Just read your post and the first question that came into my head was: do you love your daughter? As in, not just in a general sort of way, but do you actually FEEL love for her, the sort of love that tolerates you saying 'jump' and her *not* saying 'how high'? Your daughter needs that love. If you can't give it right now because you have been hurt or broken, or because your relationship with her is broken, there are ways of repairing it. I truly recommend you do that. What you are describng - and even more the way you are describing it - sound like the symptom of an undrelying problem in your relationship that is not going to be solved by her unconditional obedience to everything you say. Because she might obey if you threaten her with abandonment - she is not abke to support herself after all, and is forced by her own vulnerability. But it will be a form of blackmail and will undermine her dignity, and she will hate you for it. When you are vulnerable to her in your old age and the boot is on the other foot, what would be worse: that she force you to obey her every command instantaneously without question because you're too poor and infirm to say no to her, or that she abandon you completely? Preying on someone's relative vulnerability to control them against their will is called bullying and it is an assault on a person's dignity and sense of worth. Even if she WANTS to do the 'right' thing and care for her elderly mother later on, if she flies the family nest broken because her relationship with you wasn't what it should have been, you will have made it very, very hard for her to come back.
I think I was in your daughter's position once. I sometimes felt like my mother seldom ever spoke to me except to give me orders or criticise me for something. I longed for a pair of arms to unconditionally enfold me, ears to listen unjudgingly, patience for my shortfalls, and forbearance to tolerate my inadequate offerings. But she did not provide those things. My teachers at school did. Consequently, if my teachers told me to jump off a bridge I would have done, and when my mother told me to wash the dishes RIGHT NOW I'd tarry an hour, even though I knew punishment would be waiting for me - because, well, wasn't punishment always waiting for me, with her? I couldn't do right for wrong with mother, she seemed to just yell atcme whenever she wanted someone to yell at. It didn't matter what I did. I asked her for emotional support and she threw my problems back at my face saying they were all my fault and that I deserved no sympathy, or stored them up to use as ammunition later. She would fly at me jn these unpredictable rages, force me to do unecessary things, call me names, tell me I was trash, that I didn't have any friends, andnother things like that. I would listen to it and feel like I was standing outside of myself, and watch my humanity die. Trusting my mother became an emotional hazard. I wanted to, but when I did it just made everything hurt more. Now in my mid twenties I still haven't developed the emotional skills I've needed to survive a relationship or a job.
Rethink your relationship with her. She desperately needs you to be a safe place for her. But by your words and actions, you can do her a lot of harm, and if she doesn't feel safe, she will seek out 'mother figures' in other people - and end up with dysfunctional relationships like I did.
A 17 year old girl needs affirmation and respect, and to feel like her contributions are valued.
Also, if you try to choose her career for her then either you will invite rebellion or she will change later, and go back to school to study something else possibly believig that she had 'wasted' the former part of her life.
I may not be a perfect mother but I am doing my best.
She doesn't want to talk to me and shuts herself off in her room. I am extending the olive branch and she chooses not to take it.
I don't know when this started happening either; it came out of nowhere.
If she wants respect then she needs to give me some first; she needs to learn this when she gets out into the real world.
I understand it must be very disorientating for you. Why don't you try to be the first to show respect, instead? You need to be in the lead, setting the behavioural example. She is not going to learn respect until you teach her how it's done. She may not show any in return at first, and may throw it back in your face - but love isn't a transaction. It'll take her a while to learn to trust. This means that you need to be the bigger person, the more patient person, he person who is content to suffer more for the other and possibly end up losing face. But you're the adult and she's the child, so you should take that burden instead of her - she'll learn as she gets older how to be the bigger person but she doesn't have he experience or the wisdom yet. Be patient as she learns, make yourself a 'safe place' for her so that she can come to you if she wants to. If anything you say or do to her, or the way you speak to her, would outrage you if it were done to you by someone else, don't do it.
She knows better than that. She has shown me respect in the past but has randomly decided not to anymore.
She used to show me her homework every time she came from school, told me everything she needed to do for the week and was polite about it. Now she just talks in grunts and nods.
When we are out with other people she acts pleasant but not when we're at home. She doesn't even want to go outside half the time, even though she would probably have fun.
It is not a matter of learning because I've already taught her how to be kind and respectful. It is a matter of her putting those lessons into use.
IIN my daughter is being terribly disrespectful and whiny?
