I started taking parenting classes. (Story)

Background: I gave birth to my daughter right when I turned 18 (she's now 13). I had very little to no support from anyone. Babies are rough when you're 18, and also when you're being abused. I never really was able to get a good bond with her and while I tried, looking back, I wasn't the parent she deserved. When she was 5, her dad took his life (I was 22). Being shocked, grieving, and being free for the first time, I went crazy. I partied a lot and failed her even more as I began a selfish path for a while. Again, I tried to be a decent parent and to be someone she could talk to and someone she enjoyed, but it definitely wasn't what she deserved. As she started middle school I have been able to see the backfire of my years of "not good enough parenting", she never keeps her work caught up even slightly, she is nothing but rude to me, she absolutely torments her younger brother so frequently. Her only cares are her friends, her group of friends are the "outcast kids" in school, the ones who regularly have greasy hair, don't care about what clothes they wear (wrong sizes, dirty, not matching ECT), most of them are quite overweight, none of them do well in school at all and it seems none of their parents have any sort of consequences to anything. They are all pretty spoiled to have sleepovers or go to the movies ECT any day even if they are failing and not doing their work. Well, as I'm growing up myself, I'm trying to make a better life for my family and for myself. I started going to school and am about to start working soon, I'm focusing on bringing healthy food into the house and have been cooking dinners from scratch every night for the past 2 months or so, I'm trying to have healthy hobbies for myself and to be a positive influence for my kids. I've also been cracking down on her about her school and responsibilities at home. While this is nothing new for me to bring up, I've been more proactive about it. We've met with teachers, I set a no friends rule until she was caught up.. As you can imagine this all has made her loathe me, from school work, to friends to food. She can't stand anything I'm trying to do now. She told me the other day "anytime I get REAL FOOD now it's at a friends." She was referring to chef boyardee as "real food" in this example lol. Anyways..I ask when she gets home how her day was, she will snap back "fine" with an awful tone. She absolutely despises me now. Now that my eyes are open in a sense, I constantly feeling like I'm failing her. I want her to succeed and I've only been setting her up to fail all these years. I talk to my therapist about my struggles and she told me she is going to be teaching a class called love and logic coming up soon if I would like to go. So I signed up and it was the greatest decision I've made.I got to put to use a the first technique we learned within 15 mins of me being home from that class. And the next day too and it worked! And for the first time, her attempting to battle me, didn't affect me, only her. I'm only 2 weeks into the 5 week course now but already I feel like I can breathe. It's not too late to be the parent she deserves. I know she's going to hate a lot of this, we were all warned that no child sees the change and loves it, it gets worse before it gets better, and it certainly is, but now I see clearly. Why am I the one stressing out, they aren't my grades. I'm not the one who loses privileges over it, it shouldn't be weighing on my mind. She knows the responsibilities and the rules, if she doesn't follow it, that's too bad for her. And it's a shame when she breaks rules and loses things like her iPod, now I'm not mad about it, it's a shame for her that she made the wrong choice.I have an app called Libby, and through it I was able to place a hold for a Love and Logic book for teens specifically, I'm excited for my turn with that book as well to further my parenting skills.I wanted to share this in case there are others who feel as lost as I felt. I often felt like I ruined her whole future. I still feel a lot of guilt when I look back on not being the parent she deserved but it's not too late to fix this. I had never heard of Love and Logic parenting before so if you haven't, and you struggle with your child arguing with you or feel like I felt at all, I encourage you to look into it! via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2UJgE7o