12 year daughter is angry every day Please help me

[fivecupsoftea]

She is often angry in the mornings eg someone else's knickers have been put in her drawer, her little sister is making annoying noises - anything and everything makes her angry. I find it really stressful to deal with. What is the impact on her on being this angry? - can't be good. I wonder about counselling for her - my eldest daughter (14) thinks we should try this - she is really fed up of her being angry and difficult. She has always been like this, but there are good times and bad times. This is a bad time, probably due to her being in year 7.

Please please help me. We try to be calm and to give her lots of attention - she likes bedtime chats and we play board games with her and do other stuff with her. There seems to be no reasoning with her about her behaviour. I ban her from the TV and computer, but this doesn't seem to do any good.

[herladyship]

boarding school until 18?

sorry! in all seriousness your post sounds similar to my dd of same age & all her friends mums currently have the same complaint..

My dd has never been a morning person. I think tiredness/hormones explain a lot!

I find staying calm, with the occasional injection of humour is the most successful approach..

[fivecupsoftea]

thanks for your words of sanity, herladyship. I suppose this is normal. It's hard to stay calm. As I drove to work this morning I was wondering if I could sing in response to her, or whisper. Is she going to turn out okay? That's what I worry. I also feel bad about the impact on her older and younger sister, the older one has never been like this. When the younger one got her bag out to go to school she found it empty - my middle one must have hidden her stuff somewhere.

[HollyMadison]

Sounds like me at that age. Looking back, this was caused by tiredness (I was a bookworm and stayed up far too late reading), lack of proper breakfast and jealousy of attention on sibling. I turned out ok, after leaving home...

[lljkk]

Could she elope with my 13yo DS and they could just send us postcards until they are 18 and gainfully employed?

Only joking NOT.

[Buddhastic]

My dd2 has her moments particularly when she's due her period. She's a gorgeous girl who turns into an angry monster one minute and a sobbing heap the next. It's not pleasant to watch but I have seen a huge difference in her since I found these.

Healthy Balance

I get them in Boots and sometimes on a 3for 2 deal. Worth a try?

Good luck.

[exasperatedemma]

I sympathise, my DD is 14 and we have had bouts of this since she was 12. I did suggest counselling to her about a year ago, she was having none of it, but I went on my own and had weekly counselling for about 5 months - I was very sceptical at first, but I can say that it did help me a lot in finding ways to cope and just having someone to talk to the stuff that was happening each week. Its very difficult when you have one dominant personality in the house, find yourself walking on eggshells and making sure you don't light the fuse, very difficult for everyone else - my DS who is 16 really hates the aggro and hides in his room when she's kicking off. I read a couple of books too - called something like from Divas to doorslammers and how to talk so teens will talk and teens will listen. sometimes the books give you a bit of strength. two years on, the gaps between the rages are bigger, but still awful when it occurs, I try and stay calm but sometimes it catches me offguard and I find myself shouting back or getting totally despaired. see my recent post about how things got just this week! Good luck, hang in there - just try to tell yourself that its just noise and bluster and try to take her audience away whenever you can. sometimes they just want to let rip and whoever is nearest gets it!

[fivecupsoftea]

Thanks for the healthy balence suggestion. I'm not sure it is hormones as she has really been like this on and off since she was 3, though there are good times and bad times, I suppose it could be hormones which is making this a bad time.

Exasperated emma your post rang true with me - I am the same at times I can be calm, at others I realise that I have shouted back, and it probably hasn't helped, I might try one of those books. I think that counselling for me would probably help, but then its another thing taking me away from time with her, I'd prefer to go to an exercise class which I really value, if only there was endless time....

Yesterday she said to me that she is choosing to be like she is, that a while back she decided to be good, which she was for a week or so, but then decided there was no point.

[exasperatedemma]

oh they can be so wilful can't they?! I'm sure that like me you admire her spirit and wouldn't want her to be a doormat type personality, but just wish they could tone it down a bit sometimes! what I have noticed is that my DD can get stuck in a rut with a particular type of thinking, eg, "I don't want to be in this house at all, and hate you all, etc" sometimes this can last a day, sometimes months, depending on how happy she is elsewhere in her life, eg school, friends. and my point here is that they don't always realise that what they are thinking/feeling is a phase and will pass, but while they are in it, it is EVERYTHING to them and can make your life hell as the nearest and dearest! I did read in an American book about teens that we should be flattered as it means that they feel comfortable enough to be able to let off steam in a safe and secure place - I try and hang on to that thought sometimes! it is so tough when you love them so much and I admit I do find it difficult to detach enough to keep myself sane, basically if she's happy, I am and vice versa which is not terribly healthy but I'm working on it! Praise the tiny positives when you see them "thank you for taking your plate out" etc and hopefully eventually they will find it harder and harder to be stroppy when someone is being nice to them. You're doing a good job in a difficult phase, and when she looks back one day, she will realise how much her mum love her and how she put you through the wringer!

[flow4]

If it's any consolation, the younger siblings I know who have older brothers/sisters who are pains in the arse difficult seem to watch and learn... How not to be.

My DS2 says he 'feels sorry' for DS1, and frequently points out things his brother has done that he's not ever going to do!

[amillionyears]

The last paragraph of your last post says it all op.

I would come down on her like a tonne of bricks.
Sorry if that sounds harsh.
I would not let her rule the house and her siblings like she is.

If she had underlying issues, fair enough.
But if "she is choosing to be like she is", then no way.

