oldie returns

I use to come here about my former stepson...(he is doing better).
I am came back due to my lovely daughter (choking on my words)...and am reading posts and learning the new things here on the site.
Here's the readers digest version of my current story:
daughter 12 looks 18 has had these "rages" since birth. They were very seldon (1 a year or so)....we have had 3 in the last two weeks and the last one turned physical toward me. She acts like a child that has always gotten her way, the fights start with me telling her "no"....which I do often, just the occassional NO seems to set her off. She then decides she is the parent and wants to rationalize why I should do whatever it is she wants. Example: phone rings after 10pm (against rules) she answers..and asks me to go get her friend so they can go together to track practice in the morning. My answer ..NO. WHY? well..i dont do the "why" well..but I told her the after 10pm and cost of gas, etc. NOT GOOD ENOUGH...she starts to tell me that is what a mom does (mind you I do things often for others kids..but not at 10pm)...THEN SHE LOSES COMPLETE PROSPECTIVE OF THE REAL WORLD...she wont stop...its like someone filled her full of gas...she hates my guts, going to live with daddy (whom we called and of course he wont take her)....I try to go to bed..she is in my room "explaining" things to me..I cannot get away from her ...she wants to control it all...there is no escape for me...3 hours later...4 weeks of grounding added one day a time to a child who wont shut up and go to bed... finally she wears out and goes to bed. Of course by that point I cant sleep and plan my escape to canada or somewhere...ugh.
two days later she is doing good in her grounding and gets mad cause I wont let her have the privledge of using the phone and the crap starts all over... telling me how she has been so good and how I am unfair...etc... this time this child uses the F.U phrase goes in the house gets the phone and when i come in she is hiding and tries to protect the phone in her hand hits me...I tried to grab her to restrain her to get the phone... I cant...I ended up holding her away from me by the pony tail till someone can hold her safely. Thank god someone in the shower heard her go off on me, saw her hitting me and saw me get hold of her pony tail and knew to get her in a safe hold. IT goes on and on.... I am a single mom...two children ...and I have discovered we are all sick. My son spews hatred of his father...my daugther fakes tht her father is some hero...which insites my son who watches his sister bash me and praise her father. I dont allow the daddy bashing stuff...(although he deserves it BIGTIME)...ANYWAY..so thats my story so far. I will tell you that my daughter has this "crash" thing after she finally chills out. Not that she is sorry, but it suddenly will seem as if you fed her double dose of benedryl and she is in some drug stupor...after her rages. She denies hitting me...but alleges I was hitting her (wrong)...I seriously think she thinks she is right..and I am wrong. I dont think she would ever really hurt me, but I do think that if i died she would not deal with it until she was done doing whatever it is she wanted to do ...
I am going to call a shrink tomorrow... for her initially then all of us...I think she might be bipolar...I have always felt she acted some Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) (yes she was born to me....I can explain that if you want me to)...or maybe this is just some form of spoiled brat syndrome..i dont know where she got this sense of entitlement from.
Thanks for reading this.
 

meowbunny

New Member
Boy, does this sound familiar. Between 11-14 was the worst. If it helps, it does get somewhat better. Not great but definitely better.

I did learn to not give any consequence when she was in the arguing mode. The consequences would become ridiculous because there was no way on earth she was going to stop the argument. The reality is she couldn't stop if she wanted to. It just wasn't and isn't in her, still isn't. Once she felt she was right nothing else mattered -- the rules, any threats or consequences I made, etc. Since she was incapable of changing on this one, I had to change.

What finally has worked is we discuss what are reasonable consequences for certain behaviors. For example, we have both agreed that she needs to get up at 10:00 am on weekdays whether she is working or not. If she doesn't, she loses computer privileges for one day for each hour she gets up after 10 since it is the computer that gets her to stay up so late.

If she does something that really should be consequenced but hasn't been discussed, I wait until we have both cooled down and then discuss it with her. I will tell her what I feel is a fair consequence for the behavior. If she disagrees, she has 5 minutes to convince me otherwise (with a timer going). If she argue over the 5 minutes because I'm truly not convinced, her added consequence is no use of car for 24 hours. If she stops at 5 minutes, we each have a rebuttal of 3 minutes. If we are then at an impasse, my consequence stands since it is still my house. Oddly, this has worked well for us for the past 4 years. It has saved us from some tremendous battles.
 
