just about had it with my teenager/ how could i of done this better......?

[Jena]

hi

i hope this is the right board to post in for older difficult child who is 14 and driving me batty. i had posted last week i had to take her for drug screening school said i had to, due to her failing every class. been a slow downward spiral mode for past 3 years now.


she's so so nasty and disrespectful to me. i kept her home this weekend little difficult child went with dad older one may have mono will find out in a.m. when get blood results. so i ofcourse made no plans for weekend other than i went to meet friend for quick lunch on saturday rest of time was home with her things were calm. oh i also met with a therapist regarding her behavior and how to proceed forward what the best approach would be. so plans' in place and ready to go both at school and home. like i said she was fine all weekend long it was peaceful uneventful just the way i like it.

until her little sister came home, dad came in we spoke briefly kids pet hamster with dad for bit then he left and all hell broke loose. it's been said by school staff older difficult child thrives on creating drama for some reason. all of a sudden was completely disrespectful to me complete 360 from the way she had been all weekend. asked her a simple question she repeated how she was not going to answer me five times.........so i got up went upstairs and figured out answer on my own of what i was asking. i then gave her verbal warning i said listen i'm not sure why it is you are acting this way you've been calm all weekend but pls. get control of it now. little difficult child starts catching wind there's a problem. older one goes for it with me answering me back, being disrespectful little difficult child starts to cry. i stand there shaking my head poor kid hasn't been home all weekned and now has to walk into this.

i then follow older difficult child up to her room after giving her 3 verbal warnings i walk up to her get right in her face yet not yelling very calm but firm (little difficult child gave her a book we were going to read together told her Occupational Therapist (OT) wait on couch ) and said to her i'm telling you now change your tone with me there is no reason for this why would you do this as soon as your sister got home? if you wanted to talk to me or needed some time this isnt' teh way to go about it. me being up in her face like that she raised her hand not to hit me seemed like she was trying to shield herself from what?? little drama queen is what she is. then she yelled in my face and i snapped oh my i saw red i'll tell you. i dont' hit my kids i think i hit older one twice in almost 15 years and barely barely so i grabbed her face pushed it up against wall and said under no circumstances wil i tolerate her beign disrespectful to me adn speaking to me in that way. that she was to stay in her room and out of my sight right now. she then starts yelling screaming what are you going to do beat me? i mean we are talking hi hi drama no need. my hands still by my side. little difficult child walks in from hearing older difficult child screaming and is now hysterical runnign for phone to call dad who jsut left.........oh man here we go she's never done that. gets nasty with me starts yelling at me to leave her sister alone and says i want to go back with dad i don't want to be here with you!!!


you can imagine i wanted to take older one and yes beat her. plain and simple. yet i do not. i walk away as she continues to mumble under her breaht and she proceeds to go down into living room and pop herself infront of t.v. little difficult child is now in playroom extra bedroom hysterical crying i mean hysterical i go get the chlondine she is arleady upset sunday nigths leaving dad but now this is whole new levell of upsetment for her. after 40 minutes yes 40 minutes she gets off phone with dad. he then speaks to me i explain situation he gets on phone with older difficult child. by the way this has never been our dynamic kids have never called him we have always dealt on our own lately they seem to be bringing him into mix alot via phone calls and lying about what it is that's going on older difficult child that is.

so i calm it all down get her to stop crying tell older one to get out of my way and proceed to read with little difficult child.

she falls asleep chlonidine is good. i sit with older one and say to her why would you do all of that. i role play the entire situation showing her if she had acted differently how differently it al would have gone.

my mistake in it all: at least from what i can see she wanted drama and i gave it to her i allowed her to control the entire house for over an hour. i think i should of shut her down immediately before the 3 warnings contained her little difficult child owuld of been ok problem solved.

oh oh boy let me tell you. i am so tired of being spoken to like a piece of sh*t by a child i love and adore. i am so tired of little difficult child getting mad at me and raging becuase i'm repremanding sister. i'm telling you it's so dysfunctoinal i'Tourette's Syndrome almost laughable.

HELP what could i of done better??

