How to handle withdrawing 12 yo girl?

[Anonymous]

My DD has always been a bit challenging. She is newly menstruating and has been extremely difficult, rude and withdrawn. She is an excellent student and athlete and has many friends. At home, she is often reading and can’t be interrupted/wont respond to basic pleasantries. She snaps and is often incredibly rude. She has sworn at me when in a very agitated state about forgetting an item and has generally refused to engage with her father at all. We are very involved parents. She is very frustrated constantly with her siblings. We don’t know what to do. We are trying not to take it personally and neutrally give consequences but it is hard. We have a lot of fun expensive trips planned as a family soon and I dread her running all experiences with her frustration and disdain. What do I do here? We’ve talked about therapy and she’s not interested. She insists there is no change or underlying issue. Thought? Ride it out? I’m terrified at this level of anger in such a young girl and dreading the road ahead.

[Anonymous]

Highly recommend reading Lisa Damour’s books. She has lots of strategies for dealing with everything you get from a teenage girl.

[Anonymous]

She sounds like an average girl who is going through puberty OP. Is she your oldest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She sounds like an average girl who is going through puberty OP. Is she your oldest?

Yes, ha.

[Anonymous]

Ride it out unless there is any indication that she is struggling in other areas (school, friends etc). Unfortunately, fairly normal for age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ride it out unless there is any indication that she is struggling in other areas (school, friends etc). Unfortunately, fairly normal for age.

Okay. Thanks for the reality check. I may be awful but I don’t want to take a kid like this to Europe for the summer. She’s just too mean. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

We are living through this as well - but now closer to the other end with a 16 YO.
For my DD, the hormones really were hard and she knew it - but did not have the words to express why she was all over the place.
She was holding it together at school and at home just was done.
A few hacks that worked for our family -
1. If I had a conversation I needed to have, I texted her, told her the topic, gave her options for when we could talk.
2. Acknowledged that sometimes we are engaged with things -but set expectations that she needed to at a minimum acknowledge with a pleasant tone. I gave her phrases to use .... hey - right now I am in the middle of something - I will connect later.
... love you to
You can have her put a "I am in the reading right now and would prefer to decompress" sign on her door and she has the "right" to have it there for 30 minutes of time between afterschool and 9PM.

Finally - doing things as a family.
A 1 on 1 conversation ahead of time. Acknowledge that not everything will be things she wants to do at that time - but there are things she wants to do as well. She does not need to have over the top enthusiasm - but she needs to be pleasant and not drag her feet / do the slow roll so you miss things. Non-negotiable. There will be consequences for bad behavior.
A key point is - that you need to make sure you are not giving others a pass and calling her out. My DD saw that her older brother had different rules. He has severe ADHD we do a lot of scaffolding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are living through this as well - but now closer to the other end with a 16 YO.
For my DD, the hormones really were hard and she knew it - but did not have the words to express why she was all over the place.
She was holding it together at school and at home just was done.
A few hacks that worked for our family -
1. If I had a conversation I needed to have, I texted her, told her the topic, gave her options for when we could talk.
2. Acknowledged that sometimes we are engaged with things -but set expectations that she needed to at a minimum acknowledge with a pleasant tone. I gave her phrases to use .... hey - right now I am in the middle of something - I will connect later.
... love you to
You can have her put a "I am in the reading right now and would prefer to decompress" sign on her door and she has the "right" to have it there for 30 minutes of time between afterschool and 9PM.

Finally - doing things as a family.
A 1 on 1 conversation ahead of time. Acknowledge that not everything will be things she wants to do at that time - but there are things she wants to do as well. She does not need to have over the top enthusiasm - but she needs to be pleasant and not drag her feet / do the slow roll so you miss things. Non-negotiable. There will be consequences for bad behavior.
A key point is - that you need to make sure you are not giving others a pass and calling her out. My DD saw that her older brother had different rules. He has severe ADHD we do a lot of scaffolding.

Op here and oh wow. I didn’t note this but her older brother has many special needs including severe adhd and often needs different rules. I know it’s very hard for her and I try to be very careful and empathetic about it. But I get it.

[Anonymous]

This is the kind of thing that a few meetings with a family therapist can help with. If the family goes as a whole, she is not the identified problem. You put it to her that as parents you need help raising teenagers in this confusing world. You talk to the therapist ahead of time to outline what you see as the problem, and a good therapist will allow the kid to express her point of view, while you stay silent, because you are trying to learn about her internal world.

And if you see this as a hormonal issue, explain that to her. She surely doesn’t know what is happening to her and I’m sure feels awful and out of control. She might need a visit to the doctor or an endocrinologist, if this is very cyclical.

None of this is fun for you, but it’s also not fun for her. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Not to focus too much on this, but starting one's period can be a royal pain and depending on how uncomfortable, unpredictable, and heavy it is, it's no wonder she may want to cocoon or have some physical privacy.

Imagine being 12 and spending the day worrying about if you're going to bleed through your underwear before a break, if you have enough time to get to your locker and the bathroom between classes to change a pad, and if you can get through after-school sports practice with the amount of pads you have left after an unpredictable day. Finally getting home and wanting to curl up in a corner makes total sense.

It's easy to forget how little control a middle school kid has over their day and what that means for logistics of getting one's period if you're an adult who works in a civilized office or at home. Imagine if you were at your office and desperately needed to change a tampon, but your boss would dock you a day's pay if you used the bathroom and wouldn't allow you to carry a bag with you. Imagine scheming about where to hide a tampon on your person, and then if you're at a school that restricts hall passes or docks class points if they're used, you have to decide if it's worth it to sacrifice your grade to use the bathroom.

