"You want to ruin my life"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Humor can work too, but the validation technique is also super important at this age we have recently found out.

I swear the kids these days have it much harder than we did and I grew up in a pretty hellish environment compared to our kids but still, with social media and school pressures, I feel things are way more difficult for our tweens/teens - early puberty doesn't help.

FWIW, DD's horrible stage lasted only about 1.5-2 years. She is now almost 16 and usually, but certainly not always, pretty easy to be around now.

Do you think it is best to avoid humour?

[Anonymous]

I was an unreasonable bitch as a teen. My mother would try to respond in a positive way and I just got even madder. My father had a way of dealing with me. When I said something like this, he would agree with me and then take it up a notch. He'd raise his voice to the same level of outrage as mine (not mimicking, but sharing in my exasperation). Then he would proceed to point out all the reasons that taking a shower might ruin my life or quite possibly cause a collapse of the free world. By the end, I'd be laughing so hard I couldn't stay mad.

It probably wouldn't work for everyone, but it diffused quite a few situations for me.

On a positive note, I love my mom to bits and think she walks on water now.

[Anonymous]

My daughter responds well to humor, so I typically take one of the "Thank you! I'm trying!" routes with a smile and a nudge. She'll usually then do as I ask, making it well known she is not happy. I thank her for being cooperative when she finishes. At a later point, when she's calm, I might bring it up again, generally reiterating my appreciation. "I know you didn't want to take a shower when I asked you to. I appreciate that you did it anyway. Do you want to talk about ways to make it less of a problem in the future?" Usually she'll roll her eyes like what is wrong with me that I'm asking, but sometimes it opens the door for her to express something she couldn't or wouldn't in the moment and that's been really valuable too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You're ruining my life" is a pretty strong statement of discontent, and I would rather my child not be that upset if there's a reasonable way around it. My vision of our family and my role as a parent is that I am my child's ally and advocate always, so if she's not feeling that that's the case there's something wrong and I would want to address it.

How old is you child? Because I get "you are ruining my life" for the most inane things. It may or may not be followed by a very dramatic exist to said child's bedroom to pout. But rarely does my child think that I am actually "ruining their life" and whatever I have done to "ruin their life" is usually forgotten some short period of time later.

One of my roles as a parent is not to indulge my child when they become overly dramatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Wow, it sounds like you are really upset. I love you, and I want to help make your life better, not ruin it. It's a problem if you feel I'm doing something that serious and detrimental. Would you like to talk about it?"

If irritated teen stomps off to do whatever you said because it's not worth a long conversation, situation over.

Otherwise:

"OK. What I thought was going on, was simply that I asked you to take a shower. That seems reasonable to me, but obviously it's a problem for you. I don't really want to be making you do things that upset you; I would way rather come up with solutions that work for both of us and still get done the things that need to get done. What's going on here from your perspective?"

Then, hopefully, you will figure out the root of the problem. Is she feeling like you nag her? Was she in the middle of something? Did she have plans to take a shower at another time? Is there a massive crisis going on that she's trying to deal with and the request to shower is simply terrible timing?

All of those things can most likely be worked through to find a mutually agreeable solution.

"You're ruining my life" is a pretty strong statement of discontent, and I would rather my child not be that upset if there's a reasonable way around it. My vision of our family and my role as a parent is that I am my child's ally and advocate always, so if she's not feeling that that's the case there's something wrong and I would want to address it.

At that point the average teen will roll their eyes, make a sound of disgust and walk away.

OP I don't even respond to statements like that, especially over something as mundane as taking a shower. It's over the top drama and I don't play that game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter responds well to humor, so I typically take one of the "Thank you! I'm trying!" routes with a smile and a nudge. She'll usually then do as I ask, making it well known she is not happy. I thank her for being cooperative when she finishes. At a later point, when she's calm, I might bring it up again, generally reiterating my appreciation. "I know you didn't want to take a shower when I asked you to. I appreciate that you did it anyway. Do you want to talk about ways to make it less of a problem in the future?" Usually she'll roll her eyes like what is wrong with me that I'm asking, but sometimes it opens the door for her to express something she couldn't or wouldn't in the moment and that's been really valuable too.

Lucky you. Humor only further infuriates my daughter.

[Anonymous]

My five year old says this.

[Anonymous]

"And I wasn't even trying!! I am so talented!! Imagine how much I could ruin your life if I put my mind to it...you probably don't want me to spend that much time thinking about ways to ruin your life so I would just take a shower and then we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming."

12. Such a delightful age. Not. Seriously, nothing has been this hard since she was a threenager.

[Anonymous]

Eh, I have one kid with whom humor works and another for whom it is best just to ignore the outbursts. Not everything they say needs an answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check out the validation thread.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Select from random any of the following:
"Oh good! My evil plan is working, BWAHAHAHAHAHA" (evil genius scientist or witch cackle whichever feels right)
"Only for the next half hour, then I'll try to make it better again"
"I'm your mother/father/parent/whatever, that's my job."
"Maybe a nice hot shower will make you feel more human."

and anything else along those lines. This too shall pass. Just remember, the end goal is to have them survive through high school. Then it's up to them.

Yep. Good lines all around. Teenage girls and boys think they know everything - and that you know nothing. Funny thing is, we were all teenagers once and felt the same way about our parents. When they're on their own, all of a sudden dealing with the harsh realities of the adult world (e.g., money, career, repairs, home ownership, etc...) they start to think you all of a sudden became super smart.

[Anonymous]

OP, lots of advice her to use humor or snappy comebacks, but proceed with caution. With some kids this works fine and defuses the situation (or at least sends them off doing what you asked while they groan at how bad your humor is). But other kids don't respond well to that kind of reply and it escalates things. My daughter hasn't done the full-on "ruining my life" schtick or "I hate you" but does want to argue the point sometimes when asked to do something very basic, like you describe. Snappy comebacks would launch her into a need to explain in detail why she feels she should not do X right now, or why she will do it "in a minute." Trying to turn it aside with humor only makes her say that I'm not listening to her point of view (and yeah, I don't see why she has to have a point of view about, oh, taking a shower!).

You know your own child best, and you know (we don't) whether she'll do best if treated with humor or not. It can work or it can backfire but it depends entirely on the kid.

[Anonymous]

Some kids make a remark like this because they feel misunderstood or not taken seriously. Humor would just exacerbate in that case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to toughen up. She means it sincerely in the moment, but still loves you.

"I'm not trying to ruin your life, I'm just trying to make it less smelly."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eh, I have one kid with whom humor works and another for whom it is best just to ignore the outbursts. Not everything they say needs an answer.

Same here. My son responds exceptionally well to humor - I guess we have the same sense of humor. My daughter gets SO offended when I try humor to diffuse her moods - as if I'm committing lese-majeste. So I just ignore her outbursts unless they've crossed the line and she needs to apologize.