F

flutterbee

Guest
First of all, I am less than impressed with this age (my difficult child is 12, too). I haven't met many kids who I really liked from the ages of 11 to 13. Liked them before, liked them after...could have skipped those years completely.

Becoming enraged to the point of needing to be restrained and the drop after sound to me (no expert) like something she has little control over.

The only suggestion I have is to not let her engage you in an argument. Sit down with her and go over the rules. Write them up and post them. When she asks for something that is against the rules (like the 10pm phone call and the request to pick up a friend) simply state No. If she asks you why and you feel you must respond, simply direct her to the rules. My difficult child could hold an argument with an inanimate object. I no longer allow her to pull me into an argument (most days) and have been known to respond to her question of why with....gasp..."because I said so". She's lived with me long enough to know how things work. Her asking why is just an attempt to start an argument simply because she's mad that she's not getting her way.

Good luck and keep us posted on how things go with the appointment.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
G'day. Welcome back. Sorry you had to, but you know we're here.

A few things - this sounds partly typical teen and partly what we deal with, with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). The Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) component of having to continually argue about it - these kids can't stop themselves. They will do it, over and over. And punishment doesn't do a darn thing. We've had best results with trying to keep reminding, "You're interrupting again."

What works - when they're CALM sitting down and going over the ground rules. GETTING THEIR INPUT. This doesn't mean letting them write the rules, but making sure they have some say in together working out what is reasonable. If you had been able to do this ahead of time, you could have coped better.
Future suggestion - call comes in after 10 pm and friend has suggested sleeping over at your place to make taking them both to practice in the morning much simpler - I would urge you to ask daughter to put the friend on hold so you can discuss it without risking offending friend with what you have to say (because it's not flattering to friend). A good initial response is, "What a pity she rang after 10 pm - doesn't she know our house rule? Because if she doesn't, three is only one way for her to learn - not give in unless this is a serious emergency (such as her parents have just been carted off to hospital and she needs someone to stay with). ARE her parents on the way to hospital? Then sorry, no. It is not convenient to drive out in the middle of the night to collect a 13 year old who has had some sort of brainwave and wants SOMEONE ELSE'S MOTHER to chase around after her. NOT ON.

And back to 'friend' - more convenient FOR WHOM? Yeah, sure, if I had planned to drive daughter to practice, and collect friend on the way to take both of them, then I'd think about what is convenient. However there would have to be a darn good reason for giving in at that late hour, for an idea that should have been proposed much earlier in the evening.

And where does either friend or daughter get off, TELLING you to do this? A polite request maybe, which you could meet with, "I'm so sorry darling, but I'm already ready for bed and this really isn't convenient at this late hour." Friend shouldn't ask at such a late hour; do her parents approve of this?

Now most kids would back off at this point, but a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kid wouldn't (and there are some other conditions with similar problems). They HAVE to thrash it out once it gets in their heads that THIS is the only solution.

The only way then, to deal with it from that point - somehow try to show them that this is NOT the only solution, and this is NOT her problem, it is friend's problem. If you were going to be driving daughter to practice anyway in the morning, then for whom is it more convenient? Certainly not for you, unless you were going to collect friend anyway. But if you WERE going to collect friend anyway, then explain to daughter - the convenience she is claiming, would only be YOUR convenience, and it would be balanced adversely by having to get dressed and go out in the middle of the night to collect this girl, then make up a bed for her, settle both girls down (late) knowing they'll chatter under the blankets for far longer than they should, then get both girls fed and moving in the morning.

You then get daughter to acknowledge that it's not convenience she's REALLY thinking about, it's having an excuse to unexpectedly have friend in for a last-minute sleepover.

After the event - sit down and go through alternate possibilities. Role-play. Swap places, let your daughter be the mother dealing with you (daughter) wanting to have a friend over. When she inevitable says, "Of course you can, darling, I would do anything for you," ask her to make you and your hypothetical friend waffles for breakfast. Only friend can't have shop-bought waffles, she's allergic to preservative, she needs them made up fresh. Keep throwing requests at her, the sort of requests you know your daughter and her friends are likely to use at you. Keep it light, have fun playing each other. Laugh about it, then swap back and get serious. Try to encourage honesty about feelings. If she says she was really angry when you said No, well that is legitimate. We know she was angry. Acknowledge it. Then you say, "I was feeling hurt and taken advantage of, when you asked. It was as if you expect me to always be there as your personal chauffeur, and I can't always do it. I'm older than you, I need my sleep. I do get tired and that's why I brought in that rule. We shouldn't be having arguments at 10 pm. If we have this rule and your friends know to not put such requests on you, then we wouldn't have had this argument."
The main message for her - "I love you, I want to help you do well, but I don't like to feel taken advantage of. Nobody likes that. My job as mother is to love you. Driving you places is a privilege, not a right. It's an optional extra."