 

[DammitJanet]

Its very hard.
Looking back with hindsight being 20/20 I would have probably sent Miss Drama Queen to her room the minute she started in with her mess. However before you do all this I think you need to take a calm moment and come up with some fairly simple house rules and consequences that you can stick to at a moments notice.

Things such as:
No running or horseplay in the house.
No cussing or yelling at anyone.
We will all treat each other with respect.
No stealing or borrowing each others items without asking.
No being away from home without permission.

Then set the consequences in stone. If one of them is screaming and cussing...the consequence can be getting sent to their room or to a designated area to cool off for a certain amount of time and process what they did wrong.
You get the idea.

Now...go over this whole thing with them and post it in a prominent place so when they act up, you can quickly refer to the chart and not have to fly by the seat of your pants for a consequence.

 

[Hound dog]

Yep. I ditto Janet to the n th degree.

Believe me, it's easier if you sit down and think of things before hand. It prevents situations from esculating out of control A whole lot easier to stay calm when you already know the consequences for such and such are........ And once the kids see you mean it, they're reactions will also change for the better.

I am so releaved I'm now past the teen stage. ugh

Hugs

 

[BusynMember]

And if Miss Drama Queen wouldn't go to her room (I know that's possible), I'd go to MY room and lock the door.

 

[ck1]

I don't know if this would have worked in your particular situation because it doesn't sound like she was asking to do something, she just wanted drama. However, I wanted to give you the link for this roleplay because it's really good.

Janet, ant'smom, is posting a series from a parent support group on the Teens and Substance Abuse forum, this is from the same group, I am a member of the group. This is a role play, ask me again, that was done for me because I have problems with my teenager not accepting my answers. This has worked but you must remain calm throughout.....http://nevertheless-psst.blogspot.com/2007/12/ask-me-again-ask-me-again_10.html

 

[Fran]

I don't know the answer with the high drama queen but I am pretty certain that it's going to happen again and again so have a plan.

One of the things that helped me get through to both of my children was to ask(after I was calm) what would they do if they were the parent and the child behaved as they had? Sort of put them in your shoes.
Ask her if there is anything that could have avoided the big emotional scene.
Your younger child is entitled to a home without such craziness and you are trying to give that to her. I would talk to her about any time the drama upsets her to go to her room and put headsets on so she doesn't have to listen to the ugliness.

I'm betting you are drained.

 

[Jena]

hi

thank you for all the thoughts. i particularly liked the one where if she won't go to her room i should lock myself and little difficult child up.

ok no one suggested beating her??? LOL.......kidding.............but so so tempting.

we have gone over house rules quite a few times. great idea saw it on nanny once i will post them. it'll help with the three other kids 2 nights a week we take a serious hit mentally and food wise on those two nights....lol

thank you as always

 

[Momslittleangels]

I remember when difficult child was in that 14-15 y/o stage and she would go on and on, screaming and yelling about, who knows what. There were times that I would literally walk away and give MYSELF a timeout, and you know what .... my little drama queen would literally follow me and continue yelling. If I went into my room to cool down, she would pound on the door and yell at me from outside. It was insane.

I feel for you and hope that some of the above suggestions work.

 

[daralex]

been there done that!!! Key seems to be to keep calm and not feed into it. ONE warning and follow through. As all said before - post house rules, consequences and rewards. This way not only do kids know what expectations/consquences/rewards are but you also have a guideline as to what you are suposed to do in those situations. My difficult child and I came up with a contract" where all is spelled out. It keeps us both in line. Rough situation no matter how you look at it - ((HUGS)) your doing great - now it's time to do even better! Try things until you find something that works! You go girl!!
-Dara

 

[Marguerite]

OK, here's my list. I'm also summarising what has already been said, so this isn't just me. And if others here disagree with my overall summary - please say so. I have no intention to put words in other's mouths.

Janet's suggested rules are good. The thing is, you need to get organisedBEFORE things happen. In the middle of a crisis is not time to be thinking, "Now how should I handle tis?" Role play in your head BEFORE time. You know how we so often say to ourselves afterwards, "If only I had done this," and then we put it aside because the crisis is over? Well this is like the little ol' man in Arkansas whose roof is leaking while the rain is pouring down. He won't fix it while it's raining (fair enough) but he then won't fix it when the sun is shining, because the roof isn't leaking right now!

