Emotionally, financially, etc. She is irresponsible, and has such a unbelievable sense of entittlement we practically choke on it. Everything and everyone must revolve around her and her plans etc. She has a distorted thought of "it won't happen to me" in regards to safety (she has her permit -though at this time is not allowed to drive due to being grounded from everything but breathing), when asked to do something, she just glares at me and doesn't make a move. I constantly have to ask her multiple times to do stuff, to the point where I have to scream at her, or physically pull her up and make her move to do what I'm asking her to do. We've been getting the silent treatment for going on 3 weeks now, getting maybe 1-3word answers. And what little answers we do get are dripping with attitude/sarcasm. We've taken everything away from her, her phone, computer, friends, driving etc. But this has seemed to make no impact on her. She has made no effort to change to gain these these priviledges back. Her attitude has in fact only seemed to have gotten worse in response. She is making the household miserable!!! What else can I do????
Take everything from her. EVERY THING. Her room should have nothing in it but a bed and an alarm clock. Her clothing? 2 pair of pants and 3 tops. Same for undergarments. No extracurricular ANYTHING until her attitude changes.
She is getting her power from YOUR reaction to her (physically pulling her up, screaming, etc). STOP. If she refuses to do something or doesn't answer, ignore her. Completely. Do not speak to her for anything at all.
If she continues disrupting YOUR household, pack up her 2 pairs of pants, 3 tops, and undergarments in a bag and send her to live with her father. (or at least threaten to, even if it means driving to the airport! See how quickly she will change)
I wonder about this too. Actually, I'd pack her up and take her on a girls' weekend, so you would have each others undivided attention. Stop the screaming, and definitely stop the pushing/pulling.
Punishing her by removing privileges hasn't made a difference, and I fail to see how shipping her off to boarding school or military school would help. It might make the OP's life easier, but parenting isn't a matter of convenience.
Teenage girls are snotty. They grow out of it. The worst thing she is doing in my eyes is bullying her sister. Start with that problem first. Find something to praise on a daily basis. Stop the constant battle of wills, and realize that that same stubbornness will be an asset in her life. Attend her track meets, be her biggest fan.
I agree with this and the other post that they quoted.
You need to ensure the communication lines are open especially with a teenage daughter. Find some way to reconnect with her so she feels like she can tell you anything and everything. I can't tell you how important this is with a teenage daughter! Girls can get caught up in some really bad things especially when they are seeking love and attention in the wrong places!
In my view (having been a divorced mom with children and a 2nd husband) your daughter needs to feel like she has someone in her corner right now. She probably feels like she has lost her biological Dad and now with your fiance she probably feels like she is losing her mother to this man.
Teenagers NEED stability during this time of raging hormones and emotions and if they feel like they are losing control over things they act out. Taking everything away from her and being a DICTATOR will rarely improve things with a teenage girl and in fact will probably make her even worse and propel her even further into finding understanding (and so called love) from people that will be more than willing to bring her into their dark and miserable world!
I would start by trying to carve out some one on one time with her. Take her (and just her) to one of her favorite restaurants or something she really enjoys. Initially don't even talk about the attitude or any of the difficult stuff. Just be with her and let her start to open up. Be consistent.
At a certain point, when she knows you are really there for her, have your fiance do the same. In my case my husband and daughter routinely went for sushi or chinese food because it's not one of my favorites and they really loved it. It gave them time to build their relationship and made my daughter realize that she wasn't losing a Mom but gaining another adult that loved her unconditionally.
And last but not least, please try to understand that occasional attitude is quite normal for a teenage girl. As you said yourself you were once one :-) Try to think about the reasons why you had attitude and why you were insecure and vulnerable at times and then share with her those feelings but not in a "you have to do this" way because "that's how I handled it" way.
I went through all of this with my daughter (who's my youngest) and is now 21 and living on her own and going to college. The teenage years were brutal! My husband had no idea what he was getting into, especially since he had never had kids and never even had a female sibling :-) But we got through it, with consistency, love, understanding AND most importantly communication.
