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Well after a peaceful 2 days the monster in DD has emerged again GGRRRRRRRR..........this time because she wants to go shopping with her freinds which isnt the problem I said would give her $50 and that was her pocket money in advance for 2 weeks she wanted $80 and still wants pocket money, I took her shopping yesterday and spent $130 on her.......so she chucked a tantrum so is now not allowed to go at all :wall::wall:
Hi everyone.
Just a short post, i have been a bit concerned my dd (12) was not copeing with the new baby etc. We had parent teacher interviews at school today and it was run by the students. Dd had to stand in front of me and her teachers to explain the work she has done in class so far this year, also go threw her portfolio and watch video footage of speeches, plays etc she had done in class. Then she had to talk about her goals for the rest of the year and her career goals etc. After listening amazed at how well she presented herself and work to us, her teachers went on to tell me how grown up she has become in the last term, how her work has improved to the point that next term she will be doing year 7 work (she is in grade 6), every teacher had fantastic things to say about her, not only her work but her attitude and maturity. I was so very proud but i must admit a little shocked i mean i know she is intelligent but i always thought she lacked a little confidence and was a little complacent with homework etc. I am so very happy and proud of her ad hope she carry's on improving when in secondary school.
Sorry about the "me" post but i just wanted to once post something positive about my dd as i think sometimes i dwell on the negative's a little too much and need to see the good in her also.:clap::D
Just testing this thread.
I can see there are replies after my post June 13th in the menu, but cant see them when I get here....
oh abb that is just wonderful!! reach over and pat yourself on the shoulder hun. it so nice to get some positive feedback isnt' it. Your doing a wonderful job - DD is the proof of that. :cheer:
lulu - it was the same for me, but your post has seemed to make it work again.
mel - well done on standing your ground. its hard though isn't it - when they are chucking it big time. my dd was having massive tantrums that would go on for hours, with lots of door slamming ,screaming at each other, her taking off (where she thought she was going is anyones guess - we live on a farm!) Anyway, after some discussion with her when she was in a calm rational state, about conseqences of her actions, and taking responsibility for her behaviour, there has been a change - you can actually see her "thinking" about what she is doing, and instead of hours of tantrums, she pulls herself into check. In hindsight I can see now that it was cyclic, and she has recently started her period, so I think that it was all part of the moodiness and irrationallity in past months. Hang in there mel. I know how hard it is, I would look at laura and think where has my beautiful daughter gone??? She will come back, I promise. just stick to your guns, have firm boundaries, and be consistent. :hug:
wow abb
youre doing a great job
im the opposite my 11 yr olds teacher rang me the other day and shes not listening to him or paying no attention in class.and usually i only get shes the quiest and most polite girl in the class but lately since her holrmones have kicked in she hates life and everyone in it its horrible .
im a little concerned she said the other day it feels like everyone hates her so im a bit worried shes a little depressed which is no good its runs in my family .
what do you guys think do u think i should take her to our gp
ive spoke to her school about a school councellor
i just dont want to leave it in case it gets worse
Abb thats wonderful..its nice to have lovely comments said about our children..and you should feel so proud! Well Done to your dd!!!
Shazza has she maybe had a falling out with her friends. Girls at this age can be so *****y and will often rotate around the group who is in and out of favour. My dds have had their share of troubles with friends but it is a natural part of their development in finding their own strengths and resilience...even though it can pull at our heart strings! Id try and keep the lines of communication open so that your dd might open up to you..maybe some one on one might be a good idea to get anything off her chest that might be worrying her. Best of luck!
No dramas for a while here now...Emmy though is telling me that one of the girls at school is now being ostracised because shes feels that she is a lesbian! Emmy is so sympathetic towards her but some of the other girls have been not so nice...gosh they grow up so quickly!
Jo
Am I the only one that doesnt seem to have any good days with her :( she is on now because she has been caught out lying, was late home from school and tried to say bus broke down but forgets my freinds DD gets the same bus and she got off 2 stops earlier with her freinds and went to maccas. I told her I will be picking her up from school for the next week and she is allowed no phonecalls from her freinds for a week, so the door got slammed and I am being an overbearing cow were her words :wall:
Is there any chance of this thread becomming a sticky..........I have a feeling I will be needing it alot :rolleyes:
Shazza - I took both Laura and Nathan to see a counsellor recently. they went for about three months. With Laura it was a huge turning point. it gave her somewhere that she could feel that she had someone to talk to, and say anything... good bad ugly... it was her space. We had a session, where I ended up staying in, because she wanted to, and she was able to say stuff to me that she needed to say. It was a very emotional session, I had tears streaming down my face, because I discovered the cause of her unhappiness. Like you I thought she may have been suffering from depression. She really believed that I didn't love her. things had gotten so bad that she had started self harming. there was a "story" playing in her head about how she viewed herself, and we had to build on changing that story. I'm sure it won't be the last time that things go pear shaped, but just working with the counsellor - I got some very valuable tools to use, and continue to use them.
