Drama Queen Teen!

welcome to the teen age years, grin bare it and keep teling her to stop sweating the small stuff. Keep pointing out when she is making ountains over mole hills and hang on tight the ride is bumpoy to say the least and thenone day you will find, she is over it.

First of all - SHE'S NORMAL!!!!! :) That's the good news and it gets better!!! I too am a 30 year old single mom of three - two boys and a girl. I was married to their father, but we've been divorced for more than 5 years and he hasn't been in their lives regularly since we've divorced. In my experience of raising both boys and girls, I find boys to be MUCH easier to raise, thus far. The significant part between us is we both have teenagers - a completely different animal than your normal boy and girl!!

My son also exagerates things, I refer to him as the "Drama King". For example he has chores to do and one of them is washing dishes. He knows that washing the dishes consists of washing, rinsing, drying and putting them away. There have been instances when I've called him out on not doing the dishes properly (finding dirty silverware/glasses in the cupboards, not putting them away, etc..) and he has actually started crying, throwing his hands in the air, ringing his fingers through his hair etc...(a temper tantrum over putting the dishes away?) I have sent him to bed (timeout in toddler years) letting him cool down - note: no tv no internet no radio etc... Once he has cooled down and morphs back to a thirteen year old boy from a 2 year old toddler I'll take him aside and talk to him on a mature level and he steps right up to that mature level with me and we can have a civilized discussion about his actions and why the entire situation occurred and how we can prevent it from happening in the future. The upside is this is one point in their lives where you can reason with them - toddlers don't reason.lol So I would suggest trying to talk to her on a mature level AND setup for your Dad to spend time with her, and take her on "dates". He (and you too honestly)can teach her how a "lady" is supposed to be treated and hopefully she'll begin acting like a mature young lady. At the same time she is getting attention that she needs without the whole dramatic scene.

My son spends time with my Mom and that has a positive impact to his happiness. As I have referred many times earlier I think at this age they're much like toddlers - establishing their independence in their brand new very important teenage lives! They don't automatically know how to handle certain situations in their newfound social environment, it is something we must teach them. On top of that social change comes hormones - need I say more about that. Considering your daughter doesn't have a stable relationship with her father she may even be using such attention-getting behaviours to gain attention to fill that void. I think my son does these things to get attention from me - I'm a single mom of three who works a 50+ hour work week - I'm spread thin.

My daughter will be going through all of this soon enough for me and she doesn't have a stable relationship with her father either, but she does have some pretty awesome older brothers, an outstanding couple of Uncles and a Grandpa who's wrapped around her little finger. ;) Rest assured you still have time to help mold your child into the person you want her to be! (I tell myself that everyday!) Good luck - I hope I was helpful! Take care - D.

Are there any YOunglife groups in your area? I'm not sure if she is old enough for it, but she's surely close! I'm just trying to think of a good, positive group that she can become a part of that promotes self esteem and self love and gaining self confidence. She will meet great people and gain some valuable life lessons and hopefully build her self esteem. 13 is a hard time. Their entire world resides in this little bubble surrounding them and they don't always realize the bigger picture. Hope this helps and good luck to you!!

Hi A.,
Sounds to me some where along the line your daughter either has self esteem problems really bad and isn't so much independent or that she has depression along the line and is afraid that everyone is against her. I have 3 girls and they all dramatize something along the line. Their ages are 12yrs. 10yrs. and 2 yrs. My 12 yr. old has a lot of friends, but kinda relies on herself way too much. See she's a little bit of a loner, she don't rely on her friends at all and she thinks that she can fix all her friends problems and help them out. She would give her lunch money away to make sure her friend don't starve. She's very unselfish and too giving, which I'm afraid that they take her for advantage way too much. The only time she dramatizes anything, is when we say that she has to clean or when I tell her that I wish she wouldn't help her friends out so much or give them so much unless they give back. My second oldest, her and her best friends fight like sisters...they hate each other but love each other and that drives me nuts...Like when they were in school her and her best friend had gotten in several fights and she would come home with an attitude and I'd ask her how her day went, she would yell at me and say, "Well...I had a bad day! So & So did this and said that and than all my friends are now mad at me, I got into trouble with Mrs. So & So because I told her that so&so's were saying this and that and she said that we're all in fault and we have to appologize or we got caught spending a little too much time in the bathroom only because they held me in there bullying on me because I wouldn't let them pick on the smaller kid. Than on the way home, the bus driver yelled at JUST me because D & M were flipping me off and whispering things at me so I got mad and told them to leave me alone. Than I come home and see that YOUR 2yr. old had messed up MY ROOM!" So than I try to let her know that its not the end and tomorrow will be a new day and she can make new friends by staying away from the old ones. My 2yr. old gets so angry at times that she literally becomes the banshee and makes everyones ears bleed, due to the fact that she doesn't get her way. So of course now..with my ears begging me to put the fire out and try and see what happened goes to her and says, "I can not fix the problem unless you tell me why your angry!" And she says, "I want left alone!" So I put her in a safe quiet spot where she can have her time out and to calm down..with the kind words, you can come out when your calmed down!" I too get so stressed out, but I believe most of these are either insecurities and very normal with a girl who has self esteem issues! Some girls are afraid to have more friends or are afraid to being left alone and sometimes they believe the world is against them because they don't feel that they have a friend in their parents!! I was there several times...and when I finally went to an adult that cared, I knew things weren't as bad as I thought! My girls know I'm here and ready to listen...and ready to help them through what I can and know how to get through. IT's not always easy...and when they feel like they don't have anyone (especially when their best friend is going away for awhile) let her know that she can call her other friends..also if anything give her activities, my girls are doing volunteer work and help out in the community, also clubs work, we also try to find local activities like at the libraries and parks that they can go do. There they can make other friends outside of school..another thing is day camps...those are always good. Good Luck!! ~HUGS~

