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My 12 year old daughter is very disrespectful to me and acts like every interaction is a chore.

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My 12 year old daughter is very disrespectful to me and acts like every interaction is a chore.

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singleparentof2

My 12 year old daughter is very disrespectful to me and acts like every interaction is a chore.

My daughter acts as if everything I do is annoying to her. I feel like the enemy. We are arguing a lot and I am not sure how to keep our relationship intact. I am concerned about how much time she spends on her iPad. I feel that over the years I have allowed her too much time and now she is dependant on it. Her iPad is her currency and she does respond to having her iPad taken away from her as a consequence. As a single mum, I bear the brunt of all her misgivings. Our relationship is full of conflict and resentment. I am not sure what to do from here? I have another daughter who is 14 and we have a very positive relationship. We seemed to go through a rough patch when she was 13 but have come out the other end now. 

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Janine-RO

Re: My 12 year old daughter is very disrespectful to me and acts like every interaction is a chore.

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Hi @singleparentof2 , 

 

As the parent of an 11.5 year old I can really empathise with this post - this age can be very tricky at times! It can be especially difficult to set boundaries around these things as a single parent, where as you say, you often will end up bearing the brunt of their frustrations. 

 

I'm wondering if you have ever sat down as a family and agreed on some family rules together? I found this chat that ReachOut held on Facebook with a clinical psychologist on teens and setting boundaries to be really helpful -if you have a spare half hour it's definitely worth watching. One thing that resonated with me was getting your kids' buy-in around boundaries that you're setting, and also reflecting on your own parenting style. We have also had quite a few struggles in our house over screen time, and I've found that what works well for our family is having a limit on screen time during the week especially, and then giving our daughter the opportunity to "earn" more time on the weekends by doing jobs around the house. Do you think your daughter would be open to helping to come up with lists of jobs she could do, for example? 

 

It can be really tough when you seem to get stuck in a cycle of resentment and conflict. We have some great resources here about how to try and foster respectful and effective communication with your teen - I know for me, disrespect is one thing that I find very hard to cope with! 

 

Being a single parent can be really tough at times - is there anything that you like to do for self care? 

 

If you're ever after a bit more support for yourself we do offer a free one to one parent's support service, where you can chat through any parenting dilemmas with a family professional and get ideas and tips for strategies to try  as well as support for yourself -  you can find out more about that here

Parent/Carer Community Champion
eitak1

Re: My 12 year old daughter is very disrespectful to me and acts like every interaction is a chore.

Just to add to the other reply- quite informative- have you tried emotion coaching and allocating a certain amount of time to spend together. Too much screen time reduces empathy (some research indicates this). Emotional awareness might deepen your relationship because she might reveal things that are disturbing her...best wishes with working on reconnecting...