My 12 Yr Old Daughter's (Unacceptable) Behavior

Teenager years have arrived. Around 12-13 my now 17 yr old went though an I hate you phase for me. I could do nothing right.

Hubby remided her that she was talking to his wife and that he expected his wife to be respected and then HE grounded her by removing phone priviliges and a couple of fun things she had planned.

We got through it and we have a good relationship now.

My suggestion is to keep all lines of communication wide open so she knows she can come back to you. Don't shut her out.

Good luck

Puberty is reverse menopause, but withouth 40 years of life to understand what's going on. I was a goody goody kid so I can't offer advice, but maybe understanding a little of what she's going through might help to balance things out. It's PMS 24/7.

I would guess that this is your oldest child. I remember back to my oldest daughter and how much I tried to fight her on things. Finally I asked some people with older teenagers what to do and they told me to lighten up. You cannot win all the battles so why make battles. She is getting older and you need to let her make some decisions for herself . She will make them whether you let her or not, the only difference is that everyone will be miserable. Ignore the attitude, she can't help it, it's part of a girl growing up. Choose a couple things that are very important to you and stick to those for fighting about.

Once I finally got it through my head that it is a no-win situation for me things went much more smoothly. I could actually look at her when she was pouting, etc. and smile because I saw what a strong-willed young lady she was becoming. This oldest daughter of mine who I fought with so much is a college graduate, a mother of three and very successful in her work and home life.

Also the next kids that came along went much more smoothly because I had learned from the first how to do it.

Good Luck! Remember, she is still just a kid who wants you to like her.

Welcome to the wonderful world of hormones, puberty, and middle school girls. We have a 12 year old Princess Sassy Pants too. Mine has ODD, ADHD, and is extremely intelligent. She thinks that she's equal to an adult in her decision making skills and doesn't think childrens rules apply to her. She's felt this way since she was little.

We're also very strict with her, although I think I'm more disciplinarian and lean heavily toward natural consequences. Last night she broke three serious house rules (lying, blaming her sisters for what she did, being severely disrespectful to me, plus one or two less serious house rules). She was rude and disobedient to boot. She was caught red handed in her lie, so I told her that I'd remove the privilege of the school dance this coming Friday, no Trick or Treating, no cell phone, and I'd remove the door off of her bedroom if she didn't come clean.

Not only did she come clean but she copped to two other things she had lied about that I DIDN'T know about but were serious. So I knocked her discipline down to no video games for a month and her bedroom door must remain open at all times unless she's naked for three months. She apologized on her own to me and her sisters. She attempted to make reparations for what she had done as well without my having to ask.

We did some talking, of course, because she's a talker and she responds best to conversation. These things were laid out as options to her with explanations that each disciplinary action was for a separate issue. I gave her some time to cool off before she decided to come clean.

You have to be okay with your daughter saying, "I hate you." You have to think to yourself, "Good, I must be doing something right." We're not our childrens friends, we're their parents for very good reason. They can't parent themselves.

EDIT: I do want to clarify that I come down harsh initially because my eldest daughter likes to bargain. She looks for loopholes in everything. If I "over punish" or "over discipline" then I can allow my daughter to "work me down" to a lesser disciplinary tactic that I would have used in the first place. She's still not happy, but she can live with it.

Send her to her room when she has attitude, each and every time. When you and she are calm, talk with her about what is happening. First read the book, How to Talk So Your Child will Listen and How to Listen so Your Child Will Talk or something like that. It's by Farber and Mazslish.

Kids at this age are driven to show their independence. Frequently they don't know how to do that. It's our job to teach them. Having an immediate related consequence will help. They go to their room because they are not good company. It's also very important to not argue. At the time is not the right time to try to convince them to behave differently. Just say, "go to your room until you can come out and apologize to me for your rude, disrespectful comment."

It's important to toughen up and not let it upset us. Think of this time as a teaching opportunity. Yes, tell her that it's unacceptable. Tell her when it hurts your feelings but tell her in as neutral a voice as possible. Take this out of the realm of personal. You're teaching her appropriate attitude and behavior. When we get attitude in response to their attitude we're not teaching them anything.

I suggest that you over reacted. Banishing desert is totally unrelated to the offense and teaches nothing. Instead it triggers the "that's not fair" response from the child. Send her to her room instead. Of course she says she doesn't care. Grounding her from all those things is overload and puts the incident into crisis mode. You were angry. It made her angry and she wants to get back at you.

I see this happening with my daughter and her 12 yo daughter. What I often see is that the granddaughter is trying to tell her mother something but is having a difficult time expressing herself. My daughter takes immediate offense instead of backing off and trying to understand why her daughter is trying to say. Both my daughter and my granddaughter feel unheard. This is where having conversations during which both are able to talk and listen is helpful.

