My dd (12.5 yrs old) mopes around the house all the time. It is hard to get her to do anything. I am so frustrated over this. A typical day will involve me having to return to her room multiple times to get her out of bed. She declares she is too tired. It can be noon or 8am, she will want to stay in bed. I understand..I want to stay in bed. But there comes a time where you just cannot stay in bed. You have to get up, get out of bed, move, function, exist. I know she has some mild depression. I have already taken her to a psychologist. But she is also very stubborn and she will do nothing to help herself. For example, I have given her a very long list of things she can do. She hates it all. There is nothing on the list. She does do cello and swordsmanship now. But she hates everything else. Neither give her any companionship with friends. Every single thing we do as a family, she complains. Then she wants a fancier restaurant or something else. We got 6 Flags season passes this year. She hates it. Ironically, as soon as she is doing something for herself, like going on the big rides, she loves it. But the moment she has to wait on someone else, like her little brothers who want to go on smaller rides and cannot go on the big rides, she starts ranting and raving about how much she hates it there. One time (and believe me, we did NOT allow this to repeat) she walked up to an employee there and acted all like she was being polite with a serious concern and said "excuse me sir..." and it led in to something about how much she thinks 6 flags "sucks." She has really bad eczema. The doctor and I have given her instructions on how to handle it. She refuses to listen to us and acts like we don't know what we are talking about. She has been told to stop scratching and put on this lotion after her showers. She has also been told to try to keep her showers short. Instead, she refuses to put on the lotion. Her favorite word these days, in fact, is "sucks" and she uses it a lot. She says the lotion we have for her (we have tried several and I have eczema too so I know what it is like) "sucks." Her biggest thing right now is to say how awful men are and men cause all the problems in the world and she is never getting married and what is the point and so on and so forth. As a family, we go out 2-4 times a week. Every single thing we do, she sits there going on and on about how it "sucks." Any suggestions? (I have tried a lot that I have not posted about also) Oh..and I love this one. She will say she is bored, when she has school work sitting there for her to do! I have given her several books to consider reading and she says they are all stupid. I have told her to just pick a book, any book. She is really making things hard on herself. I have gone to great lengths to make things fun. I have mixed up computer programs, movies, and videos and such to make various topics interesting. We go places, like museums and such.
Oh man sorry to say this but she just sounds very selfish. I'm not trying to be mean here at all so please do not take it that way! I have a dd the same age and for a while she tried that crap. Slow at everything and thinks the world just revolves around her and is only concerned with what she wants. If it wasn't her way on her time she would get pissed and have an attitude. I feel what you are going through. Been there. First of all........is she actually saying the word "sucks"? That would not be ok in my home. I would not allow my 12dd to say that word. Okay my advice is that you have to put on the smack down on her. Lay down the law real quick. Put the fear of mom in her. If she knows you and your hubby wont' do anything but let her be like that she'll keep it up. I am not talking about setting a timer on how long she has or anything like that. She is 12, she isn't stupid or a baby and she knows what she is doing and she knows it bothers you. Sit her little butt down, get that crazy momma look in your eyes, that no backdown I mean business attitude, very stern low scary voice and let her know who is boss, who is not, that this isn't her world and it doesn't revolve around her. She is being selfish plain and simple and it should be treated as blantant disrespect toward you and everyone else. Every single time she pulls that crap it would be punishment. Everytime. I had to tell my child she was not special compared to the rest of us, she wasn't born with a gold crown on a throne, and just basically put the fear of mom in her. I am her mother and demand respect. She is a child and at the age of 12 has not earned enough of anything to treat anyone that way or think so highly of herself. You can take my advice with a grain of salt. Some here will tell you to set a timer on how long to do things and say my advice is to harsh. That is okay. I just know that I went through the same thing and my dd still has her moments but very very rarely does she slip back into that. She is much more respectful in her speech to me, listens the first time or two I tell her to do something and doesn't back talk rudely. I'm just saying the fear of mom works. I just give my child a look now and that is all it takes. Good luck. I know how frustrating it is.
That is what I am planning to do actually. I was afraid someone would just say I am being too hard on her and she is just depressed and so on. I know she may be depressed, but she is doing so little to get her attitude in line. Sometimes, she makes an effort. I do see that. But then other times, she will go days on end of just complaining about how awful everything around her is.
I hate to say it, but your dd is just being a brat. My youngest dd who's 11 is such a brat at times too. She drives me batty. And then I get mama mean as MonkeyMama put it. Sometimes there's no choice. Have you thought of having her volunteer at a homeless shelter or food pantry to see how truly lucky she is in life? Sometimes reality checks like that help those that are focused on their selfishness. I don't know, otherwise. I wish you luck 'cause my 11 year old is like that some days. She questions why she has to help around our house, and then I tell her 'cause she lives there too.
Can I recommend an article that you might like to read? It's called Help I'm Going Nuts, Parts one and two and I am the author (so I feel kind of cocky suggesting it), but I think that it might help. It's on my website. I wrote it for familes who are dealing with this type of behaviour.
