I know it's the age but really...

[fairfarmhand]

This is the third 12 yo girl I've had. I know it's a crappy age.

 

But how do you manage this moody irritable crabbiness?

 

With my oldest I took it personally and got way too worked up about it.

 

Second tended to sulk about her room and keep it to herself.

 

Third is more like the first. Mean to siblings, grumpy, and just angry at everything and everyone.

 

I know it's the age but it's also very unfair to the rest of the family.

 

What do you do?

 

 

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[bettyandbob]

Leave the house, run, walk the dog. Basically, take care if myself and give her space to work out the grump. Avoid being in the same room or having siblings in the same room when grumpiness is high. It's contagious.

[scrapbookbuzz]

Exercise. LOTS of exercise. Also, sit her down and explain to her you understand what's going on:

lots of changes happening to her body and those raging, ever inreasing hormones, which are necessary for her to grow,

can also cause challenges in our brains: moodiness, angry, confusion, sadness - sometimes all at the same time!

And also tell her while you understand these things, it  is not okay to take out her frustration on her family. Therefore, 

good cardio AND strength training exercises can really help! 

 

Are there farm chores she can do with increasing responsibility? Some that possibly require some muscles and that she can 

physically do? Just some of my own thoughts. HTH!

[MysteryJen]

My personal feeling is that grumpy people need to remove themselves from the main areas. Nobody needs to be around that. And grumpiness from a teen girl is not going to make me leave my house. She can go to her room, or for a walk, or anywhere else.

 

And yes, I will punish for being mean and unreasonably snarky to siblings. Not okay. In fact, it is never too soon to learn to control your bad mood around other people. 

 

It is a personal pet peeve that some people will spread their grumpiness and bad mood around and will only cheer up when everyone else is miserable. That behavior is intolerable to me.

[SKL]

So far my strategy is to try really hard to remember how I was at that age.  I was an idiot.  I can't expect better from my kids.  :P

[SKL]

I just asked my kid this morning what she thinks sarcasm is going to gain her.  Was there ever a time when sarcasm got her what she wanted faster?  Her response:  yes, and she proceeded to provide a (fictionalized) example.  :p

 

I actually don't usually mind it too much (except when my own hormones are messing with me).  But it's a problem because she smarts off to other adults who live here, who aren't so understanding.  People who think the way to stop a behavior is to call it out and talk until it's resolved, which is never gonna happen.

 

The "people" referred to above come from a different culture.  "People" (or one of them) says that when she was that age, she expressed her hormonal frustrations by hurting herself.  It was too unacceptable to talk back, so the way to get back at the parents was to self-harm, e.g., bang head against wall etc.  Personally I'd prefer a little backtalk to self harming behaviors.  Sigh.

Not saying the backtalk is acceptable.  Just predictable.  This too shall pass.  It helps to remember that my mom raised 6 kids without killing any of us during puberty.  I ought to be able to do it with 2.  :)

Edited June 7, 2017 by SKL

[sassenach]

My personal feeling is that grumpy people need to remove themselves from the main areas. Nobody needs to be around that. And grumpiness from a teen girl is not going to make me leave my house. She can go to her room, or for a walk, or anywhere else.

 

And yes, I will punish for being mean and unreasonably snarky to siblings. Not okay. In fact, it is never too soon to learn to control your bad mood around other people.

 

It is a personal pet peeve that some people will spread their grumpiness and bad mood around and will only cheer up when everyone else is miserable. That behavior is intolerable to me.

I totally agree. The trick is to enforce this boundary without emotionally engaging. A very calm, "please go to your room and stay there until you are ready to be kind to the family," rather than getting worked up myself. The other key is to allow them to come back into a friendly room and not have to rehash everything. A good portion of the time ds falls asleep when this happens.

 

Also, I have to stay aware of what I'm letting the other kids get away with. When one kid is being particularly difficult, I sometimes hone in on that kid and let the other kids get away with attitudes that also need correction. This one is easy for me to lose sight of, so I have to be willing to have it pointed out. My son is particularly justice driven, so he's very quick to point out inconsistency on my part.

[wintermom]

My go-to strategy is:

 

- food  (healthy food, no sugar)

- rest / alone time

- go cuddle with an animal

- go for a walk

 

 

Now if I could only remember to do this myself when I'm grumpy. ;)

[Greta]

Is enrollment in a martial arts class an option? :) I remember going through that grumpy phase myself when I was 12, so I know how real it is. My daughter, however, never really seemed to go through that. I credit it to the fact that she was working very hard to get her black belt at that time, classes 5 days a week. She was getting out all of her grumpy feelings by sparring! :lol:

[Supertechmom]

I just continue to explain that you can't be ruled by your emotions.   One needs to learn to control it.   Yes, it happens and yes, it's hormones playing a dirty little trick but one still can't rip other people's heads off or just in general be a bitch.  

