over the past year or so my younger sister’s behaviour is getting worse and worse and it is slowly destroying my family’s mental health and relationships with one another.
she has started to make up every excuse under the sun not to go to school so she can just sit on her phone and facetime her friends all day. It has gotten to the point where the school will need to contact the authorities about her absence which is causing extreme stress on my mum(50) who is working long hours currently. when confronted about anything my sister screams and yells at us recently she has begun getting violent towards me and blaming everything on me or someone else eg lost AirPods on the people who installed new blinds in the house.
another thing she does is bring up my past struggles with mental health and try and discount them calling me stupid etc. usually my stepdad(51) is there to help out but he is currently overseas for five weeks. overall she is just extremely combative to us trying to help her in any way even things as tiny as her not finding socks in the morning can set her off into one of her screaming rages.
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TL;DR my sister’s (14F) anger is out of control it is slowly destroying us and we don’t know what to do
20 comments
Sounds like she’s 14, going through changes, and needs to be kept in line a bit. Typical teen and for the age
Have you tried talking to a school
Counselor first? She may also have underlying mental health issues she is to afraid to admit. She may need to talk to a therapist about the anger issues and whatever else is going on. Everything will be ok, I was a messed up teen myself. Did a lot of dumb shit. She will grow out of it. Make sure you are taking care of yourself too and getting space away from her when you need it!
Your sister needs a therapist. Possibly a psychological evaluation to ensure there is nothing more serious.
It sounds like she knows just how to manipulate you and your mom into letting her stay home. She screams and throws a fit because she knows it works. Have you guys tried taking her things away? Taking her to therapy? I am so sorry your family is going through this.
As an outsider, I’d say she needs a little bit of discipline. I know it’s a lot different in this era, than when I grew up, but if I was your mom, I’d start by taking that cell phone away!
My mother was once in a really bad place mentally. I made it my place to guide her to a right place. Seriously, till I was 40 I was consumed by making this woman as well as I knew how to make her.
Eventually a few things happened.
1) My own therapist told me being mentally ill is really hard work and the things I was trying to reward her for doing (appearing well, essentially) were not helping any, they were just adding to her things she had to try to do.
2) My sister sent me what her therapist gave her, a copy of the official book on how to treat what my mom had. Basically, it said “if she’s not young and vigorous, there isn’t much hope of change, best you can do is help her cope.” Which is what I was always complaining is the only thing therapy ever did. Meaning, they already were doing the best therapy could do for her.
3) I learned I did not have the ability to do therapy. Whatever I’d done all my life DID NOT WORK.
4) I decided it was time I had my own life.
Now let me tell you, 40 is too old to learn this.
You are 17. If it’s possible to learn something from an internet stranger, please learn that
a) You cannot fix your sister. You are too young and not trained and you don’t have the resources and she doesn’t have to listen to you in any case.
b) You deserve to have your own life. Being 17 is hard enough. Finishing high school and deciding what you want to do with the rest of your life, not to mention figuring out what adulting is all about and maybe even, dare I say it, dating. You don’t need an impossible task on top of it.
c) Please take care of yourself. Possibly your sister will see this and want the same for herself. Possibly she’s been feeding off attention from you and this will break that cycle. Possibly she will get worse, bad enough that she will see the need to get help. In any case, YOU CAN’T FIX HER.
Please do what you can to get those in charge, in charge of your sister, and then LET GO and take care of yourself.
If you can, get away for the summer.
Best of luck, this sucks big time. I know.
Take phone put phone in bin problem solved. She’s 14 for fucks sake get your parents to stop paying for it or just make her. Really your problem isn’t her yes she’s a little shot but again your parents need to grow a spine
Who is she facetiming if it’s during school time? Do her friends also refuse to go to school? That’s something I noticed that is kind of fishy.
If it were my kid, I’d do what other people are saying and get a child psychologist/behavioural therapist or social worker to help. I’m not a parent or anything, though.
Suggestions:
– write down a clear list of consequences for certain behaviours and post multiple copies around the house. Follow through on those consequences. E.g. if she destroys anything in the house, she loses her mobile for 2 days. If she skips school, she loses her mobile for 3 days. There needs to be a sliding scale for the different behaviours. Also reward her if she’s good for a few days.
– consider removing the lock on her door. Change it to a handle that is for opening on both sides. If she wants to act like a child and not respect boundaries then her door won’t have a lock. You’ll always lock before entering however based on her behaviour, it’s probably safe to not have a lock on her door.
– every night before bed, change the internet password. That way, only you and your mum can give her access only if she’s gone to school that day. She only gets access from 5pm to 10pm of there’s no rages. If she rages, she gets only an hour.
These sound extreme but you’ve got limited things you can work with here.
The fact she’s having these uncontrollable rages, your mum should speak to a child therapist to see if there is any psychological issue here.
She needs assessment with a behavioral health hospital.
Call the police when she gets violent. Let your parents know this is going to happen. Domestic violence charges will force the hand on your mother to get this kid the help she needs. It’s not ideal, but violence is not something that should be acceptable and you need to be protected.
She works long hours, but this is not acceptable. She’s not parenting here, and she needs to.
the bottom line is that you are still a minor and this is not your problem… if you mom is allowing it to become your problem, then this is called “parentification” of a minor, forcing you to take on a role that isn’t yours and is too much stress for you to handle. it can mess you up long term. check out youtube videos on parentification and see if it sounds familiar or not. maybe they have some advice.
Pay to attention to what pisses her off and don’t do it
Are you scared of her? You need to punch her in the face. No cat fighting straight man handle her little ass before you become adult age.
Time for your parents to take her phone away.
Your sister is not your responsibility. You may feel she is because your mom cannot handle her, but she isn’t. Anytime she is being directly rude to you, sure, you can yell back and defend yourself. But ultimately, she sounds like no matter what you do, she will not listen. So why bother? Do not let your sister take you away from important things such as academics and other friends. One day soon she will realize how she is acting and fix it. She is not your responsibility.
1. She needs some kind of counseling or therapy.
2. If anyone is enabling ANYTHING of this behavior, it has to stop. If she tries to stay home, ALL of her electronics taken away, etc
First, she’s 14, I find when people talk about “teens” in terms of behavior issues, they mean 12-16. So some issues (like the avoiding school) are just normal and she will grow out of that, but in the mean time your PARENTS should set strong boundaries and reinforce them. You, are not a parent and should be taking things to them and otherwise avoiding the situation. Not your responsibility and nobody should be making it your responsibility. For the rages and stuff, assuming this is beyond teen attitude, again your parents and not you, should seek counseling. Both individually for her and probably family counseling for all of you. As for you, disengage and stop taking responsibility for managing this, seriously. You will have plenty of time for parenting when you are a parent. Be firm with any boundaries with her and raise any issues to your parents to manage.
My brother was similar, but he was mostly violent and whiney about video games. He went off after getting beat in a fighting game and decided to swing at me. He was 10 at the time and I was close to 16. Anyway, he swung, I grabbed his arm and threw him across the room. He wasn’t hurt, but he still cried and made a big deal out of it. The point is, he never did that shit again
Usually there is a reason for a behavior change. New friends, drugs, abuse, etc. maybe get your mom to get her into some counseling. Good luck
Beat her ass. Some people never experience it and remain assholes their whole life. Get it out the way now.