Post by cookiemum on Aug 28, 2017 8:21:09 GMT
How do you deal with a child that you have to love because you are the parent but really don't like the majority of the time?
I have a daughter that's a completely spoilt self-centred entitled snob who looks at and treat most people as if they are no better than the dirt on the bottom of her shoes. Unfortunately this started when she entered puberty and at almost 16 for lack of a better word, she's an asshole.
There I said it, stone me now, my kid is a complete asshole and I cannot stand to be around her. I feel like a terrible, horrible person for saying this but I'm at a loss. If we did everything she wanted, when she wanted it and gave her everything and more, she'd be fine. Unfortunately, she's the child, not the parent, and doesn't get to make the rules and decisions.
According to her I'm a completely overprotective helicopter parent with "issues" that I take out on her. How am I overprotective? She has to text me when she gets home from school. When she's out and about with her friends or leaves home if we aren't there, she needs to send a text and check in every once in awhile. Texting her once or twice in a 7 hr period is apparently being completely over the top. I have the nerve to tell her to clean up her room and when it's not done after days, she blows up because I keep reminding her. Telling her I need the dirty laundry often results in a FU. We don't allow them to keep their phones in their rooms at night; they have to get put out into the living room to charge. My oldest is about to graduate high school, when she turned 17 we said she could keep the phone in her room, the younger one has to wait and thinks it's completely over the top. Fair enough, but it's our rule and there aren't many. If I dare to ask her if she has homework or how things are going at her new school I'm "interrogating" her. For years we've had discussions about how families work together and help each other and support each other. All falling on deaf ears apparently.
I had to listen to this kid tell me to F-off and kill myself every day for close to a year. We are shit parents (her words) who didn't care at all about her education because we wouldn't spend $25-30K/yr to send her to high school and sent her to the crap catholic school. I told her she could go to the local public school (which really is crap) and she of course refused. After 3 1/2 years of listening to her moan about the catholic school we let her move to a public school. She started there 6 weeks ago at the start of the new semester. I thought we'd finally got through to her and she'd realised how good she actually had it but alas, no. She lasted a week before she begged to go back to the catholic school and we of course said absolutely not. She made her choice and will finish high school at the new school. She only ever had terrible things to say about the girls at the old school (she's now at a co-ed school). I made sure to point out that she was being given a 2nd chance and that she was going to have to put herself out there to get to know people. And maybe even smile every once in a while. She's very bright and could be the school dux (valedictorian), but she's extremely lazy and thinks everything should just be handed to her. See a pattern here?
We live in Sydney, 15 minutes from the heart of the city. She's got a lot of freedom; both girls do and don't abuse it. She's allowed to go to the mall with friends, take the bus in to the city to meet friends and go shopping etc. Go to the movies etc. We're not permissive, but we are also not wardens with really restrictive rules. The other night she was allowed to go to a concert an a venue in an area with a really active nightlife with 1 of her friends. The concert finished at 11:15 or so and she thought we were ridiculous because we wouldn't let her take the train to the main hub then take another train to the station by us - by herself - at 15 years old. We insisted upon picking her up and that was ridiculous. She's convinced that because it's a train or that because buses have security cameras that there's nothing for us to worry about. This of course just show's her immaturity and naivete. She's had a part-time job for the last 15 months and could not understand why we wouldn't let her work 5 days/week in grade 9. Even now in grade 10, we're morons because we don't want her working more than 3 days/week because school is meant to be her first priority. Why does she have this job? Because we are cheap bastards who won't give her money to buy $200 handbags or $30 brunch with her friends. We pay them $20/week for chores. She wouldn't do them because, "she's not the hired help" so we do it and don't give her any money. Call me crazy but when I started babysitting at 10 and then got my first job at 14 it was so i could have money for food or to buy things or whatever. My parents didn't do that. Maybelline makeup and cheaper priced clothes are not good enough for her and because we won't buy her everything she wants, we're again idiots. Trust me, these girls still get a heck of a lot and are not want for anything.
