How to Handle Attitude from Your Teenager

Typically I don't get much attitude from my teenage daughters except for once a month when they have their menstrual cycle but I have three daughters, 15-year-old twins and one 11-year-old daughter; all three get their period at different times which usually makes me feel like I get attitude most of the month. When that attitude comes out I feel like they are trying to make up for all the days that they've missed. It isn't so much the attitude they give me but more or less the attitude they give each other - the constant fighting and war of words about little things that really aren't worth arguing about. When I've felt I had enough and they have pushed me to my point of not being able to ignore them and let them work it out because let's face it your children are going to bicker and fight you just can't get past that but there are things you can do to make them think twice about wanting to talk back to you or even fight with their siblings.

The twins, when it's that time of month for them, would take every chance they could to make me angry, and to create a negative and upset atmosphere in the house by saying and doing things that underneath they knew would cause problems; so what I did was when I heard them getting ready to argue or fight I would make them go to their rooms which I smartly separated them when they first started their menstrual period because I just couldn't take it and when they would argue they had no place to go and would argue more. I would tell them to go into their room and stay until they were calm down because they had all the necessities like, their cd player, television and could sit in their rooms for hours which they would usually do until it was time to eat or when they knew they were calmer, after a couples of months of doing this they would actually take it upon themselves to go in their rooms on their own when they didn't feel like being bothered.

Sometimes when your children are arguing you have to sit back and allow them to work things out on their own if you can take the war of the words you have to allow them to be themselves and work it out as long as the words aren't hurtful or negative I usually won't step in unless they get to the point where they just won't come to a common ground or won't stop and it continues on I will step in tell them it's enough and that they said what they felt they had to say and I would explain to them the reason I stepped in was because their words were getting hurtful and that they should learn to control themselves when it gets to that point and walk away. My 11 year old daughter was a totally different scenario she was a product of divorce and blamed herself for the breakup even though she was only 2 years old when me and her father divorced, she didn't want us apart and she wanted the kind of life her half sister had with her father. She was tired of going every other weekend and that was the only time she had with him because we lived 90 miles apart now.

She would talk about killing herself and would physically abuse herself hitting herself in the head and punching things even going as far as hitting her sisters, I knew this went deeper than her just being moody because of her monthly. I was afraid that one day she would actually carry through with her threats of harming herself so I felt I was in crisis with my pre teenager daughter and overwhelmed by dealing with her emotions and attitude, I consulted with her Doctor and told him what was going on and he immediately got me in touch with a good therapist. I'm not one for lifetime therapy sessions, but a good therapist can help you put your situation in perspective and can give you techniques to deal with the problem at hand and deal with my daughter. It actually helped her to feel like she had a voice and could talk to me about anything and it helped me to understand her pain and what she was trying to say.

We started doing things together just the two of us like when my twins had Basketball practice, I would sit her down with me and we would watch movies until they came home, she would sit close to me and I would put my arm around her and we would just sit there or lay there watching movie after movie (her choice of movie) this actually worked because she didn't have to share me with anyone like she has to share her father and mother. I would also ask her when she came home from school how school was and what she did, I actually ask all of my daughters that so that I opened the lines of communication and I sat there and listen not interrupting even when I wanted to I would sit there and allow them to say everything they wanted to say and then when I thought they were done I gave them my opinion on what they were talking about. Children just want to be heard sometimes and not just told how they should feel or how they should act.

I learned to start to accept things as they are now with my daughters rather than wishing they were different and trying to force them to change. For example, my daughters tend to act immature for their ages because I didn't allow them too much outside influences and made them make Education first priority. Sometimes their immaturity drives me crazy and now I accept that they're mentally a little young for his age, and I praise them when they act in a more mature manner. This boosts their self-esteem and allows for them to grow mentally at the same time. Thought all are honor roll students I realized that I was keep them from learning about the world and I knew I didn't want them to go away to school and think that the world was nothing but roses. We as parents have to know and decide when it is time to allow are children to go on their own and learn the rights and wrongs of the world; if we try to protect them from everything we are actually setting them up for a fall and hindering their growth mentally.