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Raised 1 daughter all I can say is hold on until they are 18. Then wave good bye as they get on the airplane headed to basic training. My daughter is now 40 with a 13 year old of her own and she still thinks the US Navy was her idea. LOL.

The grand daughter is getting moody. With one a year younger coming up from behind lol.
 
Just deal with it. There are few things more difficult in the world than a 13 year old girl. My daughter's favorite comment at that age was "just wait til i'm 18 and I'm out of here. At 23 we were asking "so when are you leaving"? She is now in her mid 50's and the pride of our lives-ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL YOUNG LADY!!!
 
Any teen can be a handful. I was, as were my two brothers, but I was probably the worst of the three.

My daughter had a rough childhood and there were issues when she was a teen, but overall she was a pretty good kid, and is a great adult.
 
She's in sports. Average at that. Has done 4h as we have horses. She's very very very stubborn. Been that way since birth. One thing is we have 4 boys, and that's hard for her. My wife is super laid back. That helps.
OBVIOUSLY she takes after her father.......:D
 
I have two boys and the daughter just turned 15, they are my stepkids but I pretty much raised them. They all three have issues and were mentally abused by my wifes ex.

Yeah. tough stuff. Her room is like a landfill, her attitude when you ask her to do something is like one too. Pretty much anything that will get her away from the phone is bad lol. Otherwise shes good but difficult. The real tough stuff I let my wife deal with lol
 
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My wife at age 12, 3rd from the bottom in her class and failing the exams, was taken out of school and put into one of those Hong Kong sweatshops snipping threads off newly-manufactured clothing. She decided no more playing, she had better get serious. She's been amazing ever since. Not always a success, but she tries anything. Probably tops in the state of Oregon in database work. She once had 50 highly paid subcontractors working for her, until the regulatory burden became too great.

I just wish she'd learn how to relax and take it easy once in a while. :)

We had a son, and she spoiled him. :rolleyes: I sometimes wish he had the same experience that she had, when she was 12. Well, he's OK, working on a PhD now (who knows why).

Best thing you can do for your kids, is get 'em out of the government schools. Teen rebellion is pretty muted among homeschoolers, although it's still there.
 
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I'm in my mid 50's, and we raised 3 boys and 3 girls (blended family 3 were mine, 3 were hers so @ZigZagZeke is still the forum bull! LMAO!)

I never bought into the cell phone thing either, told them they could earn the money to buy their own. Some of them did just that, but it wasn't until their junior/senior year.

After they all graduated HS they had a choice, work your way through community college with a FULL class load (3 classes per term is a full load) and we'll support you with food and shelter (TOTALLY doable with a PT job). For every course that you don't take under that full load it'll cost you $100 a month in rent up to $300/mo if you DON'T take any college courses.

Two of my daughters have Bachelors degrees. The rest paid $300/mo rent for several years and have since moved into their own places. Some of their their 23-25 year old friends (BTW- still living in their parent's basements) were incredulous that we made them pay rent ($300/mo for full room & board is almost living for free).

All of my kids are self-supporting, and living on their own... mission accomplished. ;)
Yep, paid rent when I graduated so did my son. Cant deduct you on the taxes so now time to join the real world of being a grown up.
Didn't buy my kid a phone either, makes them appreciate things more when they have to earn it.
 
I raised my daughter from diapers to graduation, her mom ditched when she was 9 months old.

It's ok to put foot to arse once in a while. They need to know YOU are in charge.
 
When my daughter was born, my uncle told be that the values are set in place by the time they are ten. After that you become a guide in life. He was mostly right.

I'm incredibly lucky that I've always worked from home, so I've been able to spend more time with my daughter than many parents can. It's paid off in so many ways. She's 15 now. I'll admit, hormones are crazy. I've found that when she gets wound up a simple "please stop" helps. She may be ticked at me for a little while, but she gets over it.

About two years ago she was in serious brat mode for about two weeks, at the end of one particularly bad tirade I told her "I always love you, but right now I don't like you very much". It stopped her dead in her tracks and got her thinking, it's never been that bad again.

That saying about couples should "never go to bed angry", it applies to kids too. Never underestimate the power of a kiss on the forehead and an "I love you" at bed time.

I did lock her cell phone in the gun safe twice, the second time for a month. She figured out proper use of the phone after that.

She said she wants her drivers license when she turns 16. I picked up a tired 04 Subaru Forester for her with the caveat that it needed work and she would be doing it all. She's already replaced the suspension and brakes with my oversight (I only touched the bolts that she couldn't loosen). We're pulling the engine this summer for an overhaul, she's going to do the work. I'll pay for the parts, it's an investment in her knowledge and self sufficiency, plus she has some sweat equity in her car.

