Fighting urge to pummel my 13 y.o. dd when she comes in the door

[Anonymous]

To the OP, I was your daughter at 13. I would ignore my mother, come and go as I pleased, challenge my parents constantly.

I had so much resentment towards my parents, especially my mother. I was not able to express my emotions verbally so I acted out instead.

Talking to my mother was the last thing I ever wanted to do. There was no way I was going to have a heart-to-heart with her - that actually would have escalated my behavior.

Thirteen is rough. As a few other posters have mentioned, taking away her electronics,etc is not going to work. At this point, your home is probably the last place she wants to be.

Why not completely change things. Tomorrow, tell her she has all privileges, and return any items you may have taken away. Make your home as warm and inviting as you can, as it should be!

Let her have friends over after school (ground rules set of course, but not too strict), get the names and phone numbers of her friends parents and get to know them. Make your home a place your daughter enjoys, where she wants to spend time, where she'll invite her friends.

If you are friends with her friends' parents then you can all keep tabs on the teenagers together. If one of her friends isn't exactly the type of person you'd want your daughter with, your daughter might be more of the type of person her friends' parents would want their daughter with. The most unruly teen just may have the most conservative parents that are going through exactly what you're going through. Have the families of her friends over for dinner. Get to know them, help each other.

What does your daughter enjoy? Does she have any hobbies? Play any sports? What did you do together in the past? Baking, shopping, board games, basketball? Find something your entire family can do together.

What is her relationship like with her siblings? Are there any activities they can do together? Do they have any mutual friends or friends in the same family?

I know it's tough but it's so, so, so important to mend this relationship now. Please update. I really hope you are able to work things out with your daughter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have 3 daughters so your post brings me real fear and a desire to take action.

Get yourself to a PEP class ASAP.
Call the school counselor for advice and to get that person paying attention to your DD at school. She is AT RISK.

Take control of her time as much as possible. If she can't manage the walk from the bus to home, then that's got to change. My first thought is to get her off of the bus and somehow get her to a food bank or animal shelter or something like that where she can volunteer. She's old enough to volunteer at the library but that may be too dull. She needs more responsibility and to focus beyond herself. It will open her mind to caring more about others and believing that she's capable of real responsibilities. At 13, there's a lot of great things that she can do but she just doesn't know what so she's floundering.

Many popular girls are like this at 12-14. Hang out with friends, use cells/text, roam. Usually try alcohol, pot, and some get into more than making out. Put passwords on the computer. Block sites and ztunnels. Scour her room for drugs. Get her in something after school everyday. Something that she likes-dance, sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:17:01, her real father is deceased. Her step-dad has been in the picture since she was about 2y.o. He is at his wit's end with the situation as well. We don't have her in therapy. We did not have major issues with discipline until this past year.

It's been nearly two hours since she got off the school bus. I still don't know what I'm going to do when she walks through the door.

Call the police and that might make her stop and think. Although, 13-yr. olds and their raging hormones sometimes make it impossible for them to think rationally, this might scare the daylights out of her. One thing is certain if you don't take control now things will only get worse. What sorts of friends does she have and is it possible she is experimenting with drugs. Embarrassing her in front of friends will only make it worse. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Kids today don't understand that everything they do can haunt them for a very long time. I have a niece who acted up and, even though, all of this happened under 18, it has still hurt her. She couldn't get a summer job because of a few of her escapades and she had difficulty getting into a good college. Facebook is the absolute worst thing that has happened to teenagers, et al.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the OP, I was your daughter at 13. I would ignore my mother, come and go as I pleased, challenge my parents constantly.

I had so much resentment towards my parents, especially my mother. I was not able to express my emotions verbally so I acted out instead.

Talking to my mother was the last thing I ever wanted to do. There was no way I was going to have a heart-to-heart with her - that actually would have escalated my behavior.

Thirteen is rough. As a few other posters have mentioned, taking away her electronics,etc is not going to work. At this point, your home is probably the last place she wants to be.

Why not completely change things. Tomorrow, tell her she has all privileges, and return any items you may have taken away. Make your home as warm and inviting as you can, as it should be!

Let her have friends over after school (ground rules set of course, but not too strict), get the names and phone numbers of her friends parents and get to know them. Make your home a place your daughter enjoys, where she wants to spend time, where she'll invite her friends.

If you are friends with her friends' parents then you can all keep tabs on the teenagers together. If one of her friends isn't exactly the type of person you'd want your daughter with, your daughter might be more of the type of person her friends' parents would want their daughter with. The most unruly teen just may have the most conservative parents that are going through exactly what you're going through. Have the families of her friends over for dinner. Get to know them, help each other.