When I was that age, I feel like my mom doubled down on family time and insisting that we do even more together, including scheduling trips that were really stressful when I was going through puberty given the lack of privacy, need to share space, being new to tampons but expected to swim and then also having unpredictable schedules and access to bathrooms.

I think your DD is snapping at you because she has siblings in her face, family guilt tripping her about "fun expensive" vacations, a long school day, and no way to reset at the end of the day. Let her read, give her a printed list of chores that she's expected to handle on her own schedule so you don't add nagging or more verbal back-and-forth to the evenings, and give her some space. Once she has sufficient room and time to restore her energy, she'll be far more able to participate at the level you're hoping for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are living through this as well - but now closer to the other end with a 16 YO.
For my DD, the hormones really were hard and she knew it - but did not have the words to express why she was all over the place.
She was holding it together at school and at home just was done.
A few hacks that worked for our family -
1. If I had a conversation I needed to have, I texted her, told her the topic, gave her options for when we could talk.
2. Acknowledged that sometimes we are engaged with things -but set expectations that she needed to at a minimum acknowledge with a pleasant tone. I gave her phrases to use .... hey - right now I am in the middle of something - I will connect later.
... love you to
You can have her put a "I am in the reading right now and would prefer to decompress" sign on her door and she has the "right" to have it there for 30 minutes of time between afterschool and 9PM.

Finally - doing things as a family.
A 1 on 1 conversation ahead of time. Acknowledge that not everything will be things she wants to do at that time - but there are things she wants to do as well. She does not need to have over the top enthusiasm - but she needs to be pleasant and not drag her feet / do the slow roll so you miss things. Non-negotiable. There will be consequences for bad behavior.
A key point is - that you need to make sure you are not giving others a pass and calling her out. My DD saw that her older brother had different rules. He has severe ADHD we do a lot of scaffolding.

+1

This is really great advice. I also have success with texting my DD- I think it comes across less as “nagging” or confrontational and gives her a heads up and some autonomy as to when to address the issue. As opposed to me catching her at a cranky time. Anything from “hey looks like you are missing an assignment in English? Please take a look when you get a chance and let me know” to a quick reminder or heads up about things that need to be done or a quick question I might have. For whatever reason, this really works for us. Also agree about setting standards for minimal politeness while still acknowledging her right to have alone time- like- it is fine if you don’t want to talk right now, but rather than doing xyz (rolling your eyes and being snippy), I would you say xyz (something polite- as pp said).

Also I’ve really had to change my tone and approach over the last few years (mine is 15) and that has taken some time to get used to. Moving from “issuing orders” to more of a…collaborative tone, if that makes sense. In many ways more similar to how I might speak to another adult, when it comes to day to day things (while still enforcing rules).

[Anonymous]

If you all need some space, consider sleep away camp options for the summer. I remember it feeling like such a relief to be independent for those weeks at that age. I also came home more responsible, which resulted in less household tension.

Don't pick anything she hates--she'd have to be 100% on board--but 2-4 weeks away could diffuse some of the stress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you all need some space, consider sleep away camp options for the summer. I remember it feeling like such a relief to be independent for those weeks at that age. I also came home more responsible, which resulted in less household tension.

Don't pick anything she hates--she'd have to be 100% on board--but 2-4 weeks away could diffuse some of the stress.

For the record, I'm not suggesting to banish her for the whole summer. Just a brief break of a couple of weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are living through this as well - but now closer to the other end with a 16 YO.
For my DD, the hormones really were hard and she knew it - but did not have the words to express why she was all over the place.
She was holding it together at school and at home just was done.
A few hacks that worked for our family -
1. If I had a conversation I needed to have, I texted her, told her the topic, gave her options for when we could talk.
2. Acknowledged that sometimes we are engaged with things -but set expectations that she needed to at a minimum acknowledge with a pleasant tone. I gave her phrases to use .... hey - right now I am in the middle of something - I will connect later.
... love you to
You can have her put a "I am in the reading right now and would prefer to decompress" sign on her door and she has the "right" to have it there for 30 minutes of time between afterschool and 9PM.

Finally - doing things as a family.
A 1 on 1 conversation ahead of time. Acknowledge that not everything will be things she wants to do at that time - but there are things she wants to do as well. She does not need to have over the top enthusiasm - but she needs to be pleasant and not drag her feet / do the slow roll so you miss things. Non-negotiable. There will be consequences for bad behavior.
A key point is - that you need to make sure you are not giving others a pass and calling her out. My DD saw that her older brother had different rules. He has severe ADHD we do a lot of scaffolding.

Op here and oh wow. I didn’t note this but her older brother has many special needs including severe adhd and often needs different rules. I know it’s very hard for her and I try to be very careful and empathetic about it. But I get it.

I’m not attacking you in this - but her brother got reduced expectations bc of a lack of dopamine I assume. Consider her hormone load is leaving her equally challenged. Also the resentment of the double standard is serious - and take a little accountability for her lack or understanding of differences is bc she is still 12 years old. I made this mistake - mine was the oldest though - and we had to work through her resentment in the teen years. She felt punished for being functional when her sister was not.

I’d also say that as a mom of 2 girls - I have yet to see families of mixed genders where there isn’t a double standard. Every mom I know favors their son and is harder on their daughter and just cannot see it themselves. Dads are the reverse usually - but the problem is that mom does most of the parenting in most houses so it’s not a wash.

[Anonymous]

Adding my advice: any situation where a friend can reasonably come along - let her. She will behave in front of her friends!! Especially if the friends like you.

Secondly, car rides are the best times to bring things up. I think the lack of eye contact feels less pressured.