I really would be digging to find out why you got asked this in the first place. Something is really wrong when a friend rings at 10 pm to ask if she can come and stay AND get chauffered in the morning. It sounds to me like your daughter has become a doormat as well as you.

if you can't nip this doormat behaviour in the bud, soon it won't be her friends taking advantage of her, it will be boys. She has to learn NOW how to say no, and that it's OK to say no (and have no said to you) without feeling the world has come to an end.

I understand your concern. I would be concerned too. The extreme perseveration is a worry, I'd be talking it over with a health expert and look at other signs of something else not quite right for her. Is she obsessive in other ways? Are there other issues not typically teen?

Also, our 'bible' on this site - Ross Greene's "The Explosive Child". There are also other books which people here recommend, but that one might give you some clues as to how to cope. Sometimes trying to be strong and stand up to your kid can actually backfire. There are other ways to get what YOU want, without the explosive behaviour necessarily.

And the biggest golden rule of all - never give a punishment that you can't enforce.

Marg
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Welcome back, but sorry you had to return.

Your daughter sounds very familiar to me. Here are a couple of tips:

1.) And most important - do NOT take anything she says personally. She is going to spew horrible, hateful things to you in the next couple years. Let it roll. They are not her true feelings. It is part of that teen angst and I believe a chemical makeup that causes these swings in emotions and moods for a couple years. The faster you can learn to not take it personally, the quieter your house will be.

2.) Punishing this child is only going to make your life a living hell. Believe me, I have been there. Take small things away. Cell phone for a week, TV for 3 days. Seriously, taking away things will not work. It will either enrage her or she will be so nonchalant about it that you will feel like you did nothing at all to teach her the lesson. Frankly, there is not much teaching going on at this age. Walking on eggshells is more like it.

3.) Do something for yourself. Get massages. Get away to the book store for a cup of coffee by yourself. Whatever it is that you enjoy - be sure to do it. You will feel like there is little happiness in your life if you do not.

You are fortunate to not have little ones coming up behind her. My friend is now going into this age with her oldest and the littles (4 & 2) are exposed to some seriously unhealthy behavior by their older sister. Yuck!

For sure you are not alone!
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
Like Sharon (the other one), I second that you have gotten some great advice. I too wanted to add my "rewelcome" to you. Glad you came back, sorry you had too.