What does your daughter enjoy? Does she have any hobbies? Play any sports? What did you do together in the past? Baking, shopping, board games, basketball? Find something your entire family can do together.

What is her relationship like with her siblings? Are there any activities they can do together? Do they have any mutual friends or friends in the same family?

I know it's tough but it's so, so, so important to mend this relationship now. Please update. I really hope you are able to work things out with your daughter.

You advocate rewarding her bad behavior? Doesn't this send the message that the 13 yr. old is in charge? I cannot imagine for one moment that I would ever let my 15 yr. old son, 13 yr. old daughter and 10 yr. old son dictate to me. What do you suggest OP do after she has returned all electronics, made home warm and inviting and her DD is still a holy terror? Maybe she should buy her a car ad let her drive illegally so they can be friends. Here is a news flash: parents are not their children's friends at this age, they are their parents. You can become friends when they are grown. I hope you have since begged your mother's forgiveness for what you put her through.

[Anonymous]

Hire a (strict, older) babysitter for her and tell her until she can behave responsibly and follow the rules she is too young to be left alone for any length of time?

set up a password for the computer- give it to the other kids, not her.

cancel her cell phone if she has one and give her one of the phones intended for young kids that can only call pre-set numbers?

I'd reign this in however needed. If you think she's bad now just wait a few years.

[Anonymous]

PP here:

In addition to not letting her pull the major crap and letting her know it won't be tolerated I do agree with the posters who say to talk to her and spend some quality time with just her. Your entire relationship with her shouldn't be purely negative even if she is a monster right now.

If she's not in any after school activities it may be a good idea to have her start one to try to change her peer group some, hopefully for the better. Maybe a sport or even a volunteer type activity.

[Anonymous]

I was another horrible teenager. At 14, my mother took me on a road trip for a week to California and it was the best thing ever. We totally bonded (left my father and brotherat home). I'm 38 now and we still talk about it. I left behind a drug dealer boyfriend and some really bad friends. At 14 a week is forever...now, I didn't have cellphones or facebook. But, it was a big help to our relationship.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the parents with a young child.

I had a healthy does of teenage attitude at 13 years of age. Ironically, I never became involved with drugs/drinking, didn't sneak out of the house, was a good student. My parents always knew where I was. My father would get at his wit's end though. His loss of control, his stress, his anger made communicating with him difficult. I came to fear him, though I never let that emotion show, just throwing up the 'whatever' wall a lot. I would have loved to have a calm, confident adult help me sort through the challenges of growing up.

My father had a lot of resentment from his childhood, not getting the respect, needing to have control...these issues, not me, drove him crazy. (Not that teenagers aren't challenging.) Each situation is different. Given that you had some issues with how you grew up, you might seek the counsel of a friend or another adult to give you some perspective.

[Anonymous]

Does she have after-school sports you could sign her up for?

I agree that you should talk to her friends' parents about boundaries.

Going out after school with some friends for a couple of hours (on a Friday, not a school night) might be considered acceptable behavior among her peer group. You could also start to discuss what you and she think are acceptable behaviors--like she can go out with her friends on Friday afternoon, but she has to be home after school on M-Th and do her homework.

She can use the phone/computer--but only after her homework is finished and her chores completed.

Also, once it's time for bed, her cell phone stays with you.

[Anonymous]

2 things:

1) My 7th grader got suspended last week. We took everything electronic away. He also must volunteer EVERYDAY after school with the custodian. He BEGGED me to stop. He hates and the custodian is really hard on him. I think it's hilarious. The school really supported me on this.

2) When I was 16, I stayed out too late. When I came through the front door with my friends, my mother COLD COCKED me! I was never late again and she did not feel bad at all.

[Anonymous]

OP, have you talked to her teachers at all? Sometimes whatever is happening at school can shed light on the situation-- or sometimes the narrative given by the teacher is so shockingly opposite of what you're experiencing at home-- at least it would give you some additional fuel for a mother-daughter discussion.

[Anonymous]

22:52 Is what my mom did with me but what realy straitened me out was becomming the mother of a daughter and my mom saying to me do you want her to treat you like you are treating me. "light bulb moment" my daughter is now 9 and is starting to show the same signs i did when i was her age and im afraid but prepared.

[Anonymous]

20:01 here i was 14 when i got pregnant and 15 when i had her

[Anonymous]

To 16:22 poster who said to make friends with the cops, it's not their job to parent your child. My DH is a cop and you don't know how many times he's been called on a domestic b/c the parent can't "parent" their child and wants him to.