It's a learning curve.  We've come up with code words when she's just being unreasonably snipping and I'm working on the siblings to not push her buttons just because she's in a bad mood and it's fun to see her explode (that's not right either).   So lots of learning/teaching/managing on how to handle it.  

 

But making everyone else in her life miserable just because her hormones are raging is not going to be tolerated (with grace,she is after all 11, she isn't going to master this any time soon, we are working on learning to recognize when you are spiraling out of control due to hormones).   She has to learn some amount of control.  Right now she spends a lot of time in her room and a lot of time outside playing and swimming and that helps.

 

And, we don't rehash the behavior.  We give the code word or pull her aside and say hey you might need to take a minute , you seem unnecessarily upset over little things. And then let it go.  When she's not in the hormone cloud (she's very predictable thank God) then we talk about how such behavior can harm relationships and things to do to strengthen relationships when you've been the unreasonable one.

 

And it doesn't hurt for me to point out when I suddenly leave the room or go outside by myself or other such things and let her know that sometimes it hits me too even at my old rip dino age and instead of ripping her head off and stomping around flinging crap, I isolate myself and come back in a better mood.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Supertechmom

[Reefgazer]

My DS is 12 and awful.  What has helped (tremendously) has been substantially increased exercise and increased responsibility on his part for his success (no nagging on my part, just reliable consequences for not getting work done or acting like an asshole).

Edited June 7, 2017 by reefgazer

[gardenmom5]

exercise,

reduce sugar (and when they complain - it's pointed out that other people don't deserve to be on the other side of their hissy-moods and when they can control themselves and be polite to other people - they can have "sugar" back again.)

time-outs - they can go have a tantrum/sulk in their room.

find some heavy work (that requires muscle) for them to do.  let them burn it off.

 

I do regret not taking one in to the dr - the mood swings were far more than "normal tween angst" and continued into adulthood.   it did take awhile to find something to stabilize the swings - but things could have been so much easier -for them too.

[Terabith]

Honestly, I'm loving 12. I hated 8-9 though.

[gardenmom5]

Is enrollment in a martial arts class an option? :) I remember going through that grumpy phase myself when I was 12, so I know how real it is. My daughter, however, never really seemed to go through that. I credit it to the fact that she was working very hard to get her black belt at that time, classes 5 days a week. She was getting out all of her grumpy feelings by sparring! :lol:

 

I knew one kid who got it out pounding on the piano keys.

[Arcadia]

My condo complex is undergoing repair work so most of DS12's crabbiness is due to him being a night owl and woken up at 8am by construction noise.

 

If he is whining and grumpy we leave him be. If he is being mean he gets timeout at his bed. He would build a tent out of his blanket and try to nap. Yesterday he couldn't fall asleep so he was told to be in bed at 8pm due to grouchiness but he fell asleep after 11pm :( I will be happy when my patio repair work is completed so that he can get a good night sleep again. The rest of the construction noise he could sleep through but the drilling at our patio or upstairs neighbor's patio wakes him up.

 

He isn't interested in sports or martial arts and we don't want to drag him to class. BTDT.

[Chelli]

So what do you do when sending them to their room is exactly what they want so they can draw, play with makeup, etc. instead of having to finish school work?

 

That's the problem I'm having with my 13 year old. She LOVES being sent to her room because it means she got out of doing XYZ that I asked her to do. It's why she's having to do double the work this summer is because she's so far behind in her 7th grade work. I honestly have thought about repeating 7th grade she's so far behind, but she's old for her grade so that would put her graduating only 6 months from turning 20.

 

Sorry. Didn't mean to hijack.

[frogger]

Honestly, I did two things. These are not recommendations just honestly things I did.

 

1) Repeat to myself over and over, "I'm the adult here and I must act like it.". This was a reminder when my feelings were hurt etc.

 

2) Tell her father to deal with her and ignore her. I gave her a lot of space.

 

Now she is mostly a delight.

[Guest]

Leave the house, run, walk the dog. Basically, take care if myself and give her space to work out the grump. Avoid being in the same room or having siblings in the same room when grumpiness is high. It's contagious.

 

I did this, but reversed it. I sent HER out to run, walk the dog, deal with livestock, and give us space. I won't say it worked ALL of the time, but it usually helped and broke up the situation enough that it became workable. I don't know why I'm speaking in the past.....I still do this. She's 14. As you know, it gets better. 