Hello,
I am in need of some suggestions. As my name suggests, I am at my witts end. My oldest daughter has about pushed me to the end of my rope. She is a good kid at school, gets good grades, runs varsity track etc. But at home she is a HUGE bully to her little sister (14yrs old - 15 months younger), is disrespectful to me, her Dad (who lives in another state, and her soon to be step dad who does EVERY thing for these girls. Emotionally, financially, etc. She is irresponsible, and has such a unbelievable sense of entittlement we practically choke on it. Everything and everyone must revolve around her and her plans etc. She has a distorted thought of "it won't happen to me" in regards to safety (she has her permit -though at this time is not allowed to drive due to being grounded from everything but breathing), when asked to do something, she just glares at me and doesn't make a move. I constantly have to ask her multiple times to do stuff, to the point where I have to scream at her, or physically pull her up and make her move to do what I'm asking her to do. We've been getting the silent treatment for going on 3 weeks now, getting maybe 1-3word answers. And what little answers we do get are dripping with attitude/sarcasm. We've taken everything away from her, her phone, computer, friends, driving etc. But this has seemed to make no impact on her. She has made no effort to change to gain these these priviledges back. Her attitude has in fact only seemed to have gotten worse in response. She is making the household miserable!!! What else can I do????
Ok - step back and breath and relax. You're all caught up in your daughter's crap and the reality is complicated (as you've explained) but yet the number one thing you can do and directly control is simple: the way you react to her. Once you get a handle on that and work to achieve your own state of Zen, then share this wisdom with her sibling and your husband so that they don't get caught up in her crap too. Once you all are on the same page, then you can work to make real change in your family.
Realize that your daughter-problem didn't become this way overnight (barring something emotionally or physically traumatic that might have happened). There's something in you or your husband or your daughter's environment which encouraged this behavior at one time - at the very least, didn't discourage it when it began to happen. You need to figure out what it was that encouraged her to become this way so that you can ensure that influence is no longer there to work against your newfound efforts to change the way things are in your family. In my household, what I saw similarly was a result of feeling massive guilt over a divorce and then compensating for the less-lavish lifestyle changes and personal/financial future-image which came with it. The children saw the "compensation" and they took full advantage and got majorly out of hand/gained way to much influence on the family decisions. The stress created was palpable and caused a lot of anger, resentment, and other bad vibes. The reality is that your situation might have a different cause, but the way to handle is pretty straight-forward.
1) Show your daughter that you are human, not just her creator, but that you have the same genetic make-up as she does, the same thoughts and feelings, just with an older "meat suit." Literally schedule and take a weekend to spend time with just her away from the family (in a hotel out of town), explaining how you feel, expressing how you were at her age, and how things though different today, are yet still similar. Explain how as her mom you have more love for her than she knows, and how you are motivated to give her the best start in life possible. You are on the same team as her, not a different one. Before she knows it she will have an old "meat suit" as well, and you and everyone else is just trying to do the best they can with what they started out with and what they go out and work to change/earn. Explain exactly what you are willing/want to provide for her - for the "near," "mid-term," and "future" time frames. Tell her the best and worst case scenarios and let it really sink in... no bs, ... your daughter can expect such and such from you the next few years and onward and definitely not expect anything as fictionally represented on TV or the Internet or by her friend's unique lives. This in the corporate/sales world is called "setting expectations" and it's very important to do as you have no idea what your daughter wants/expects from you, but you definitely know what you can and are willing to provide. Sometimes it's disappointing to learn that you cannot get what you want but have to settle for what's available. Your daughter will have to let that sink in and accept the hand she has been dealt or else go through life angry and bitter about nonsense.
2) There's an age at which all smart children rebel against their parents - it may be early in the teens or it may be later in life. It may be mild or it may be severe. The reason is always the same: your child is developing a sense of identity as they come into adulthood which means that they are beginning to perceive you as an equal rather than as a high up on a pedestal creator/provider for their world. This is OK when it happens, it is better and more easily managed if you educate them growing up to expect this and what to expect regarding you as a provider. Once you indicate that you indeed recognize that they are indeed physical and mental equals to you as their parent, but just lacking in some school-of-hard-knocks wisdom that comes with age, your conversations with your near-adult child will be 100-times better.