This is the leaking roof.

Other things I saw (from the luxury of 3,000 miles and been there done that) - you were screaming "respect!" while showing her none. OK, she was not deserving of any by your reckoning at that moment, but I think you can see with hindsight, screaming at her wasn't going to be teaching her to respect you any time soon. All you did was try to use Fear Factor, which is as dangerous to use as heroin. Because it's addictive, it's damaging and you need to use even bigger doses all the time, to get the same effect. Soon it will be out of control.

Walk away. Or make her walk away. If she is determined to throw a scene, it's kind of pointless when the audience walks out. One option is to put her in the padded cell. The other option is to ensure her environment is already close enough to padded cell, and take yourself and your other daughter out of the cell and go somewhere else.

She can still milk more drama out of this - talking to her friends. "My mother really blew her stack with me, she slammed me against the wall. But I'm tough - she had to stop because my little sister got in between us, threatened to call the cops. My mother is a nut case!"
It's not true (mostly) but the per group lap it up and she gains merit in their eyes for being so tough, and for being able to make her mother crack. This in turn leads to a greater chance of recurrence.

That's why it's best to plan well ahead, and do your utmost to stay calm and walk away.

A big concern I have - you have, I feel, too high a premium on her respecting you WHILE SHE'S RAGING. If you drive your car up the back of someone else's and they climb out of their car and start screaming at you with, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" then standing on your high horse and saying, "I insist you show respect to me, or I'm not talking to you," is not going to help. It's likely to get your head kicked in.

I'm not saying forgo respect. But while they're raging, some things have to be let go. For that moment. Frankly, communication and discussion have to be let go until they're ready to communicate at a normal volume and - yes- show respect.
In the car accident scenario, you should write your details down on a piece of paper, call the cops to mediate (and to report it) if you feel it would be wise, and do whatever it takes to hose down the incident. Afterwards, when the other driver is being reasonable (and you have apologised, if it was your fault) then you can perhaps talk more peacably. Until then, do the right thing but do not engage.

You probably think from this that my kids walk all over me. They don't. And we do still have rages from easy child 2/difficult child 2 which are driving me nuts. But when she's screaming at me (or husband) we are getting absolutely nowhere with trying to resolve whatever has set this all off, and engaging is futile. For us, we have the added problem that when she is calm and we try to talk about it, it often sets her off again. So we talk about it in tiny bits. Eventually, even if it takes a week, I get the message through that her reactions are over the top; that they are disrespectful; that we are concerned for her because if she talks to US like tat, how will she manage with those who aren't her family (and who therefore owe her no compassion whatsoever)?

And the two sisters in the house thing - this used to happen with us, when easy child used to come home on weekends. Within minutes of her arrival there would be screaming matches. We said what we could, but mostly it was a matter of waiting until they grew up a bit more.I did wonder at the time (and wonder about your situation) - I think it was the older sister trying to establish that SHE is the person who is the boss of the house, and in some way is trying to teach the younger one to stay subservient. Along the way, you are being put in your place too - not acceptable.
And since it is the presence of others which triggers this, remove that presence (ie take yourself and your younger one to your room and lock the door).

Again - not engaging, removing yourself, only discussing when she's calmer, setting up house rules - and NOT giving four, five, six or more verbal warnings. ONE. Then leave.

Marg

 

[Jena]

thank you once again...........marg you had me laughing a little there with some of what you had written.

i didn't slam her, i carefully placed her head again wall...............lol......i know it's not funny i have a sick sense of humor i truly do. really though i didn't slam i did just grab which shouldnt' of even of happened. i agree with alot of what alot of you said.

she sees there's alot going on with little difficult child my work, our hectic schedule, now he's having problems financially with the restaraunt as well. really big problems his stress level has just increased tremendously. so she's going in for kill thinking mom;s down now i can get her........gotta love those bigger difficult child's. gotta love them!!