She started shooting with me when she was 8. Only problem I have is keeping her in ammo. Pic is her at 8 with the 10/22 I built for her, she grew into it.

We have a common love of music, she's taking it far beyond anything I ever could. Playing 5 different instruments at this point with no slowing down in sight. She's putting together a sax quartet with friends from school and doing all the scoring. We still spend hours on youtube just watching/listening to music of all sorts (she knows I hate rap). She occasionally will learn to play a song we've found that I particularly like and surprise me with it (last on was "in the mood" on alto sax), talk about a thoughtful gift. We go to concerts together.

Don't get me started with the boy's in high school thing. Funny thing, all her friends tell her she's intimidating (in particular her male friends). I love it, 5'3" worth of blonde intimidation!!!

Dixie's new toy.jpeg
 
I raised my daughter from age 4 on. The problem is that when they turn 13 or so they're suddenly smarter than you or so they think.
She's 43 now and just got married but raised her own daughter (14) until now. "Dad, I don't know how you did it" Do you see these
wrinkles? This uncontrollable twitch I have? :confused:

Every time I see them I ask the grand daughter, "Are you still driving your mother nuts? Yes? Good girl Keep it up!" :D
 
I'm pretty decent at raising boys. Oh I make lots of mistakes. But I'm struggling with the daughter. She is not nice. Maybe 20% of the time she's fine. But good crap I'm worried.

Lol!!!!
Sucks
To me, what makes it hard is,,, boys are naughtiest when they're little so the get the discipline and correction starting young. Girls don't. And if you've made the mistake of treating her like a princess, it's too late. You just have to ride it out till she leaves home. Stay strong.
 
The best thing you can do for a girl is show her that her behavior has consequences. Boys usually learn that bad behavior or poor decisions result in pain. Girls don't, and that's not good for their overall attitude. Since she's a little old to spank....

Take her door away.
I was going to say.. that I took my daughter's door away as a young teenager. As well as once I took all her things away put them in my trunk and made her earn each thing back one by one. I would let her choose her priority of item she would earn back each time. Some might think it was harsh but she straightened out. She was a fiesty one. Youngest of my four kids.
 
We had 4 girls and two boys. Seems like when the girls hit about 11 they weren't princesses anymore and dad was a drone.....except when it came to homework and other projects. Made them earn money. Never gave allowances. They all packed firewood and helped stack. They all learned to shoot. I remember one hating it and crying when dad (me) made her stand and shoot a .380. She cried and made a big deal about it (13 yo girls make a big deal about everything.....their DNA requires drama). Anyway....that one now has the biggest gun collection and is teaching her kids strong basics. Pretty funny. Only one turned liberal but is having second thoughts with the virus thing and closed bike trails and beaches. I let their mom handle the strict stuff. One of the girls got a speeding ticket for doing 90! LOL. I yanked her drivers license and keys and told her she could have it back as soon as she could afford her own insurance. Couple weeks weeks later she and her mom came to me to ask how long she was going to be grounded. Told 'em she wasn't grounded. When she had her own insurance policy she could have her license and keys back. She had to catch rides to work but she finally got it. Hasn't had a ticket since and she is 39. All four girls are successful and making more money than I ever did. All six are college educated and I find it offensive that some politicians want to hand out free college. No one helped us. And there are no student loans out there. So....it seems like girls can be more complicated....but hold the line. Make the rules and make sure there is consistency between you and their mother. Watch their grades. Watch their social life. Take away their "smart" phones.
 
Sit down, say less, and just hold on!

This^^^...

She's just getting started, prolly.

and this^^^

Your daughter and mine are two different people, but there is a general craziness that occurs when a girl first becomes a "woman", if you get my drift. Mine was great until about 12 when all hell broke loose.

She began getting sassy, backtalking, and storming around the house like she's the Queen of Sheba and we are her servants. When I would put her in her place, she would get upset and cry so she quit doing it with me, but kept doing it with Mom. Then I started coming to Mom's rescue, and when my daughter got upset Mom would side with her and then I was the bad guy in both their eyes (sound anything like a domestic violence third-party encounter...?). Even expecting her to clean up her own mess and contribute to things around the house was too much to ask, so I finally told Mom that she's all hers, I'm staying out of it, and that's the way it's been for the last 5 years (she's 17 now).

Although she tries occasionally, daughter still doesn't get away with her crap with me, but she still treats Mom like crap and all I can do is ignore it. Had to choose between my relationship with my daughter going to crap (her choice), or my relationship with my daughter and my wife going to crap because we couldn't agree on a proper level of accountability for daughter's behavior. I chose the former...