 

Now, if we're both hormonal, I do all of the above and then I either go walk on my treadmill (after dh gets home) or I send myself to my room. 

 

The other big thing that helps loads and I don't know why, is I limit device time. I have seen a direct correlation with this kid over and over that the more time she spends online, the snarlier she can get during certain hormonal periods. Nipping the tech sort of forces her to seek us out and play more nicely with others. 

[bolt.]

If the problem is in neuro science, I don't expect to find the solution in social science.

 

For my DD I teach her about her brain, I work very hard to convince her that I'm not the enemy, I try to talk to "the child on the inside" even when she's not coping well with her feelings... and I don't really blame her.

 

When she was 2, she needed my help to prevent her from wandering into traffic. At 11 and 12 she needs my help to cope with her newly-intense feelings. It's ordinary development... I didn't expect her to magically skip a phase of brain growth, just because it would be pleasant!

 

Her misbehaviour flares unexpectedly, fades eventually, and then she apologizes and thanks me for continuing to act with kindness when she didn't deserve it. (I don't know where she got the idea that she didn't deserve it.)

 

I try to do calm-kind boundaries (unless I lose my temper, which I do, I'm just focusing my answer on better strategies than that one). Like, "Oh, sweetie, I know you are having a hard time, but you are also being really unkind. If you can't let me help you, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Are you sure you don't want my help?"

 

I do a kind of over-acted 'nothing is as wrong as you think it is' type of interaction where I walk through the logic of 'how much this would normally bother you' vs 'how bothered you clearly are' -- which often results in her concluding that she's irritated that her feelings ambushed her again, and that I'm right about the size of the actual problem.

 

When she goes to her room, I give it 10 minutes or so, and then I try to re-enter the situation with a "presumption of teamwork". Usually I bring her a cookie and ask if she is feeling better, and if she wants/needs anything. I compliment her on a good choice of activity to calm down. If she's still worked up, I leave the cookie for her and go. (And try again later.) It's very hard for a child to look at a cookie and still believe that the parent is the one who is being mean.

 

I guess all of this revolves around trying to get *her* logic activated enough that *she* is questioning the rationality of her mood. Once she does that, the mood and the logic tend to 'switch drivers' and she is more able to join in on parent-child team efforts to soothe the mood rather than act on it.

 

If things get bad, I respond once things calm down. I usually require a letter of apology (including a plan for next time) and/or some form of making amends. When it's logical to do so, sometimes a behaviour problem results in an undesirable consequence -- usually due to time being spent on an outburst that now can't be spent on recreation, and/or objects that were mistreated (or cause upset) not being available for a while.

[bolt.]

One that I haven't used in a while (because outbursts are smaller and rarer now) was simply to sit near her and murmur like she was so, so, little. "Everything is ok. It's ok. I can handle your feelings. The problem will be ok. We can sort it out soon. It's ok. I'm not mad. You are really overwhelmed, but soon the feeling will go away. The big feelings always go away. You always feel better soon. Soon you will feel better." -- on and on and on.

 

My personal definition of a "preteen" is 80% teenager, 20% preschooler. If she's sobbing and shouting uncontrollably, she needs to get loved like she's two. Literally.

[Paige]

Mostly I try not to take it personally and defuse situations with humor. My DDs (13) are maybe not so hard. I don't know since I have little to compare it to. Compared to DS when he was 12/13 they are a breeze, or perhaps DS was such a difficult child that I have learned awesome coping skills. 

 

 

[Anne in CA]

Do your best to keep the rest of the family cheerful and functioning. I wish I had learned this with my oldest. The girl needs to know that life is going on for everyone else and she does not have the power to put a damper on family life for everyone else. They come around a LOT more quickly when everyone else is happy. 

[Seasider]

Combination of what's been said above. Anticipate:

 

- commiserate, make sure she knows how to recognize the effect of hormones on her emotions

 

- opportunities to burn off agitation via exercise or fun physical activity

 

- opportunities to spend time with friends that "get" her

 

- set a good boundary about how she is expected to treat people, make it clear what you won't tolerate

 

React, initially:

 

- commiserate, if she chooses to talk about how she's feeling

 

- suggest and/or facilitate physical activity

 

- suggest the "phone a friend" option

 

 

React, secondary:

 

- provide a list of chores

 

- reinforce the boundary: "The way you are treating me/your sibling is not acceptable." "You should go spend some quiet time in your room until you start feeling calmer."

 

- penalize, in our house it usually came in the form of restricted activities, "You have not demonstrated that you know the right way to interact with others, so until you can get that right with the people you live with, your time with others will be limited."