In your case, you set the ground rules for behavior under your roof, and the penalties for when the rules are broken and the rewards for when behavior is in line. Pet trainers have known for hundreds, if not thousands of years, that "positive reinforcement" is much better than negative in getting an animal to do something. So it is important to emphasize the benefits of working with you, not against, and to put forth a lot more energy fleshing the details of those out and enforcing them. I find that exclusion from plans/activities and the other benefits of working with me is the best "negative enforcement" - and each time illustrate why the exclusion is happening.
3) Your younger daughter will need all you are providing the older one in terms of conversation and time alone to sort these things out as well. The year difference in age nor different demeanor doesn't warrant waiting.
4) You probably need some sort of therapy yourself due to the stress you've expressed. You perceive your daughter to be on a different team right now, and let the behavior described begin and then escalate to current levels. You are thus responsible for it and need to acknowledge that. Really do some soul searching for how and why and what you should change. You happen to live in an awesome period of time in human history - the Information Age... whatever you want to learn is right at your fingertips and available. Find your own joy/inner peace/true passion and your attitude about your daughter and other stress in your life will completely transform. Additionally, your family, with you as the leader, will transform in reaction.
Good luck with everything and my prayers for whatever they are worth are with you and your family.
Last edited by belovenow; 03-10-2014 at 01:46 PM..
Hello,
I am in need of some suggestions. As my name suggests, I am at my witts end. My oldest daughter has about pushed me to the end of my rope. She is a good kid at school, gets good grades, runs varsity track etc. But at home she is a HUGE bully to her little sister (14yrs old - 15 months younger), is disrespectful to me, her Dad (who lives in another state, and her soon to be step dad who does EVERY thing for these girls. Emotionally, financially, etc. She is irresponsible, and has such a unbelievable sense of entittlement we practically choke on it. Everything and everyone must revolve around her and her plans etc. She has a distorted thought of "it won't happen to me" in regards to safety (she has her permit -though at this time is not allowed to drive due to being grounded from everything but breathing), when asked to do something, she just glares at me and doesn't make a move. I constantly have to ask her multiple times to do stuff, to the point where I have to scream at her, or physically pull her up and make her move to do what I'm asking her to do. We've been getting the silent treatment for going on 3 weeks now, getting maybe 1-3word answers. And what little answers we do get are dripping with attitude/sarcasm. We've taken everything away from her, her phone, computer, friends, driving etc. But this has seemed to make no impact on her. She has made no effort to change to gain these these priviledges back. Her attitude has in fact only seemed to have gotten worse in response. She is making the household miserable!!! What else can I do????
I agree with no cell phone, no computer, no nothing including money, new clothes, etc. I would stop asking her to do things, just tell her that since she won't help then she should expect nothing at all. Even give her the silent treatment except when it comes to bullying her sister, that shouldn't be tolerated but the sister should slso give her the silent treatment, stop engaging her, walk away, stay away from her. Since her grades are good, it seems to me that she making a power play, she knows she has you when it comes to forcing her to do things.
So let her "win" on that issue, but let her realize that has consequences, she also can't make you do anything for her, like give her rides, money, clothes, and the time of day. The silent treatment can be more effective than yelling. If everyone puts her on ignore, she may decide to snap out of it.
I agree with no cell phone, no computer, no nothing including money, new clothes, etc. I would stop asking her to do things, just tell her that since she won't help then she should expect nothing at all. Even give her the silent treatment except when it comes to bullying her sister, that shouldn't be tolerated but the sister should slso give her the silent treatment, stop engaging her, walk away, stay away from her. Since her grades are good, it seems to me that she making a power play, she knows she has you when it comes to forcing her to do things.
So let her "win" on that issue, but let her realize that has consequences, she also can't make you do anything for her, like give her rides, money, clothes, and the time of day. The silent treatment can be more effective than yelling. If everyone puts her on ignore, she may decide to snap out of it.
I really hate this "tit-for-tat" type of discipline. Instead of attempting to find out what is really bothering the girl, and I think something must be, the mother is being urged to act like a 15 yr old in retaliation.