I really just do not know what to do with a kid that has absolutely no respect for her father or me and treats us and her sister like garbage. Her older sister has had her issues, as all kids do, but nothing like this. The younger one thinks I'm far nicer to the older one. No, the older one is just not completely disrespectful and horrible. I just keep wondering if this is ever going to end and have seriously thought about leaving on multiple occasions because it really is that ugly. I could understand the behaviour if I was a complete bitch myself who did not allow my kids to do anything, but that's not the case. At all. I have told her that if she thinks I'm overprotective I'm happy to show her exactly what that means. I'll be so far up in her business she won't know what happened. I told her I could check her phone every night (I don't even have the pass codes for either one), I'd put Find My iPhone on her phone so I could track her every move and there would be no internet, Netflix or going out anywhere aside from school and orchestra. She'd have to give up her job and we'd spend all our time together with me constantly phoning her friends' parents to check up on her internet activity.
What's brought on this rant? Today I received her mobile phone bill that was $40 more than expected because she ran out of data. 4x in 8 days auto top up kicked it and she went through an additional 4G of data in those 8 days. All the notifications went to her so she knew she was over or about to go over,and just didn't give a crap. Since I cannot turn off the auto topup feature (I called the mobile provider), I've transferred all the notifications to me. Supposedly I can then call and tell them not to top-up her data. I told her that she's going to pay me back the money and if it happens again, she'll lose her phone. If she fights it I'll cancel the plan. Clearly she's spending way too much time on the net or snapchat or netflix or wherever when she should be spending time on other things. And then when I asked did she think I'd not find out since I get and pay the bill I got a, "geez, it's only data, OMG calm down". Want me to calm down, start making better choices.
If you've read this far, bless you. I'm not even sure what I'm after. Venting? I don't know. I'm wondering if our relationship is going to be damaged beyond repair if or when she actually comes out on the other side of this. It's one thing for a kid to give a parent attitude etc. This is well and truly beyond that. I'm very biased and sensitive because I have a sister with serious mental health issues that made and still makes my and my family's life difficult. I thought about taking her to a therapist but she wouldn't go. In the end I went myself to get ideas on how to deal with her and to come to terms with the fact that I've not done anything to cause this even though I blame myself for all of it. So, give it to me straight. Am I overreacting? Believe me no one could make me feel worse or hurt my feeling more than I can.
I have a daughter that's a completely spoilt self-centred entitled snob who looks at and treat most people as if they are no better than the dirt on the bottom of her shoes. Unfortunately this started when she entered puberty and at almost 16 for lack of a better word, she's an asshole.
There I said it, stone me now, my kid is a complete asshole and I cannot stand to be around her. I feel like a terrible, horrible person for saying this but I'm at a loss. If we did everything she wanted, when she wanted it and gave her everything and more, she'd be fine. Unfortunately, she's the child, not the parent, and doesn't get to make the rules and decisions.
According to her I'm a completely overprotective helicopter parent with "issues" that I take out on her. How am I overprotective? She has to text me when she gets home from school. When she's out and about with her friends or leaves home if we aren't there, she needs to send a text and check in every once in awhile. Texting her once or twice in a 7 hr period is apparently being completely over the top. I have the nerve to tell her to clean up her room and when it's not done after days, she blows up because I keep reminding her. Telling her I need the dirty laundry often results in a FU. We don't allow them to keep their phones in their rooms at night; they have to get put out into the living room to charge. My oldest is about to graduate high school, when she turned 17 we said she could keep the phone in her room, the younger one has to wait and thinks it's completely over the top. Fair enough, but it's our rule and there aren't many. If I dare to ask her if she has homework or how things are going at her new school I'm "interrogating" her. For years we've had discussions about how families work together and help each other and support each other. All falling on deaf ears apparently.
I had to listen to this kid tell me to F-off and kill myself every day for close to a year. We are shit parents (her words) who didn't care at all about her education because we wouldn't spend $25-30K/yr to send her to high school and sent her to the crap catholic school. I told her she could go to the local public school (which really is crap) and she of course refused. After 3 1/2 years of listening to her moan about the catholic school we let her move to a public school. She started there 6 weeks ago at the start of the new semester. I thought we'd finally got through to her and she'd realised how good she actually had it but alas, no. She lasted a week before she begged to go back to the catholic school and we of course said absolutely not. She made her choice and will finish high school at the new school. She only ever had terrible things to say about the girls at the old school (she's now at a co-ed school). I made sure to point out that she was being given a 2nd chance and that she was going to have to put herself out there to get to know people. And maybe even smile every once in a while. She's very bright and could be the school dux (valedictorian), but she's extremely lazy and thinks everything should just be handed to her. See a pattern here?