Sharon
 
thank you. I feel better already...for having a place for ME.
let me go back and fill in blanks.
I know not to engage my daughter..I have told the school tht for years but they are idiots and do it there. I attempt to disengage her. I walk away...i speak in a monotone voice and guide her away for her safety...
some background:
after her birth she would not allow me to rock her..she preferred to be put in bed and would sleep thru the night even though she was a breast fed baby and most get fed every couple hours. She seemed to prefer to be "alone". Same as she grew...outside in dirt pile playing often we forgot we had her as she would not be around us much. She was molested at 18 months old by a daycare workers son....it was filed but not prosecuted due to the prosecutor saying she was too young although she could articulate this well by the time it all came out at 3 years old. Her father and I divorced soon thereafter and since he could not gain my sons "side" as he was old enough to see the truth about his father himself...the daddy chose to start this alienation of our daughter. My earliest memory of a rage was ... I put pink barretts in her hair to match this pink outfit and she wanted green. Now it isnt that I cared...I would allow her to change them...but that isnt what she wanted...it was like someone else on this site said...she wanted me to make the fact i ever picked the pink ones disappear... as time wore on...it got progressively worse...but normally not more than twice a year. When the periods came we noticed she was a sweet child ...then suddenly a few months ago we started seeing this MONSTER a week before period normally with some sort term rage.. and like i said..now we have had 3 major rages in last 3 weeks and it is not period time. We could have had a lot more than 3 but I was able to dodge them.
The story about her friend coming over? well her friends parents are DRUNKS..they dont do a thing for this child and I do feel sorry for her, but she is not responsibility and I have told my daughter so. When the call came in...my first thing was to remind my daughter no calls..and then get off the phone. This friend called back like 3 times with different ideas on how she could come to my house and my daughter was taking her side (since she is mistreated at her home) and wanting to make me fix things for her. The next day I sucessfully shipped my daughter off to her fathers for a break...and when i get her back she informs me that dad has told her how I was the one that broke up our marriage...how i cheated on him (lol, wrong).he confessed that he cheated on me early in marriage....etc. I dont allow this convo in my house except to tell my daughter that I never cheated. My son hears all this and goes postal...he is so angry...cause he was old enough and here my daughter is believing the things her dad said.. my son is my defender (and i dont like it)...so then my daughter and son are in turmoil (due to the sperm donors crap)...but basically what the idiot daddy did was give her fuel for the next round. Again the phone...I have all phones locked in my room...but daughter hears it ring and goes to get it and proceeds to hae a convo with her "boyfriend". she is grounded from the phone so I tell her to get off ..she holds the phone and tells me how she knows she is grounded but her boyfriend needs her address to send her an invitation to his party... I had already given it to him, but he miswrote the zipcode so this was my fault and therefore she could be on the phone. I reminded her of her lack of privledges...and all of a sudden again I was a B ...the FY stuff flew out of her mouth.... the i am going to live with daddy (which only hurts me cause I know he doesnt want her and he wont tell her that)...she is stuck with me.. I do not take the insults personally...I have way thicker skin than that. I too was a bit of a B to my mom...but my mom controlled it with the old "knock em to the floor and kick em" routine so I didnt rage much.
After all this crap..I thought hard. I took away all her chores..and all her privledges. She can earn privledges back after she learns the basics: yes mam, no mam, avoiding the things she is not allowed to do, being respectful to me, doing her daily routine without me having to tell her more than once. Her bedroom door was removed to avoid her being up all night on the phone, watching tv etc.....Actually she is more of a princess around here now with no chores...but I chose this way. I cant tell you if it works as it has only been a few days. I know she wants her radio and will push that till I give her the count. If i hit three her day is OVER....I revisited all the books i read years ago..the one, two three thing..the defiant child..etc. I am going to try to get her in for "help" and figure out how to pay for it. I do not qualify for medicaid on her due to her father having insurance- which pays 1/2. I have to pay my part up front...and wait for him to reimburse which takes a LONG TIME.
this exhausts me to write all this.
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
My daughter was similar in that there were some signs early on, but it all went haywire when she hit about 10. I do think the puberty comes into play and you may want to try midol for a week a month - or I have even heard of Prozac every 3rd week to help with PMS.

I know you are saying it seems more often than just the PMS timeframe, but that may help a bit.

I was very patient as difficult child was growing up. When I started expecting more (age appropriate responsibilities) she started resisting more and I felt like I had to have the upper hand. I swear I fought her everyday for a year about brushing her teeth and showering. I could not figure out what she would not just do it to stop me from speaking to her about it. She is JUST NOW at 16 starting to do the shower thing more often. Still does not brush enough.

I just added chores back to her life, her reward for doing them is a very important to her cell phone. If she does not do them she will lose it. No contract. No problem. There will be a battle. I am ready.
 
I thought I would find my original post from this time..and update...
after years of wanting to take my child into a "psychiatric"... I did it. He gave her the diagnosis based on my notes, files and her own words...BIPOLAR.

now I need to find wherever I put my information from the old days...when i had to get my step son and IEP and all...and get her an iep and stop this school including the pricnipal from BULLYING her.

I have to say....knowing I was right DOES NOT FEEL GOOD. I wish someone would just tell me she is a brat that needs her arse busted...but anyone that knows her knows that isnt the truth.

thanks guys.
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
You definitely received a lot of great advice. I am in particular agreement with what busywend wrote in her first post. Taking away everything at once always backfired - losing one thing at a time seemed to be a better way of handling difficult child and we often see better results. Also, we learned to 'read' her better. Both H and I have this strange 6th difficult child sense - we can tell when she's about to blow or spiral downward.