You need to adjust your idea of what is "acceptable" behavior.
She is no longer a docile child, she is becoming an adult, and she WILL have her own moods and opinions.
Pleasing you (and other adults) is no longer her top priority.
Don't make the same mistake I made with my older daughter. Cut her some slack, and choose your battles carefully.
Be strict about the things that are truly important, like grades, curfew and chores.
Stuff like attitude, clothes/makeup, etc? Let it go.
It's not worth ruining your relationship over these things :(

Marda is giving you good advice. Don't go overboard and keep upping the ante taking things away to try to "make" her care. All you will do is drive her away. Don't yell at her or get angry. Be calm and tell her that there are consequences for bad behavior. When she shows you a little bit of good behavior, give her a reward of a sort that isn't breaking your "grounding" rule. Kids need something to look forward to and need to know that you actually love them, rather than thinking that you are just looking for an excuse to bust on them.

Btw, years 11 and 12 can just be awful for girls. One of my nieces was just awful when she was 11. She bossed everyone around, talked to her mom like a dog in front of everyone and we all felt sorry for her mom. When she would talk to my kids as if they should have been older, I kept saying to her "He's only 8 - he is not 11 and can't act like he's 11" and I said it SO many times while we were together that she finally stepped back. I even said it when it didn't make any sense in the context I was using it in. (On purpose.) She saw that I wasn't going to let her control me or my children and I just kept saying the same thing over and over, calm as a cumcumber, too. It worked.

If you pretend not to be stressed and just not give into to having arguments with her, I think it would help. Turn your back on her and say "That's inappropriate talk and when you can talk to me like you should, then we will have something to talk about."

There's a book called "Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me & Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager", Revised and Updated. It might help you. At the very least, you might understand better what she is going through and how to navigate it.

Btw, my niece's behavior got a lot better by the time she was 13. I hope you'll be as lucky.

Dawn

Wow, at first I thought "Did I post this?" :) I have the same issues with my 12 yr old daughter. It is the age but doesn't make it acceptable and still needs to be addressed. The only thing I can say is you are not alone, not much help I know. Also, as someone else mentioned try to not over react in the moment and give a totally unrelated punishment. Discipline is supposed to teach, therefore natural or logical consequences are best. I.e. "you have a crabby attitude? Early bedtime, you must need more rest." "You cannot do basic things I ask you to do around the house? I have to spend my extra time and energy doing them so I hav enot itme to take you to (fill in the blank)." Natural consequences would be like this morning in our house when she couldn't find her uniform sweatshirt and it was cold and rainy. I had asked her to get her things together the night before because she is slow in the morning. She didn't. She went to school without and was cold a lot of the day. Before bed tonight, she made sure she had it out for tomorrow.

She is getting older and getting tired of your "pretty strict" rules. She needs to be able to make choices about some things and if you are making those decisions for her all the time she is not going to ever learn to make good decisions.

I suggest you lighten up and re-think what it is you are pretty strict about. If it's rules that really don't mean anything then I thing having an open mind and making some concessions might be an option.

For instance, just making a rule up so this is not a concrete example...

If you had always had the rule that the kids had to have lights out by 8pm and she wants to say up until 9pm.

She is older and does not need as much sleep. So the 8pm bedtime would be unrealistic on your part, she would most likely be getting into trouble every night for her lights not being out, for listening to the radio after lights were out, maybe sneaking a book, phone, tv on, etc...so she would not have to lay there for hours awake.

That would be someplace that a compromise would be beneficial.

There are tons of ways to get everyone closer to a compromise. Being able to recognize that she is growing up and may need you to bend more is one of them.

There are, of course, those rules that are carved in stone and unbreakable and those should be consistent and firm.

I just read through the posts and want to share my observations with you. My daughter (17 now) was an angel all her life & my sweetest little friend. But at nearly 12, she began treating me like I was the most stupid, annoying person on the planet. This had happened with me and my own mother (I was an only child and we'd been very close until I was in middle school), but I always believed it was because she was uneducated and kept so much of her thoughts to herself -- I didn't know her. And eventually, my own mother gave up on me because I wasn't kind to her -- she was always there for me when I needed something, but our closeness disappeared forever. She's 85 now and I regret that for 65 years, I didn't know her at all.
I thought it would be different with my daughter because I am educated, I;ve read the parenting books, I've talked things through with her always. Surprise! She frequently has no use for me... And though as loving mothers we are angry about the lack of respect when we do so much for them (hey, am I ONLY an ATM machine to you?), and though we worry that their behavior is going to hold them back in the world (why haven't I taught her better?) -- the worst part is that we love this child SO much and it is SO painful to see how little they care for us... sometimes I find the pain almost more than I can bear.