We live in Sydney, 15 minutes from the heart of the city. She's got a lot of freedom; both girls do and don't abuse it. She's allowed to go to the mall with friends, take the bus in to the city to meet friends and go shopping etc. Go to the movies etc. We're not permissive, but we are also not wardens with really restrictive rules. The other night she was allowed to go to a concert an a venue in an area with a really active nightlife with 1 of her friends. The concert finished at 11:15 or so and she thought we were ridiculous because we wouldn't let her take the train to the main hub then take another train to the station by us - by herself - at 15 years old. We insisted upon picking her up and that was ridiculous. She's convinced that because it's a train or that because buses have security cameras that there's nothing for us to worry about. This of course just show's her immaturity and naivete. She's had a part-time job for the last 15 months and could not understand why we wouldn't let her work 5 days/week in grade 9. Even now in grade 10, we're morons because we don't want her working more than 3 days/week because school is meant to be her first priority. Why does she have this job? Because we are cheap bastards who won't give her money to buy $200 handbags or $30 brunch with her friends. We pay them $20/week for chores. She wouldn't do them because, "she's not the hired help" so we do it and don't give her any money. Call me crazy but when I started babysitting at 10 and then got my first job at 14 it was so i could have money for food or to buy things or whatever. My parents didn't do that. Maybelline makeup and cheaper priced clothes are not good enough for her and because we won't buy her everything she wants, we're again idiots. Trust me, these girls still get a heck of a lot and are not want for anything.
I really just do not know what to do with a kid that has absolutely no respect for her father or me and treats us and her sister like garbage. Her older sister has had her issues, as all kids do, but nothing like this. The younger one thinks I'm far nicer to the older one. No, the older one is just not completely disrespectful and horrible. I just keep wondering if this is ever going to end and have seriously thought about leaving on multiple occasions because it really is that ugly. I could understand the behaviour if I was a complete bitch myself who did not allow my kids to do anything, but that's not the case. At all. I have told her that if she thinks I'm overprotective I'm happy to show her exactly what that means. I'll be so far up in her business she won't know what happened. I told her I could check her phone every night (I don't even have the pass codes for either one), I'd put Find My iPhone on her phone so I could track her every move and there would be no internet, Netflix or going out anywhere aside from school and orchestra. She'd have to give up her job and we'd spend all our time together with me constantly phoning her friends' parents to check up on her internet activity.
What's brought on this rant? Today I received her mobile phone bill that was $40 more than expected because she ran out of data. 4x in 8 days auto top up kicked it and she went through an additional 4G of data in those 8 days. All the notifications went to her so she knew she was over or about to go over,and just didn't give a crap. Since I cannot turn off the auto topup feature (I called the mobile provider), I've transferred all the notifications to me. Supposedly I can then call and tell them not to top-up her data. I told her that she's going to pay me back the money and if it happens again, she'll lose her phone. If she fights it I'll cancel the plan. Clearly she's spending way too much time on the net or snapchat or netflix or wherever when she should be spending time on other things. And then when I asked did she think I'd not find out since I get and pay the bill I got a, "geez, it's only data, OMG calm down". Want me to calm down, start making better choices.
If you've read this far, bless you. I'm not even sure what I'm after. Venting? I don't know. I'm wondering if our relationship is going to be damaged beyond repair if or when she actually comes out on the other side of this. It's one thing for a kid to give a parent attitude etc. This is well and truly beyond that. I'm very biased and sensitive because I have a sister with serious mental health issues that made and still makes my and my family's life difficult. I thought about taking her to a therapist but she wouldn't go. In the end I went myself to get ideas on how to deal with her and to come to terms with the fact that I've not done anything to cause this even though I blame myself for all of it. So, give it to me straight. Am I overreacting? Believe me no one could make me feel worse or hurt my feeling more than I can.