My daughter sounds VERY much like yours, although mine is now 17. So much of it is Typical Teen stuff and then there is the rest that is not and that's when it gets difficult to parent effecively and fairly. I gave up on fair. I try to parent with "peace of mind" for us rather than what seems fair to difficult child. No matter how or what we decide, she will find a way to make it seem that we are being unfair. My difficult child was semi-diagnosed with BiPolar (BP) about 2 years ago after 6-7 years of struggling with rage attacks, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), & ADD behaviors, and then various medications. And just this past week, a new DR said she's NOT BiPolar (BP) - that she is suffering from PTSD from unaddressed past emotional trauma. She's had plenty of opportunity to address her past trauma, but she refused to talk about it so it's to her own detriment that she bottles it up and acts out in appropriately, etc.

I also wanted to comment on the thing about her saying she is going to go live with her dad. difficult child started saying this to me at around 14. I saw red and turned on her like a viper. I will never forget it, we were driving home from an outing and she asked to sleep at her friends house on a school night and I said no so she flipped on me and started just carrying on unreasonably. I pulled over and turned to her and said, very seriously and slowly: "Listen to me; You CANNOT go live with your father. You are MINE until you're 18 or graduate from HS - no exceptions. YOU are MY JOB and I take my job VERY seriously. So just get that idea out of your head right now and stop crying." She brought it up twice after that and I just looked at her and asked, "Do you remember that we already discussed this? Drop it". Once in a while she will say, "When I turn 18 I'm moving to dad's" to which I always just smile and say, "When you're 18, you can do whatever you like". Well, she will be 18 in 2 months and her tune has changed. She no longer wants to go live with her dad. I sometimes wish she would...See how everything changes? lol

Do not take anything she says personal or as fact. She will always twist her world around to what suits her at any given moment and it really has nothing at all to do with you or your decisions. Take good care of you. And stand firm with your son that he does not have to be your defender.

Sending many gentle hugs - take care of you.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
About her concerns for her friend - I do understand where both you and she are coming from, but 11 pm is NOT the time to be handling it. Daughter should ring the cops if it's that bad; put up with it overnight if it's not. Ringing you or difficult child is NOT helping young friend to handle it, all young friend is doing is passing responsibility over to someone else who it doesn't belong with.

HOWEVER - it IS worth talking with, you and difficult child, in the cold light of day. Maybe with friend there, to sort out some sensible options for her. Tell difficult child to set up a REASONABLE time for you all to sit down over milk and cookies (or chocolate and ice cream, depending on how old they think they are) and as you pass round the tub of ice cream and the spoon, thrash out some plans for her. Because the best thing for friend, is to have a plan in place for any one of a number of possible scenarios. But she is NOT to see you as an escape at 11 am, without prior arrangement. That is not the adult way to handle it.

A lot of what you need to do is listen, and also stop difficult child from feeling like it's her job to physically rush in and rescue - that actually is not helping. difficult child also has to learn, by experience, that there are other, often better, ways of helping. By at least sitting and talking, you're showing you care and want to see her friend rise above this.

Some things to think about, for her friend - is there another family member she can go stay with? Someone her parents would let her stay with while she's still got classes? How old is she? Where does she see her life leading? What are her long-term plans? How does she want to work her way to them? What obstacles does she have to overcome? because if she's old enough to quit school and get a job, finishing school by evening class, it may be another way for her to go. But just because parents are irresponsible, doesn't give her licence to feel that irresponsibility is the adult way to handle things. Flapping hands and being helpless isn't, either.

We're in a similar situation at the moment - easy child 2/difficult child 2's close friend (she's coming to the party tomorrow, I'm hoping to at least set up the same sort of meeting with her, organising a later date when I see her tomorrow). This girl is a decent, hard-working, funloving kid whose mother has just thrown hre out. Daughter tried to handle the situation and, I feel, made an immature mistake in dealing with her mother, but now her mother is really being a dill about things. And when I talked to easy child 2/difficult child 2 about what she knew, it sounds like the mother has 'form' for this, she did it to the older daughter and, possibly, also their father. This friend has refused to speak to her father out of loyalty to her mother; I now wonder if that loyalty was misguided. If nothing else, information is needed from her older sister about their dad's side of the story. Sometimes when a father leaves and then makes absolutely no contact for years, the kids blame the dad for ignoring them. But sometimes, it's the mother refusing to pass on messages, letters, gifts etc.