So I heard an expert speak about this: your teenager is "baked" at this point, there's not a whole lot more you can do to mold her. She doesn't really want to hear all that much from you anymore. But IF you can make yourself simply listen, say "Oh really?" "Wow" or "Interesting" when they address you -- or walk away when they are too cruel for you to take it -- then they will tak to you more, and you'll find out more about what's going on with them. Try it -- sometimes it works, and you hear something about their lives or what they're thinking. They are trying to hard to find out who they are -- and though we want to help them, it's really their own journey now.

There will be moments when you see that she still loves you and needs you. And I've been told she will be your friend again sometime after her mid-twenties -- but for now, she's basically on her way out the door, so you need to try and sit back, and enjoy whatever moments she offers to you. If she's a good person and you can pat yourself on the back for the good things she's doing, then you can congratulate yourself for helping her learn to find her own happiness.
Best wishes

Taking away dessert, is really not a punishment if that is what you meant.
Banishing her is not going to do anything either.
This is the Jekyll and Hyde ages.
Omg, I remember my sibling going through that, it was nutso for my parents. REAL hard.
But what I realized is: when a kid is like this, they actually need the parent more, but don't know that. They don't have much hindsight. They are just in the "now." And yep... they have, PMS. Too. Not even grown up women can handle PMS. So a Tween/Teen... has it harder.

A kid, at this age really needs the parent (whichever one they are closest too), and bonding, with a parent. This is how it was, when I was that age... and I had a "monster" of a sibling, who was just terrible, to my parents at that age. Actually, it was terrible for my Mom... because it was HER that my sibling went against and could not stand. And they just were not close at all. Compared to her, what I went through was just nothing. And, what I did observed and realize then was: IF the child does not get along with a parent at this crucial age juncture.. then, it can lead to greater and greater and greater ALIENATION between both child and parent, for years to come. And that is not good.

If a child cannot vent and reduce their problems or stresses at home... WHERE will the do it/with whom/where and how???? Therefore, my late Dad, really straddled the fence, in a caring wise manner, when I was that age... in order to, reduce the bad/negative proclivities that may occur or become habit at that age.... while at the same time, staying close to us and per discipline. HE was the parent we were closest too. Our Mom, just drove us away. 2 different styles, and 2 different results. One was punitive and the other parented with by being an iron fist in a velvet glove, and was fully aware of our development.
It was not about "control" or who has more power.

Sounds like she's becoming a teenager. Hold on, it's going to be a wild ride.

Welcome to the teen years.

Sadly, what you are describing is pretty typical. Be prepared for up to three years of a not-so-pleasant daughter.

When you give her consequences, just give them, don't bother with a lecture, or expect her to say anything to make you happy. The consequences are the discipline, which will hopefully curtail her bad attitude and smart mouth.

It sounds like you let this escalate, because you expected that after you took away the dessert and her stuff, that she would start acting nice. That's not going to happen. You need to expect that she is going to be a little unpleasant while all her hormones are changing. Like I said, for two or three years you might not see much of the cute little girl you knew when she was younger. However, there needs to be a limit on how rude she can be. When she crosses the line, CALMLY give her a consequence (one consequence, not two or three), and stick to it.

If you have a husband in the house, make sure he calmly backs you up.

Mamazita made some good points.

Dig in for the long haul?? Lol... Sorry. :) Sounds like you've got some "fun" years ahead of you.

I am more of a talker than a punisher...

I would be in her room with her trying to sort things out and getting to the bottom of what is making her so grouchy? Did she have a bad day at school? Is she fighting with her BFF?

You know 12 is a hard age and the beginning of puberty and all those hormones raging...has she started her period yet?

Have you told her point blank that when she talks to you the way she does or when she says "XY & Z" to you that it hurts your feelings?? Like I said, I am a 'talker' not so much a 'grounder' or a 'punisher'.

I would try talking to her. What is she upset about? It may have nothing to do with you and she is stressed by her peer interactions, school, etc. She may feel that some of your 'house rules' are appropriate for 6 year olds, but not 12 year olds. Might be time to revisit these together and come up with some more age appropriate rules she will buy into. I would NOT try to punish her into obedience unless all you want once she is grown up is obedience. I want my son to grow up into a questioning, thinking, empathetic person. So I try to treat him that way now. That does not involve punishment (I don't punish my employees even though I expect them to listen to me and follow directions. I listen to their input, discuss things and make a plan). It involves discussion - with clear ground rules - but also room for negotiation on things that really have several good choices.

My 13 year old son is going through the same thing, and yes, I completely agree that it's extremely stressful - on the entire family. Right now I'm reading a book that is helping called Surviving Your Adolescents by Dr. Thomas Phelan. He explains that as our children mature, we as parents move from the role of Directors to the role of Consultants. I'm enjoying it. Good luck to you. We have to stick together :)