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Just read your post and the first question that came into my head was: do you love your daughter? As in, not just in a general sort of way, but do you actually FEEL love for her, the sort of love that tolerates you saying 'jump' and her *not* saying 'how high'? Your daughter needs that love. If you can't give it right now because you have been hurt or broken, or because your relationship with her is broken, there are ways of repairing it. I truly recommend you do that. What you are describng - and even more the way you are describing it - sound like the symptom of an undrelying problem in your relationship that is not going to be solved by her unconditional obedience to everything you say. Because she might obey if you threaten her with abandonment - she is not abke to support herself after all, and is forced by her own vulnerability. But it will be a form of blackmail and will undermine her dignity, and she will hate you for it. When you are vulnerable to her in your old age and the boot is on the other foot, what would be worse: that she force you to obey her every command instantaneously without question because you're too poor and infirm to say no to her, or that she abandon you completely? Preying on someone's relative vulnerability to control them against their will is called bullying and it is an assault on a person's dignity and sense of worth. Even if she WANTS to do the 'right' thing and care for her elderly mother later on, if she flies the family nest broken because her relationship with you wasn't what it should have been, you will have made it very, very hard for her to come back.
I think I was in your daughter's position once. I sometimes felt like my mother seldom ever spoke to me except to give me orders or criticise me for something. I longed for a pair of arms to unconditionally enfold me, ears to listen unjudgingly, patience for my shortfalls, and forbearance to tolerate my inadequate offerings. But she did not provide those things. My teachers at school did. Consequently, if my teachers told me to jump off a bridge I would have done, and when my mother told me to wash the dishes RIGHT NOW I'd tarry an hour, even though I knew punishment would be waiting for me - because, well, wasn't punishment always waiting for me, with her? I couldn't do right for wrong with mother, she seemed to just yell atcme whenever she wanted someone to yell at. It didn't matter what I did. I asked her for emotional support and she threw my problems back at my face saying they were all my fault and that I deserved no sympathy, or stored them up to use as ammunition later. She would fly at me jn these unpredictable rages, force me to do unecessary things, call me names, tell me I was trash, that I didn't have any friends, andnother things like that. I would listen to it and feel like I was standing outside of myself, and watch my humanity die. Trusting my mother became an emotional hazard. I wanted to, but when I did it just made everything hurt more. Now in my mid twenties I still haven't developed the emotional skills I've needed to survive a relationship or a job.
Rethink your relationship with her. She desperately needs you to be a safe place for her. But by your words and actions, you can do her a lot of harm, and if she doesn't feel safe, she will seek out 'mother figures' in other people - and end up with dysfunctional relationships like I did.
A 17 year old girl needs affirmation and respect, and to feel like her contributions are valued.
Also, if you try to choose her career for her then either you will invite rebellion or she will change later, and go back to school to study something else possibly believig that she had 'wasted' the former part of her life.
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Anonymous Post Author
6 years ago
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I may not be a perfect mother but I am doing my best.
She doesn't want to talk to me and shuts herself off in her room. I am extending the olive branch and she chooses not to take it.
I don't know when this started happening either; it came out of nowhere.
If she wants respect then she needs to give me some first; she needs to learn this when she gets out into the real world.
--
Grunewald
6 years ago
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I understand it must be very disorientating for you. Why don't you try to be the first to show respect, instead? You need to be in the lead, setting the behavioural example. She is not going to learn respect until you teach her how it's done. She may not show any in return at first, and may throw it back in your face - but love isn't a transaction. It'll take her a while to learn to trust. This means that you need to be the bigger person, the more patient person, he person who is content to suffer more for the other and possibly end up losing face. But you're the adult and she's the child, so you should take that burden instead of her - she'll learn as she gets older how to be the bigger person but she doesn't have he experience or the wisdom yet. Be patient as she learns, make yourself a 'safe place' for her so that she can come to you if she wants to. If anything you say or do to her, or the way you speak to her, would outrage you if it were done to you by someone else, don't do it.
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Anonymous Post Author
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She knows better than that. She has shown me respect in the past but has randomly decided not to anymore.
She used to show me her homework every time she came from school, told me everything she needed to do for the week and was polite about it. Now she just talks in grunts and nods.
When we are out with other people she acts pleasant but not when we're at home. She doesn't even want to go outside half the time, even though she would probably have fun.
It is not a matter of learning because I've already taught her how to be kind and respectful. It is a matter of her putting those lessons into use.