The story needs to be straightened out before judgements are made. And this girl needs to get her life on track by working out her REAL priorities, and not expecting to have a mother always there for her. Tragic - but if anyone can do it, this kid can. And who knows? I could be wrong, this kid may have made a monumentally stupid mistake and the mother could be sitting at home wringing her hands over her daughter - teens can really make mountains out of molehills. Melodrama is the order of the day. But a good, solid counselling session over a bucket of ice cream, with an adult who cares - solid gold, for your daughter AND her friend. Even if you come to no firm solution, you have at least listened. Use this meeting to also set up ground rules. She can ring up until a certain time and talk to either you or difficult child (you, if difficult child has lost phone privileges) but after that time, she needs to have another phone number to call.

When I was 10 I had two friends, sisters, aged 9 and 12. They apparently lived in a truck which was parked outside the local club. When they were bored with sitting in the truck (and hassling kids walking past for a taste of their candy) they would try and break in to the abandoned house nearby. I tried to help, but was horrified when the younger one smashed a window to get in, instead of picking the lock as I was trying to do.
I persuaded the older one to join our church kids' choir and she did, for a few weeks - it was something different to do instead of sitting in the truck alone until closing time. But she didn't have a nice dress to wear and people whispered behind their hands. My friend stuck it out for a few weeks then left, saying she didn't want to sing in a stupid old choir anyway. She was extra mean to me for a while, but I kept being friends until my mother made me stop, I was getting a bad reputation like them. After that I wasn't allowed to stay and talk around the truck but I did talk to the older girl at school. Then she got wilder and rougher, I found she began to avoid me. Then we moved out of the district.

These days there would be more intervention. Back then, I didn't understand as much as I do now. The girls made light of having to wait in the truck for their parents. Who knows? Maybe a few years later they might have made it sound more dramatic - whatever works for your audience. But talking it out with an adult would have helped them, at some level, I'm sure. Instead of being shunned and not supported in even tiny ways.

Sometimes you can try to help and get burned - a young girl who lived over the road from us would sometimes get dropped off by her mother so she could have breakfast with us and then walk to school. Her mother wouldn't let her stay in their house alone - I later found out why. The girl was saving up to run away from the violence and the abuse, and would steal. her mother's reaction to the theft - "You horrible little thief! If I catch you at it again I'll cut your fingers off!"
The girl was locked out of the house one rainy day, broke into our house to get out of the rain. She cut her way through the screens, left footprints & fingerprints everywhere. I didn't know who it was, so I called the police at evidence of a break-in. Later the girl confessed. She also ono other occasions would wander in to our house when we were home but busy and empty out any wallet she could grab. We'd find the empty wallet thrown behind a couch, when the wallet never left the briefcase and certainly was never left unfastened or even dropped on the floor. Other people warned us as well. She later was removed from her parents and we bumped into her a year or so later, with her foster family. She seemed very happy with them, said she was doing well and they seemed to be very fond of her.

I was never able to help her much. I'm glad someone did.

Good luck with this one. I hope whatever you do, you can resolve things so your daughter can see there is a reasonable, rational way to handle these situations and to NOT just bulldoze in. But at 12... tricky. I recommend hokey pokey flavour, and three spoons maybe.

Marg
 
Cookie Momster (gotta love the name!)

Oddly enough, it was easy child who gave us the biggest struggle at this age , but then difficult child is not typical in any sense of the word. easy child could, and still can, argue most persuasively - and always, always, the last word had to be HIS. Finally, at age 21, he is moving away a little from that need. (In one of my worst moments I wrote the words "last word" on a piece of paper and gave it to him during one of his tirades. I told him there were his and could always be his but it would never change anything in his life). We encouraged him to put that "debating" skill to good use in his high school's mock trial program and he was quite the star. I must say he comes by it quite naturally, I never engage in debate with husband, I've learned better :smile:

I think you have gotten some wonderful advice from experienced Moms - oh how I wish I had some of that nine years ago. My opinion now is that arguing never works, there are never any winners -ever. As hard as it is, refuse to engage! State your piece and listen to hers. I think it's really important to always listen. I saw a wonderful sign on a church sign the other day, "You can't be heard if you are not listening". Of course, much of what you will hear is teenage hysteria fuelled by hormones. That stuff is very powerful!! In fact, I wish I had some of those hormones now - they would be very handy for what ails me. But seriously, between those hysterical moments some important information will come through - information that you really, really need to hear. If she's like my son was, she can argue forever and she will just tire you out. I can see that in hindsight but I engaged constantly at the time. He can't hook me now, and our family is better for it.

