If your daughter is displaying unacceptable behaviours it may not be a discipline problem at all. She may be an emotional wreck.
As a mother or parent you can probably relate to your daughter more than you realise. Think about it for just a minute,we go about our lives living,thinking and feeling like adults because that is what we now are right. However we were all teenagers once upon a time ourselves.
Are you always searching for ways to remedy behavioural issues?
I think we all do this and yes there are some great tips and ideas out there and I am by all means not saying that we shouldn’t try at least some of them. Along with what I will share with you from my own personal experiences there needs to be some kind of routine and set guidelines to make it all work out together. Behaviour issues are only part of the symptoms of what is really going on emotionally inside your daughter. So yes we need to treat the symptoms too,but that is only part of the problem and too will only be temporary fixes.
Are you constantly trying to find the next best discipline tactic?
Again of course they need discipline in their lives this we already know. Discipline is very important in your daughters life not only to teach them right from wrong and to have consequences for their actions but also they want it. Believe it or not she will feel more loved knowing that you care enough about her and her well being by not allowing certain behaviours, however I can’t state it enough that this is only part of the problem in the first place.
Are you ready to get to the root of the problem?
Teens have a lot of stress on them,more than we knew as kids. Your daughter has a lot to deal with in her day to day life and the added pressure from peers and other kids at school. The difference is that they are not armed with the tools and maturity we as adults have. We as parents need to get to the root of the problem with our teens in order to get any results at all. Now you can take them to counseling or you can take the bull by the horns and just do it yourself. First understand that your daughter will probably yell and scream and maybe even slam a few doors at first in the beginning of the process. That’s OK we are ready for it. I know my daughter appreciated it all in the end so there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Get a piece of paper and pen and give it to your daughter. Tell her she is to write out everything that she likes and dislikes about herself and to be very real about it. Next tell her to write everything that she wants to change about herself including how she feels when certain situations come up. This is very crucial that she is real so you may need to point out certain things that may seem harsh to get her started on her way.
Take these “lists” and go through them one at a time,now it doesn’t matter how long it takes her to finish these lists. So you take the first item on the list and talk about it. Together you will need to figure out how to go about changing it,this may take time depending the size of her list. My daughter had a four page list so it can seem overwhelming but do not let it seem that way because the purpose is to eliminate that overwhelming feeling of emotions running through her. It took us 6 months to complete the list checking all these things off as we went it became a challenge for her that she enjoyed. We would sit every evening and she would pull out the paper (we both had access to it in a common spot) and she would say “Ok mom number 13” You get the idea.
This will help her to organise her feelings and gain more confidence. A lot of the time our teenagers don’t even know what is wrong or what the problem is anymore because they are just so wound up and overwhelmed with all these different emotions and don’t know where to start anymore so the natural reaction is to just give up and walk around with a great big chip on their shoulder and pent up anger to release. Which in turn results in releasing it in all the wrong ways and at all the wrong times.