Mel - when we meet up in Pioneer Park I will bring the book "princess *****face syndrome" for you to lend. :hug:
Update: Bought Princess B!tchface. Haven't finished reading it yet. Need to get DH to read some segments although getting him to read stuff like this isn't easy. She's been quite reasonable lately I have to say. We've strongly been following through the bed-at-9-lights-out-at-9.30pm thing. This was one of the things her school counsellor recommended. I think this is really helping... and that it was the first domino that needed to fall... a few other issues are falling into place now that she is getting more sleep. She is happier to get up a bit earlier for breakfast (she was skipping breakie for ages)... and I think this means that she's been more settled at school.
Toddler throwing things at me... back later!
thanx Vikki, I feel like I am drowning, DH doesnt help he just says too hard send her back to my mum, BUT I am trying to tell him that isnt an option we HAVE to deal with it, I feel like I am caught in the middle all the time.
O Melham you poor thing. This is what I think, feel free to cyberslap me if you want, I don't want to offend you or anything. I'm referring to your last few posts if that helps
Take a deep breath and step back for a minute. She is trying to grow up and be a big girl, I think treating her like a baby will make for alot of resentment. Since you are the adult, you have to be the bigger person....
Not cleaning her room/the kitchen? You may have to get used to constantly reminding her, 50% of that is "can't be bothered" and 50% will be actually forgetting.
My DD has to have her room cleaned by Saturday morning each week. Then its set in stone. This works for me because DD always wants to go out Saturday and she has gotten used to cleaning her room FIRST, asking me for stuff later. It took time but she got into the routine (even if it took a hospital visit to LEARN).
You have to give them warning before you open a can of whoopass So maybe she has to clean the kitchen on a certain day/s, it need to be up to her to actually do it or she misses out on xxxxx. You pick what it is. Maybe you can give her permission to go to maccas after school one day per week if she has done whatever you believe should be her responsibility. She needs to be home by xxxx (the next bus or whatever).
Give her a chance to prove herself. She will surprise you, there will be hiccups but no one is perfect.
I know it must have been hard to hear she was having a massive biatch about you to your mum. The positive side of this is that at least she has someone she feels she can talk to. At this age they need as many people as possible to love and HEAR them and it just can?t be mum a lot of the time. Maybe later. It is a good thing that she calls your mum to vent because at least she would be more reasonable than a friend from school that feels equally hard done by when she has been asked to do the dishes (?hey I hate my parents too ? lets run away!).
Taking the phone and telly away for such a long time might be a little to hard (just MHO), maybe just a week? When the cr@p truly hits the fan and you have used all your big guns, you have nothing left iykwim?
Testament to what Vicky said ? we need to tell them how much we love them and dammit WHY we do. Yes it?s a given that we love them ?cos they came out of us, but you just have to point it out to them. I always assumed that DD knew I thought she was pretty fabulous, but it wasn?t until a counselling session in which I pointed out all the ways I loved her that I could see she had NO FREAKIN idea I felt that way. Speshilly when you have littler ones, which lets face it, demand more of our time.
Go have a chat with her, expect her to turn and face the wall and ignore you but when you go softly?.well its hard to be shirty when someone explains how much they care.
This is how I approached DD on one of our cr@ppier weeks.
?Look, its my job to be the mum and its your job to be the kid. Being a mum means I worry when you are home late, not ?cos I want to kick your butt, because I DO worry something has happened. I know I can?t protect you all the time or follow you around, but if you want to start growing up and do things without me, you have to respect that it can be hard for me to let go. I want to see you do all the things in the world you want, but fact it I know more about it than you do. It?s your job to explore, my job to guide. OK?
I will not ever stop worrying about you EVER. I think you are a smart girl and you will make the right decisions, so its not that, its because there is bad stuff in the world.
You be good to me and I?ll do it right back OK??
Build a little pathway for yourselves.....regardless of your DH and anyone else for that matter. Its up to her and you, this can lead to an unbreakable bond.