The best thing you can do for a girl is show her that her behavior has consequences.

^^^This is what I tried which got me in trouble with Mom. I'll never understand it...

Don't get me wrong, daughter is a 4.0 student, doesn't drink or do drugs, isn't overly interested in boys, is artistically talented, drives responsibly, and liked to go shooting with me before she got a phone (another mistake), so it's not all bad. However, her attitude is such that her parents are overwhelmingly stupid, have no idea how to properly raise her or make decisions, never give her enough despite the painfully obvious fact that she has much more than 80% of her peers, and that we were put on the earth to will and to do her good pleasure. My hope is that she'll come around some day, perhaps in her 30s when she has kids of her own.

Good luck!
 
I'm one of those who's Daughter is in her mid-50's.

We were and still are close...and except for a little puberty reaching rebellious stuff that didn't last long, she and we've rarely quarrled.

She's done a great job with my two GD's. Sadly their Dad/her husband quite literally went insane some years back...really, really sad.

She has given me some shizz for treating them with a boatload of spoiling she didn't get to enjoy, (Dad, you insisted I couldn't 'run' down the hall, how mean....) but I know she's glad I treat them as I do.....spoiling them with learning things like shooting and on and on and on...

Now, dammit, they too are grown up.

I miss little ones and their charming goofiness...sigh.
 
Teens are dealing with many issues that often leave them feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. My wife and I attended classes put on by a child psychologist and learned that we were like most parents. We bought his book and applied his suggestions. The book is out of print, but the article highlighted below offers much of the wisdom we learned from his classes and book.


One of the points in the above article is on consequences (important!) and we were asked to set ten down in writing and to post them. We had ten pennies years 1970-1979 that were used to have the kid pick his consequence. Turn over a penny that lay with the date down. The consequences were quick and simple, e.g., standing on one leg for twenty seconds, give your mom or dad a hug, spend a quiet hour in your room, #8 was FREE PASS, etc. After completing the consequence the kid had to tell us why he/she had to do the consequence and how they might avoid doing it in the future. They didn't have to give us the consequence right away, but we had the Power of NO and refused to give them what they wanted until we got our consequence settled. My daughter learned a lot by watching her older (by 2 yrs) brother take the hits. When he and she were 15 and 13 respectively, we had to institute HUG TIME, and they had to give each other a hug if their bickering was disturbing the parents. All we had to say was "it sounding like hug time and they'd disappear".

For example, my son had a 10 PM curfew and was warned when he left that he was to "Be home before ten o'clock or there will be a consequence." Of course, he was two minutes late and got #3, stand on one leg for 20 seconds. He waited through the entire weekend without getting his allowance (surprise!). Monday afternoon when my wife and I walked in the house he was standing on one leg telling us that he had to do this dumb stuff because he was late getting home and we should listen to Dr. Vern. His diatribe lasted about two minutes and he did it all on one foot. LOL! I told him he had exceeded the time limit of 20 seconds and asked him if he wanted his allowance. YES, please.

Kids want boundaries but also want to know that they'll be reset once they prove to you they can handle the new obligations that new turf requires.
 
To the OP... Perfectly normal preadolescent behavior. One word...puberty. just be supportive, not argumentative. Bite your tongue til it bleeds. Chose your battles and limit it to the choices she is making that could cause her harm. Hang in there. She will be ur best friend someday.
 
Well, usually my 15 y/o is okay. She can have major attitude and try to boss everyone around or telling me what to do. I straightened that out telling her that while i am in my livingroom that I pay for, she's not telling me how to eat/drink/fart/scratch my bubblegum and so on in my own livingroom lol. She can always go in her room. But for the most part I am staying out of it and let her mom do the talking. When it gets too bad and she has her clutter eveywhere in the livingroom, and after several reminders she wont pick it up, I usually grab it and it either just gets chucked into her room in a non mistaken manner or simply goes in the trash. You wouldn't believe how much crap of hers I threw away already that shes not even recognizing its gone. But its her choice,she is made aware and thats it. Idk whats triggered this but she told me once that shes out of effs to give..about anything. It was a civil conversation but if thats her choice:rolleyes:. Shes become a pretty bad slob...no idea how to turn that around.
 
Stick with her! My wife and I raised two daughters and a son. Age 15 was the toughest year for all of them (and us). I was always more understanding, easier, whatever with my girls than my boy. He got the tough love.

They are all married and doing good: one daughter is a nurse and the other is a rock star. The boy is a Top Sgt in the USMC.

I think that there is a lot of truth in the old adage: A son is a son until he takes a wife but a daughter is a daughter for all of her life.
 

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