Please find some moments to do something for yourself. Raising teens is the hardest work you will ever do.
 
strangely..i use to argue with her..try to persuade her to see my side... but I never did it willingly. I always have tried to get away from her and cool off..she is AN IN YOUR FACE CHILD. She will follow you around and insist you talk to her, when she means listen to HER. She wants to control when the "talk" will be. I have ANGER and mean parents in my background..I do not wish to ever LOSE it like my parents did..so I want to escape and gather...SHE WILL NOT LET ME. She knows in her heart she is wrong..but she will die trying to convince you ..you are the one in the wrong and that it should be HER WAY. honestly ITS AMAZING...lol. I exercise the "two ears, one mouth" theory...listen twice and much as you speak. In her control moods of following me around...she normally will cut off her own foot. She will tell me all the bad things she has done that I didnt know..(not real bad)..she will tell me about the girls she hangs around with that she is not suppose to....it like she digs this grave deeper and deeper in an effort to shock or anger me to put me on HER LEVEL and angry. That is one thing I learned from this site years ago when i came here for help with a step difficult child.... I don my barbie smile....and try not to play into her game. This last time...my ignoring her or not speaking or getting angry fueled her to attempt to "hit" me. AMAZING. It was so hard... my mom would have knocked me into a wall, kicked me in the mouth....hit me with whatever she could get her hands on..and all i wanted to do is NOT hit her. I am disabled...that is the scary part..my arms have no strength...so...I just held her pony tail...tightened my arm far away from me...and YELLED FOR HER BROTHER TO COME HELP ME. She landed a few open handed hits on my body...but at that distance she couldnt really "hurt" me... My ex husband was here....he grabbed her and within 5 minutes she melted and looked as if we had just given her a shot of some sort of "knock out" drug.
I started another post yesterday of "honey i drunk the kids" and there is alot more information there...
I want to say..my daughter is the most loving, caring child. she is like a mother in a childs body...she frets things, she just cant let go of the "control"...... she has a lot of issues from the past that have just suddenly IMPACTED HER. Molestation at age 2 1/2, my divorce from her father (hereinafter referred to has the sperm donor), then a step difficult child brother who terriorized her, early maturation, continual manipulation from the sperm donor, etc.
In the midst of all the recent saturation of "rages" she seems to "see" things now though. The sperm donor had her convinced that her brother was my favorite...that i favored him and did nothing for her... in all these years she never knew when he was in trouble (because he is humble and a pleaser- and :censored2: up instead of going nuts and yelling)... she has calmed more now...with no privledges and no bedroom door to hide behind (and talk on the phone to her friends and ignore her family)...she sees her brother get in trouble...(she smiles)....but she seems to see i treat them equally..and i respond appropriately to how they behave (or dont). She still obsesses about things OUT of her control...and gets all manic...but her AIM is not at me for now. She has opened up to me and told me the things the sperm donor has told her...most of which is completely inappropriate to tell a child (and all of it is lies) about her mother (me). IE: he confessed to haveing ONE affair (he had three)... but he told her it was not his fault it was mine. He twisted things around and she didnt see it....so of course it was my fault for the divorce. I did not correct anything other than to say...it takes two to marry and two to divorce...sorry he told you about his infidelity, but it is never right to cheat....and... reminded her of how i cried and prayed for her father last year when he nearly died in a motorcycle accident (of course two days later when he was on the phone being a jerk..i wondered why i prayed for him). I love your father and will till i die- i just dont like who he is now. He has told her the child support is HERS..it isnt for me to raise her, pay bills etc..it is HERS TO SPEND on clothes and stuff. etc. NOW can you see how confused this child is??? she has an adult toying with her and twisting her...she is not a baby anymore...she use to live on everything he said and believe him..now she is older and she see it...and because I never spoke ill of him- and never defended myself against the things he said (casue i thought she was too young)... i still refuse to bash him to her. She is her father (choke)....OH the last thing is... we were lutheran while married so both kids were baptized as babies... he is not baptist...and has told her that me and her brother are going to hell since we are not baptist. She goes to a baptist church IF and when she goes to see him so she is saved..(lol). YOU dont tell a kid that bout her family. And now...even though she has pictures of her baptism...he says she was never baptized and those are pictures from another event...LOL.
:::long vent/post::: sorry.

nuf
 
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