My DD is nearly 16 now, so most of the hissyfitty things are past us, but I really believe that pushing through all the smoke and mirrors these girls put up and speaking plainly, whilst never giving up the fact you are ultimately in charge will open up doors.
:comfort: mel - I know that feeling of being caught in the middle... its one of the wonderful (NOT) things about being in a "blended" family. Sometimes I feel like I have two families - me laura and nathan - and me DH and aston. I hate it!
I also know that feeling of drowning. I will bring another book for you to borrow too, called Boundaries with Kids. It was my saving grace!!
Lulu and I posted at the same time. I couldn't have said it better what she has said. It is about building pathways... sometimes I could just slap Laura... then I have to remind myself that I'm the adult and she is the child... I have many a conversation with her like Lulu has had with her DD. The biggest testament to our relationship is when she comes and tells me that her friends don't have the same kind of relationship that we do, and that she is glad that we have what we have.
Bathsheba - my dh says - do they have in DVD? hmmm thanks for the support hun! Glad that there has been an improvement.
And again, another brilliant point raised by Vicky - it is incredibly hard to co-parent with a step parents. I don't give a rats about The Brady Bunch, to truth is that is rarely works if a step parent tries to discipline a step-child.
We have a rule in this house that we do NOT discuss the raising of DD1 (Dp is not her father). He is hypercritical of her at all times (yes he is an opinionated git anyway), and he doesn't know her like I do. So there. He gets all uppity if she comes home grumpy and starts nickpicking her. I have several friends that say the same goes for them unfortunatley. I don't care because she hives off to her room for a few hours because comes out fine later. She just needs time to wind down for a cr@ppy day like the rest of us FFS!
Bluddy stepfathers! If they could only realise the best thing they can do is step back and support us with these kids instead of getting all nitpicky it would be so much easier for all involved....
Sorry - rant over.
oh I hear ya Lulu!!
Having written an essay last night I want to make sure I don't give the impression that its all sweetness and light around here.
DD is a lazy little bugger, and ALWAYS pushing the boundaries. The deal here is she does not get pocket-money unless she does her jobs without being reminded. She always forget to feed the cat, or makes the poor thing wait until she is ready. Therefore she has not had pocket money for.......wait for it.........18 MONTHS.
She leaves her electric blanket and/or lamp on all the time, never hangs her washing out and tries to stick ONE pair of jeans in the dryer when she needs to go out.
So much for Eco warriors of the future...:wall:
Just on your point about step-parents and discipline, Lulu - I totally agree that step-parents need to tread very carefully.
My DSD came to live with us for 8 months last year at the age of 14, because she wasn't getting on with her mum in the US.
Before she got here, I said to DP that there was no way I was going to even attempt to discipline a 14-year-old who I didn't know from a bar of soap. DP works shifts too so that meant that he is not home in the evenings for one week out of two so it was just DSD and I.
It worked quite well.
DP had a rule that she had to be home by the time it was dark. So if she wanted to stay out later to go to a friend's house, she would have to call him. Ditto if she came home early and then wanted to meet up with a friend. She would ask me and I would simply tell her to phone her dad because he sets the rules. And if she was home later than she'd agreed with her dad, I'd just say to her that I wasn't going to tell her off because I wasn't her mother, but I WAS going to tell her dad. I actually don't remember her breaking the rules too many times - maybe once, twice at the most.
Ditto for when her dad wanted her to call her grandpa. She whinged about it and I think she expected me to lay down the law for her to call him. I didn't - I simply said, I can't MAKE you call him but I know your dad wants you to and I'll be honest with your dad and say that you haven't. She called her grandpa 10 minutes later.
It's a difficult line to tread but it takes time and I think you need to be ruthlessly fair.
If she'd been here longer, I would gradually have taken a more involved approach and not left everything to her dad - particularly about her chores but I really think you need to tread carefully at first and build up some sort of mutual respect.
Oh amen to all of this ladies!! DH seems to think he can be really hard on DD but not give her any praise or love which is why she has moved to my dad's house. Problem is he is super critical and gets her back up too and now I have him whinging to me that she left her towel on the floor etc.
She has been seeing a psychologist who specialises in tns and that has helped her a lot, the psych told me she isn't depressed which is a relief but has a lot of things to work through.
It frustrates me that at 16 she thinks she can make her own decisions about everything and not ask permission any more but I do think she is improving as she matures.
I feel for you all, I wish we could meet in RL and have about 300 cups of coffee and vent!