I think she needs to be seen by a counciler. Maybe get her into more groups where she can meet different girls. Girl scouts is good.

I dislike therapy for a few reasons we won't go into as a general rule, however, it sounds like she needs some professional counsiling. She sees the problem, recognizes that she has one, but isn't able to cope with it to make necessary changes. Time for some professional help and support group tatics. She needs to accept things go wrong every day and have to be treated lightly and the world does not revolve around her and what she wants.
I will pray for you both.

This child needs to understand what "LIFE & DEATH MATTERS" mean. What will it mean in an hour, this evening, tomorrow, next week, a month from now. PUT THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE!!! She will struggle for the REST of her life! In addition, she needs to understand that many people, especially men, DO NOT want "high maintenance" women!!

Help her to get a grip NOW. TALK TALK TALK!! Turn the tables and put her in their shoes and ask how she would feel. Kids ......AND ADULTS.....need to learn empathy. Sometimes you just need to get them to see things from a different perspective!

I agree with Deb and Jessica. I had to read your post because my preschooler is a drama queen already. Had to see what I may be in for. LOL Your example reminded me of my MIL. She has become a "professional victim" and believe me some of it has rubbed off on her son. It can make life a lot more difficult. I think the drama is going to be there and some of it probably is normal teenage stuff, but try to get her out of crisis mode and its all about me as soon as you can. Living with a narcissistic person is tough for everyone and eventually people aren't going to want to be around her. Then she will have something to cry about. Good luck!

Welcome to teen years! I too have a drama queen, she makes mountains out of molehills, she is a self proclaimed loner but has tons of friends, she criticizes herself and everyone around her all the time. Do I think she needs therapy, no, she is working thru what we all worked thru at the same age. I do tell her to cut the drama, and when she says things that sound "inappropriate" I ask why she speaks this way. Usually she has some excuse or another, but eventually tones it down. When your DD's friend couldn't come over did you tell her that if it had been the other way around, she wouldn't have gone either, or maybe the other girl's mom told her no? I have found that trying to reason it out with my DD makes it worse, so just simple words of sympathy do just as well. When things don't go my DD's way sometimes she will turn it around onto the other person. I just let it go and it works itself out.

If you are truly concerned you could always contact the school guidance counselor and give her a heads up so that maybe she could get in touch with her teachers and they can watch her for a bit.

Hope things work out!

Take it from a Drama Queen for 37 years, I am now 40, my husband used to tease me all the time, evrything that happened was bigger than it really was. Alot of it was in jest,I am by nature also rather sarcatic humor, but i have always been very sensative, and very emotional. Your daughter sounds perfectly normal for her age. It is good to talk to her, this is not the end of the world, ect, but she sounds so very normal to me. It does get better with age, and I had proggressively gotten better over the years, unfortunately when our daughter passed at 75 days of age 3 years ago, I lost all drama queen, the worst had happened, suddenly the little things didnt matter. I would say let her be a teenager, keep talking, try to encourage, but understand some people are more emotional than others. You are a very sensitive Mom and will do great. Dont worry too much, just keep talking. God Bless.
Ps A tragic accident happened in front of our home, it has been at least 3 hours since I started this, sorry, I kinda lost my train of thought.