Find something you and your daughter like to do together, and do it. Completely unrelated to school or chores or whatever she "has" to do. Cook together, or play a game, or do each other's nails (I know, but my daughter is into that now). Don't talk about the to do list. Just hang out.

The three things you mention - bed making, turning in homework and staying on task - seem to be ridiculous to pick as your battles. Who cares if the bed is made. As for turning in homework and staying on task at school, she needs strategies for this and you should be working with the teacher.

Anonymous wrote:

The eye rolling and snark she learned from you.

Stop doing it now.

She is just reflecting back your own behavior. It always sucks and is a bit disbelieving to us as parents that we could actually be acting that way but we are.

Speak for yourself, PP.
The eyerolling and snark can also be learned from TV and from peers. When they hit the teenaged years, parents are no longer the only role models.

OP 's DD is 9, not a teenager. She is learning it at home and reflecting back how she is treated. Read OPs post - she feels she already has a bad relationship with her kid. She does. No mom who is snarky and rolling her eyes at her kid is going to be on here talking about some awesome relationship they have with their kid.

My kid is almost 12. She does neither of these things. Several of her friends do not either. The common denominator - I never see their mothers rolling their eyes at their kids or making snarky comments towards them. As they become teenagers, who knows what will happen.

Lots of good advice here.

I'll add that I find it useful to remember that *I* can apologize. I can change my mind. So if I find myself down the parenting rabbit hole sometimes, wondering how the hell I got dug in on something that really doesn't matter that much, I can take it back. In fact, I think it is instructive for kids to hear you say sometimes, "You know, I thought about it some more, and I may have been wrong." or "I lost my temper this morning, and I'm sorry about that. I am upset about x and y, but I shouldn't have yelled."

I also completely agree with the PP above about focusing on your goal. If you want x to happen, ignore the eye-rolling as long as x is happening.

Anonymous wrote:My mil gave me one great piece of advice. Try to find a way to always say yes to the small stuff so that when you have to say no to the big stuff they listen.

This was huge for us. As we let go of most rules we let go of much of the conflict in the house and found that our DDs mostly rose to the occasion well.

Not sure if this would work for others or not, it probably depends on the kid, but it's something to consider. Are any of your expectations things you could safely relax, and are you willing to consider doing so?

I let school handle school. You forgot your homework at school? Oh well, I'm not taking you back there to get it. You'll have to face the wrath of your teacher. You didn't hand in shit? Oh well, you'll get a zero or whatever punishment your teacher gives out.

One thing DD and I have been doing lately, when we feel like things are veering off track is to stop the other one, and say "Let's hug it out." We put down whatever we're holding, hug each other, take a deep breath, let it out, let go, and then continue on. It truly lowers my blood pressure, and gives me five seconds of silence to re-set my brain into a "let's get productive and fix this rather than berating the kid" stance. We've been doing this for maybe three months, with great success.

Also, I let certain things go. No, eye-rolling is not acceptable, nor is mumbling under her breath. But if I tell her to go do something, and she WALKS OFF TO DO IT, then I'm winning, whether or not she's rolling her eyes or muttering something. So I choose not to die on that hill. I let those things go.