I would guess chances of her just "snapping out of it" are virtually nil. She hasn't blinked at losing her phone, computer, or freedom.
Hello,
I am in need of some suggestions. As my name suggests, I am at my witts end. My oldest daughter has about pushed me to the end of my rope. She is a good kid at school, gets good grades, runs varsity track etc. But at home she is a HUGE bully to her little sister (14yrs old - 15 months younger), is disrespectful to me, her Dad (who lives in another state, and her soon to be step dad who does EVERY thing for these girls. Emotionally, financially, etc. She is irresponsible, and has such a unbelievable sense of entittlement we practically choke on it. Everything and everyone must revolve around her and her plans etc. She has a distorted thought of "it won't happen to me" in regards to safety (she has her permit -though at this time is not allowed to drive due to being grounded from everything but breathing), when asked to do something, she just glares at me and doesn't make a move. I constantly have to ask her multiple times to do stuff, to the point where I have to scream at her, or physically pull her up and make her move to do what I'm asking her to do. We've been getting the silent treatment for going on 3 weeks now, getting maybe 1-3word answers. And what little answers we do get are dripping with attitude/sarcasm. We've taken everything away from her, her phone, computer, friends, driving etc. But this has seemed to make no impact on her. She has made no effort to change to gain these these priviledges back. Her attitude has in fact only seemed to have gotten worse in response. She is making the household miserable!!! What else can I do????
Let's see. You didn't mention drugs. She's not pregnant. She didn't call you from jail. She's not on the road with a guy named Thor working the carny circuit.
She's in school, making good grades, and will probably have a Varsity letter. (This is called being a scholar-athlete.) Most parents are totally unable to tell their 15-year old daughters what to do and how to act. Most 15-year old's are irresponsible. Most think it will never happen to them. Most have an entitlement problem. (They have this weird idea that no hard work is involved in paying for a great phone plan.)
You're involved in a major power struggle. You want it. She wants it. What happens if you actually GIVE her some? She's bullying the younger sister for the power it gives her.
I'd give her MORE power and responsibilities. I'd tell her she's in charge of doing X around the house and she gets to decide when, where, and how she does it. Right now you want her to do it your way. If you give that up you might get a huge shock when Scholar Athlete appreciates the respect given to her by being given some power. (The only place she has it is at school and on the track. Give her some at home.) Re-think what's important to you. Telling her to do something, getting it done on your terms, or finding out she can do it on her own? It's interesting she runs track. Runners take responsibility for how they train and how well they run. That takes a lot of inner discipline. Unless she running relay it's ALL on her shoulders.... and she does it. Think about that.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 03-10-2014 at 01:47 PM..
I really hate this "tit-for-tat" type of discipline. Instead of attempting to find out what is really bothering the girl, and I think something must be, the mother is being urged to act like a 15 yr old in retaliation.
I would guess chances of her just "snapping out of it" are virtually nil. She hasn't blinked at losing her phone, computer, or freedom.
Yeah.
The girl has learned that she is smarter than most folks and has learned that she can intimidate her way through almost anything.
Chances are she will never change.
My neighbor had a daughter like that. Smart. Manipulative. Then she got pregnant twice in high school. They tried counseling. Even put daughter in the hospital for 6 weeks or so.
Nothing worked. The girl was - and is - a pain forever. Today, the girl is 42. Lost her nursing license - no one knows exactly why - and had to go overseas to find work. Left her two children in the US to be raised by grandparents. Neighbor doesn't want her back, and I don't blame him.
He says, and I agree, that sending her away to school may have saved her, but even then there is no guarantee. She may have learned to bully there, too.
Save yourself and your family, Atmywittsend. Guard what she has access to, and suspect everything. Read "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck and see if his description of "Cathy Ames" does not ring a bell.
Pay pay particular attention to the passages where he explains that Cathy has learned to lie and make it sound like the truth, but worse yet, she has learned to tell the truth and make it sound like a lie. That way when people check her out they will find out how she is just a 'victim'. Cathy Ames - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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