[exasperatedemma]

I don't think all 12 year olds are that logical - don't we all remember how irrational hormones made (make) us?

[FernieB]

Just found this thread and feel so much better. Have just had another morning of moaning, shouting and whinging from 12 yo DD twins. Feel better that it's not just mine like this. They are constantly negative about everything and can't seem to be happy about anything. It wears me down. Some days the only thing that keeps me sane is the thought that one day they may also be mums and their kids will moan at them

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Shes been like this since three.

Noises annoy her.

She freaks out that someone elses knickers are in her drawer.

Can you give any more examples OP because that is suggesting ASD to me. Three year olds dont have swinging hormones.

[fivecupsoftea]

Thanks so much for your posts, it's so reassuring to know that it is not just me, and that actually what my daughter is doing is pretty normal. It wears me down too FernieB. I guess nobody ever said that parenting was going to be easy, though infact in comparison it does feel easy to parent my other two. I noticed this weekend that she has suddenly grown hair on her privates, so maybe she has got a problem right now with changing hormones.

Wannabe I had to look up what ASD is. She has a lot of anger but she is pretty good at relating to people, at school I think (and hope) they have no clue as to how she is at home, she is absoulutely fine at school and at activities, so I don't think she has ASD, she also is fine at home 80% of the time.

[FernieB]

fivecups - my DD's are mainly fine 80% of the time too, but their behaviour the other 20% makes you forget they were ever nice. I've started keeping a book in our bathroom and locking myself in there for 5 minutes when I need to get away from the raging hormones.

[exasperatedemma]

wannabedomesticgoddess - your DD might be a Highly Sensitive Person - its a character style that is often confused with ASD and others, but basically, around 20% of people could be classified as HSPs - we realised my DS (Now 16) was like this after I ticked about 18 out of the 20 checklist traits and wish I had found this out before he got to 8 yrs old, would have made the early years a lot easier!- see www.hsperson.com, Elaine Aron writes extremely good books on how to understand HS people, common traits are: not liking labels in clothing, noise, changes to routine, v. sensitive to pain and others' pain, affected by other people's moods. my son was 12 before he could cope with the cinema! on the plus side, they tend to be very deep thinking, sensitive and caring (mostly!) but it does cause them pain and need to withdraw every now and again, eg day of school resting, as they get easily overwhelmed by a lot of information which they have trouble filtering. just a thought....

[Teenagedaughters]

I need help! My 13 year old daughter's violent behaviour is passed the point of no return.
Just before Christmas she attacked my partner (not her biological dad) for removing her TV out of her bedroom after many, many warnings of behaviour. She kicked, punched, scratched his face and tore his clothes. I went to school where the councillor spoke with her.
She refuses to eat with us, refuses to carry out chores in the house (we all have tasks to do). She hardly talks to me, she hits her 12 year old sister and totally ignores my partner, his 11year old daughter and his 7 year old son who lives with us 50% of the time.
I told her that if she wants to go on the school ski trip (£1000+) in 4 weeks she'd better change her attitude and eat with us and be better behaved.
Tonight my partner asked her to turn the TV down 3 times as the younger 3 kids were in bed. On the 4th time of asking he told her it was bed time (all the kids have set bed times) and switched off the TV. She punched him in the face and grabbed him to tear his teeshirt. He held her arms so she couldn't hit him again...she cries and think its all his fault.
I cant carry on like this! How do I deal with her violent behaviour? She has had all the usual punishments - now there is no TV in her room, no mobile, no ipod, no sky TV in the lounge...... the last straw was that I warned her no school ski trip..... she's been violent again....what do I do? She says her behaviour is my fault!

[amillionyears]

Teenagedaughters, there is a support thread on MN that you might be interested in

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/teenagers/a1648434-MaryZs-support-thread-for-parents-of-troubled-teenagers-Part-2-heres-to-a-peaceful-2013

[Teenagedaughters]

Thank you!

[exasperatedemma]

to Teenagedaughters - I sympathise as we went through a very similar phase with DD 14, last year. She just refused to speak to us for weeks, would not eat with us, retreated to her room, left for school without saying anything in the morning (she usually goes in the car with DH) and got hysterical when tackled over even minor things - hitting us, kicking etc. I thought it would go on forever if we didn't tackle it head on. Even got an appointment with CAMHS but they said that unless she agreed to having help, there was nothing they could do to help her, which I understand but not what you want to hear when you're desperate! Our approach was to try and stay calm (not easy) and just keep reiterating to her that its not acceptable etc etc and be overly loving, praising etc in the hope that she would find it harder to be horrible when people were being nice to her. But what was at the root was that she was unhappy at school, but didn't quite know how to handle that so we got the brunt of it. Good news is that the phase passed after about 6 months and I think her hormones may have settled down a bit too. good luck, it won't last forever.

[TigerMumalert13]

I am new to Mumsnet and joined solely for the purpose of looking for answers to my DS1 teenage problems, reading your problems brings me some relief and hope that one day he may grow out of it meanwhile I will just have to sit tight and hope it passes quickly. Thanks guys.

[fivecupsoftea]

Teenagedaughters I sympathise with you, you must be having an awful time. I reccomend from experience that you carry out your threat of no ski trip. I think that part of my problem was not carrying out threats, and infact when we have carried them out I have, long term seen a positive impact. I almost think that the kids need to see us being powerful and maintaining some boundaries. I have now committed to enforce every threat we make, and things are better, I never make a threat that I won't carry out.

Exasperated emma the description of a highly sensitive person matches my daughter, it's nice to see it described.