Friday 29 June 2018

My 13 year old daughter is upset that I'm pregnant and is acting out.


Hello! This is my first post on this sub, I originally posted it on r/relationships, but the mods locked it and recommended I post it here. I did edit it a little bit to clarify parts of it. I'm hoping someone here can help me figure out what we're doing wrong or give me advice on how to handle this.My husband and I are 29, and have 3 girls ages 8, 9, and 13 (we had her when we were 16), and we found out I was pregnant with our 4th baby 2 days ago. Today was my first appointment, and shockingly, I'm 10 week along. My oldest was not happy when we told her. She was ecstatic when she found out I was pregnant with her little sisters, who were born when she was 4 and 5. With this one, we told her I was pregnant the night we found out, she's very intuitive, and wasn't shocked about it, but then rolled her eyes and said she didn't even want her sisters, and that we were too old to have another baby. She stomped to her room, slammed the door, and wouldn't come out the rest of the night. I was going to go in there, but my husband said to give her space. She did text us goodnight before she went to bed, but didn't reply to my text, where I told her we loved her, and asked if she wanted to talk the next morning.Yesterday, I woke her up for day camp, and she told me to get out and don't touch her. When she came down for breakfast, she refused to look at me, started snapping at her sisters (who don't know I'm pregnant yet, so I just told them their sister was cranky), and I told her to be nice to them. In the car on the way, she wouldn't answer my questions, and yanked her sisters out of the car. My 8 year old has mobility issues and could have fallen onto the pavement, and my 9 year old was sitting in her seat, packing up a bag for the day. I grabbed her arm while she tried to walk away, and told her I understand she's upset, but she needed to watch her attitude and and quit taking it out on her sisters. She was fine there, but as soon as I picked them up, the attitude came back. She kept rolling her eyes, threw a pillow across the room when I reminded her I'm her mother and she needed to stop, and when my husband got off work, instead of running to him, she hid in her room. I asked him to talk with her, and she wouldn't let us in, so we decided to give it another day, because we understand the baby will be a big change and why she's upset.This morning was basically a repeat of yesterday, except I told her if she kept it up, she's grounded this weekend and we're taking her phone until Sundy. Again she was fine at camp, but my husband unexpectedly got off work early, so he decided to surprise the girls and pick them up instead of me. She's a daddy's girl and usually loves it when he's the one picking them up, but not this time. A few of her friends have crushes on my husband (he's a tall, muscular Marine, lots of her friends end up with a crush on him) and when they ran up to say hi, she flipped out. Her best friend is one of those girls, and usually she thinks it's hilarious that her friend has a crush on "an old guy", but this time, she called her names, cussed at her, shoved her, then told her to "stay the hell away from my dad". He told her to get into his truck, went to get our younger girls, and called her bff's parents to tell them what happened. When they got home, we grounded her, told her to stay in her room and write an apology letter, and after dinner, we sat her down to talk. I told her I understand she's upset, that the baby wasn't planned, and we told her the day we found out so we're sorry we couldn't discuss it with her beforehand like we did about having her sisters, but that we're the parents and decide when we're having kids, not her. She just glared at us, and said we're ruining everything, she wishes she was an only child, and that she want's her bff banned from the house. We told her we love her, that I'll be here everyday if she needs to talk, and my husband said they can have father-daughter day whenever she needs to and talk to him too. She got up, went to her room, calling us names the whole way there, shut and locked her door, and Skyped her best friend on her computer. When she answered, she flipped out on her again, and started cussing her out about having a crush on her dad and told her to stay away from the house. We were outside the door telling her to open it, but she didn't listen. My husband basically knocked the door down to get her to stop. I was with the youngest ones who woke up when my husband knocked her door down, and they were crying while my husband and daughter were arguing in the other room. Then we called the bff's parents, and agreed they should probably not talk/see each other for at least this weekend. He fixed the door and put it back up; she's sleeping now, but this has got to stop.She's grounded until Sunday, meaning she can't just get up and go to a friends house, the mall, etc. but she is still going to the day camp and to gymnastics, and softball. I'm not sure if I'm going to do this, but I was planning on taking away her computer tomorrow and give it back Sunday because she used it to harass her best friend, and I'm not taking off her door because she's 13 and needs her privacy. I do plan on giving her space, and telling her tomorrow that its okay to be angry, upset, annoyed, etc., but it's not okay to act out those feelings on others. I also put in my 2 weeks notice at work today, so I'm going to tell her that I'm going to be home most of the time now, so I will be the one taking care of the baby, not her, and I'll be able to spend more time with her.I know she's 13, and the pregnancy was a huge surprise and wasn't planned, but this isn't the child I know. She's usually sweet, kind, and laid back. I've never known her to be rude, hateful, or attack- verbally or physically- anyone like she did to her best friend and sisters. That's when I realized that even if it's only been a few days, I can't let this continue. We're at a loss for words, and don't know what to do.tl/dr: I'm unexpectedly pregnant, and my 13 year old daughter is acting out, verbally attacked and shoved her best friend, as well as being rude, hateful, mean, and physically taking it out on her younger sisters. My husband had to knock down her door to get her to stop verbally harassing her best friend on the computer, and we have no idea how to get through to her because she won't listen. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2tG63iX

No comments:

Post a Comment