boyfriend adn i woke up to not one kid in our bed this morning but two, yes two my little needy difficult child and his one. im telling you him nad i would be better off sleepoing i truck at this point. so he went and gave older difficult child lunch money i messed up forgot to leave on table. i dind't want to go near her she's very nasty in the a.m. hour. so i did wish her well at school told her it's her first day back be positive stay focused it's all different now just reminded her to wear her jacket she was very sick for while. yup i know i care so i wasn't nagging..........so anyway Ms. Thing hauls off and yells at me. i'm sooo telling you hands by side don't hurt her jen this is what i;m saying to me at this point.

so there was a cup of water on her dresser tiny little bit in there i flung it on her and said i hope you have a nice day i love you and walked out of room.

ok i know this was bad too. ever hear of bad pets??? you use spray bottle with water and spray them??? why oh why can't i use this approach??? lol

ugh.......

 

[meowbunny]

The simple answer -- it's water today what will it be tomorrow? If you do it in a controlled manner (I used to have to use water to wake mine up and I'd get her into the shower and turn it on to calm her violent rages), it is one thing, but to throw water on someone out of anger is not the answer.

Hon, you need to see someone and get on some medications. I know you're afraid you won't be lucid for your little one's evaluation, but do you think you're really all that coherent now? Listen to what you're saying and doing. When you are totally calm, read your posts carefully, as if you were a stranger. You have so much going on in your life. I'm sorry, but you need help and you need help now.

 

[Star*]

And I'm not being ugly because I TOTALLY get where you're coming from -

But if YOU can't provide and example of proper behavior and reactions to situations HOW do you expect her too?

Time to go see a doctor. and get yourself some help. I know you have said before that pills don't work - but you're going to have to do something before you snap.

You're in an explosive situation and looking for everyone around you to behave and it ain't gonna happen. Either learn to de-stress or destruct. The choice is up to you.

Again - not pointing fingers - but when you get to the point you're at, and you did ask what could you do better? Well, theres at least 2 of us here who've read your situation and agree - you need some help.

Hugs
Star

 

[Marguerite]

Jen, yu said, "i didn't slam her, i carefully placed her head again wall...............lol......i know it's not funny i have a sick sense of humor i truly do. really though i didn't slam i did just grab which shouldnt' of even of happened. i agree with alot of what alot of you said."
I know you didn't slam her - but I wrote it as a possible example of what SHE might say to her peer group, to big-note herself. These kids get their heads together and compare notes, each trying to make their own family situation sound worse than anyone else's. Then they say it often enough, it gives them bravado, they try to gain the upper hand and it has become a war, a conflict when it SHOULD be teamwork, you and she against the world.

I think the others are right about you needing to get help for yourself. If for no other reason than the stress this is putting you under. I'm with you when it comes to medication - I just can't tolerate it, I get weird reactions and so I have to get help in other ways. I've had my times in the past when I wasn't coping, and I reached out at those times and got help. Where possible, I found a therapist to help me.

Getting help for ME made it a lot easier to continue to hold things together appropriately for the kids.

Hang in there.

And I'm glad I could make you smile, sometimes a comic analogy can be the best way to get your sense of perspective back.

Marg

 

[daralex]

I wish I had some great words of wisdom - but I'm in the same boat. It's very frustrating giving your all and having it thrown back in your face. I guess one day at a time,. Wish I had a better answer, sounds like your doing the best you can - only suggestion as I am learning as well - don't engage - calm is the key - kill 'em with kindness - it leaves them at a loss! I love seeing that look on there face like - what, you're not going to fight with me??!! It stops them dead in their tracks - at least sometimes!
-Dara

 

[susiestar]

For some help, it really is time to see a doctor for yourself. You are in a really volatile situation. If you can't get some control over YOU it is going to get much worse and very scary in the near future.

I am worried about you. I know at a certain point I would have gone over the edge and 'round the bend if I hadn't gotten help from therapy AND medications AND some new parenting skills.

I am NOT saying that she isn't wrong. Or that beating her isn't very VERY tempting. But to solve this you have to be able to be in control of yourself.

For some new ways to look at parenting, I strongly suggest Parenting with Love and Logic. You can take a look at it online at www.loveandlogic.com There is a version for teens, that is very very helpful.

My husband and I found that this really helped us learn to control ourselves, to be better prepared for what they threw/throw at us, and to be better parents all around. PLEASE look at the site.

Susie