 

That's all I've got. It was effective here. The hardest, hardest part is not escalating the conflict. Hard because it's crazy-making!

[gardenmom5]

So what do you do when sending them to their room is exactly what they want so they can draw, play with makeup, etc. instead of having to finish school work?

 

That's the problem I'm having with my 13 year old. She LOVES being sent to her room because it means she got out of doing XYZ that I asked her to do. It's why she's having to do double the work this summer is because she's so far behind in her 7th grade work. I honestly have thought about repeating 7th grade she's so far behind, but she's old for her grade so that would put her graduating only 6 months from turning 20.

 

Sorry. Didn't mean to hijack.

 

 

make-up can go in the bathroom

art supplies can go to a common area.

 

 

iow:  take  "distracting" stuff out of her room so it's not as appealing.

[athomeontheprairie]

I'm so sorry! Same here.

For us: more dad time. This helps more than anything. She spends most evenings outside with him on some project. Currently they are fixing the baler.

Like you, we are on a farm. LOTS of hard physical labor. This morning, she spent three hours picking up sticks and logs from a field that flooded this spring. At the rate she's going (good) it'll take another week at 3 hrs/day to finish. This has helped so so much.

 

When it's done, we'll probably start splitting wood for winter (maybe not, but this is the level of work she NEEDS)....

[PinkyandtheBrains.]

If the problem is in neuro science, I don't expect to find the solution in social science.

 

For my DD I teach her about her brain, I work very hard to convince her that I'm not the enemy, I try to talk to "the child on the inside" even when she's not coping well with her feelings... and I don't really blame her.

 

When she was 2, she needed my help to prevent her from wandering into traffic. At 11 and 12 she needs my help to cope with her newly-intense feelings. It's ordinary development... I didn't expect her to magically skip a phase of brain growth, just because it would be pleasant!

 

Her misbehaviour flares unexpectedly, fades eventually, and then she apologizes and thanks me for continuing to act with kindness when she didn't deserve it. (I don't know where she got the idea that she didn't deserve it.)

 

I try to do calm-kind boundaries (unless I lose my temper, which I do, I'm just focusing my answer on better strategies than that one). Like, "Oh, sweetie, I know you are having a hard time, but you are also being really unkind. If you can't let me help you, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Are you sure you don't want my help?"

 

I do a kind of over-acted 'nothing is as wrong as you think it is' type of interaction where I walk through the logic of 'how much this would normally bother you' vs 'how bothered you clearly are' -- which often results in her concluding that she's irritated that her feelings ambushed her again, and that I'm right about the size of the actual problem.

 

When she goes to her room, I give it 10 minutes or so, and then I try to re-enter the situation with a "presumption of teamwork". Usually I bring her a cookie and ask if she is feeling better, and if she wants/needs anything. I compliment her on a good choice of activity to calm down. If she's still worked up, I leave the cookie for her and go. (And try again later.) It's very hard for a child to look at a cookie and still believe that the parent is the one who is being mean.

 

I guess all of this revolves around trying to get *her* logic activated enough that *she* is questioning the rationality of her mood. Once she does that, the mood and the logic tend to 'switch drivers' and she is more able to join in on parent-child team efforts to soothe the mood rather than act on it.

 

If things get bad, I respond once things calm down. I usually require a letter of apology (including a plan for next time) and/or some form of making amends. When it's logical to do so, sometimes a behaviour problem results in an undesirable consequence -- usually due to time being spent on an outburst that now can't be spent on recreation, and/or objects that were mistreated (or cause upset) not being available for a while.

 

 

This is how I wish it was handled when I was that age.

[Reefgazer]

This is where the increased personal responsibility has worked well for us.  I told DS he was responsible for getting the work done that we loaded into the planner on Sunday night; I didn't care when or where, I wasn't nagging about it, I wouldn't be dictating bedtime and awake time, and I would be available to help him at thus-and-such hours.  I told him making it happen was on him, and the consequences would be ABC if it wasn't done.  Surprisingly, he improved his behavior and performance.

So what do you do when sending them to their room is exactly what they want so they can draw, play with makeup, etc. instead of having to finish school work?

 

That's the problem I'm having with my 13 year old. She LOVES being sent to her room because it means she got out of doing XYZ that I asked her to do. It's why she's having to do double the work this summer is because she's so far behind in her 7th grade work. I honestly have thought about repeating 7th grade she's so far behind, but she's old for her grade so that would put her graduating only 6 months from turning 20.

 

Sorry. Didn't mean to hijack.

 

[bolt.]

This is how I wish it was handled when I was that age.

"Golden rule" parenting -- it's important to me.