I don't know what to do. I have given this girl everything. Nothing fazes her and she still continues to be a giant pain in my ass. I just can't take it anymore. I am upset. I am more sad than anything. I have exhausted all ideas on this child and wasted years trying to help her. I just can't deal with her. All I ever wanted was for her to be better than her lying, drugging, whore of a mother but at this point all I see when I look at her or hear her voice is her f*cked up mother. BM1 hasn't even been around in well over a year, but it seems as if SD only continues to become more and more like her. I see a horrid future for this kid. I see school drop out, drugs, and teen pregnancy. I have busted my ass to be a role model for her and to help guide her. I have tried to divert her energy into anything positive. She doesn't care and no amount of punishment or rewards is even phasing this child. I feel as if I should just give up, but I also worry that that could only make the situation worse.
I don't know. I just needed to vent. I think I've wasted too many tears on this girl.
I know exactly how you feel I poured my heart soul time and bank account into my skids for years and years. Thinking that if I just put in enough effort I could turn their worlds around and fix them....nope. All that effort was for nothing. Now I just keep my head down and try to get through the day.
Its just hard. Everything. This child does nothing she is told. I feel as if her actions and herself is a representation of me as a parent. To send her to school acting like an a**hole, mismatched crappy clothes, she refuses to brush her teeth or her hair. I have given up arguing with her every morning over these things. I have started to just let her go to school. Its embarrassing. BS goes to school everyday clean and looking presentable. SD goes to school looking like she just crawled out the dumpster. Neither punishing her or rewarding her works. She doesn't care. She is failing school, has spent the last two summers in summer school and still failing. She doesn't care. She has the mouth and attitude of 16 year old PMSing. She is ungrateful and lazy. She is bossy and mean. She has no friends because she is a bully and a tattle tale. SD4 and BS9 don't even want to be around her. She treats me as if I am nothing more than her servant, but gets pissed when I give her anything less than my undivided attention. She sits on her bed and screams my name repeatedly only to tell me something or to tell me to do something for her. At 630 this morning she was screaming my name while everyone else was sleeping only to tell me she had to use the bathroom. She is soon to be 9. She is not a baby, but certainly doesn't act it. She constantly talks with this annoying baby voice to the point you can't understand what she is saying and if I ask her "what" she proceeds to flip out and start crying that I am ignoring her. She steals from everybody. We have been called to the school numerous times because of her stealing from other students. She steals from me, DH, BS9, SD4, her cousins... anybody .. she lies constantly and argues everything! I cant deal with it. I surrender. I dont know what else to do.
In my experience an addicted, depressed, emotionally unavailable mother leaves a hole in her daughters self esteem that no one, let alone a SM can fill. I turned myself inside out trying to fix SD from the age of 14 when she moved in with us, but her problems were so rooted in her relationship with her parents, and she was so wedded to dysfunctional behaviour, that I didn't stand a chance. Like you I cried a lot of tears and put a huge amount of emotional effort into helping her.
Looking back the problems were evident from a young age, and I believe her mum's problems with alcohol and depression left SD with a major attachment disorder which means she is pretty much immune to other people's feelings, and very lonely because she doesn't know how to really bond with people. She felt we were very close, but it was a pale shadow of my relationship with my own mother. When there is a severely dysfunctional mother I think these children need therapy, including family therapy, and they need it early on. By the time they reach puberty they just act out those problems in increasingly damaging ways if they have not learned how to cope.
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I don't know what to do. I
I don't know what to do. I have given this girl everything. Nothing fazes her and she still continues to be a giant pain in my ass. I just can't take it anymore. I am upset. I am more sad than anything. I have exhausted all ideas on this child and wasted years trying to help her. I just can't deal with her. All I ever wanted was for her to be better than her lying, drugging, whore of a mother but at this point all I see when I look at her or hear her voice is her f*cked up mother. BM1 hasn't even been around in well over a year, but it seems as if SD only continues to become more and more like her. I see a horrid future for this kid. I see school drop out, drugs, and teen pregnancy. I have busted my ass to be a role model for her and to help guide her. I have tried to divert her energy into anything positive. She doesn't care and no amount of punishment or rewards is even phasing this child. I feel as if I should just give up, but I also worry that that could only make the situation worse.
I don't know. I just needed to vent. I think I've wasted too many tears on this girl.
I know exactly how you feel
I know exactly how you feel
I poured my heart soul time and bank account into my skids for years and years. Thinking that if I just put in enough effort I could turn their worlds around and fix them....nope. All that effort was for nothing. Now I just keep my head down and try to get through the day.
Its just hard. Everything.
Its just hard. Everything. This child does nothing she is told. I feel as if her actions and herself is a representation of me as a parent. To send her to school acting like an a**hole, mismatched crappy clothes, she refuses to brush her teeth or her hair. I have given up arguing with her every morning over these things. I have started to just let her go to school. Its embarrassing. BS goes to school everyday clean and looking presentable. SD goes to school looking like she just crawled out the dumpster. Neither punishing her or rewarding her works. She doesn't care. She is failing school, has spent the last two summers in summer school and still failing. She doesn't care. She has the mouth and attitude of 16 year old PMSing. She is ungrateful and lazy. She is bossy and mean. She has no friends because she is a bully and a tattle tale. SD4 and BS9 don't even want to be around her. She treats me as if I am nothing more than her servant, but gets pissed when I give her anything less than my undivided attention. She sits on her bed and screams my name repeatedly only to tell me something or to tell me to do something for her. At 630 this morning she was screaming my name while everyone else was sleeping only to tell me she had to use the bathroom. She is soon to be 9. She is not a baby, but certainly doesn't act it. She constantly talks with this annoying baby voice to the point you can't understand what she is saying and if I ask her "what" she proceeds to flip out and start crying that I am ignoring her. She steals from everybody. We have been called to the school numerous times because of her stealing from other students. She steals from me, DH, BS9, SD4, her cousins... anybody .. she lies constantly and argues everything! I cant deal with it. I surrender. I dont know what else to do.
In my experience an addicted,
In my experience an addicted, depressed, emotionally unavailable mother leaves a hole in her daughters self esteem that no one, let alone a SM can fill. I turned myself inside out trying to fix SD from the age of 14 when she moved in with us, but her problems were so rooted in her relationship with her parents, and she was so wedded to dysfunctional behaviour, that I didn't stand a chance. Like you I cried a lot of tears and put a huge amount of emotional effort into helping her.
Looking back the problems were evident from a young age, and I believe her mum's problems with alcohol and depression left SD with a major attachment disorder which means she is pretty much immune to other people's feelings, and very lonely because she doesn't know how to really bond with people. She felt we were very close, but it was a pale shadow of my relationship with my own mother. When there is a severely dysfunctional mother I think these children need therapy, including family therapy, and they need it early on. By the time they reach puberty they just act out those problems in increasingly damaging ways if they have not learned how to cope.