My extremely angry 14-year-old niece

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m going to refer to her as “Dana” here. She’s gorgeous, smart and funny, but over the past few years she’s become increasingly quick to anger. It’s anger that’s far out of proportion to whatever the perceived problem is, and it takes very little to set her off. She can also maintain it for quite some time, even most of a day.
I should also mention that Dana has become very demanding as well. Her folks have indulged her quite a bit, so that part at least makes sense.
She came to “visit” with my folks the other day, and got back into an ongoing tiff with her mom and dad over two things: 1. She wants a cell phone so she can yak all day on it with her friends and boyfriend; 2. She wants a navel piercing and they won’t go for it.
You can’t tell her a damn thing. She knows it all.
They don’t like to leave Dana at home because she’ll just stay on the phone all day. Anyhow, she wound up spending a good two hours out in the van, before and after dinner, listening to music and, presumably, stewing.
My mom is so disgusted that she doesn’t even look forward to a visit from her own granddaughter anymore. (The older niece is not a problem, but they do arrive together, of course.) And as much as I’d like to go to Vegas at my brother’s request, I sure as hell don’t want to spend it with Miss Grouchy-Moody, who’d probably erupt every five minutes over something.
I guess I’m at a loss here because: a. I don’t have kids; b. my brother and I were not like this (really, we weren’t); c. I’ve never seen this kind of sustained anger in any other family members.
It’s sad that we can’t happily anticipate a visit from Dana anymore.

Anybody have any ideas? Suggestions? I’d welcome even a scrap at this point.

2

It sounds to me like you took everything you were told about Dana at face value, and never gave her a chance. (Comments such as “They don’t like to leave Dana at home because she’ll just stay on the phone all day” have nothing to do with the visit, but with what you’ve heard in general.) It’s possible she’s a nice kid, who’s going through a difficult time.

I have one cousin who, around 16 years old, was an absolute nightmare. Obnoxious, self-important, self-interested, etc etc etc. Four years on, he’s the nicest guy you could hope to meet.

3

Have you tried talking to the kid?

Say something like “Dana, you seem pretty pissed off lately. Anything you want to talk about?” would be a good start.

Possibly somethings bothering her, and she feels no one cares. I’ve heard of this type of behavior in abuse victims, but you never know unless you ask.

4

Are you my aunt? This could describe my sister’s behavior. Except she’s 20. I don’t have any advice because we still can’t figure out how to make her act like a normal human being. She spent her entire high school years screeching at the rest of the family about what idiots we are.

I think she’s getting better. I just spent three nights in a hotel room with her last month and she only had one teensy temper tantrum! A new record! We went to a bar together, I helped her do her hair, she helped me pick out my shoes, it was almost like we got along! I wonder if it helps that we live 2000 miles apart…

Anyway, good luck. Hopefully it won’t take til your niece is 20 before her behavior starts to turn around.

5

I think the problem is that your niece is fourteen.

I recommend at least ten years of bed rest.

6

Oh, dear. I have a ten-year old daughter, mentally and physically precocious, who is going through similar things. She is in a state of constant internal hormonal war, she has no idea from one moment to the next whether she’s her parents’ little girl or about to move out on her own, her friends really don’t quite fit so she feels alone in the world and there are many days when all we can do is make each other angry to a degree no one else can. So obviously I’m qualified to dispense advice. Here are my theories:

  1. A couple of hours of sulking a day is probably harmless. Think of it as a kind of anaerobic exercise. Pretend she’s off doing some admirable hobby. She isn’t actually planning your horrible death, she’s just enjoying the hypothesis. Actually, it’s kind of a good sign that your niece scheduled her snit around having dinner with the folks.

  2. You can usually see an eruption coming on. It will start with rudeness or disrespect toward a sibling or parent. Trying to head it off directly by confronting her about her behavior will set off the explosion. So will any other course of action, eventually, because she will make sure it does. This is another sort-of-good sign. She wants the confrontation but she retains enough respect for the rules of social conduct that she needs some (however lame) justification that you started it.

  3. There’s no way to contain the blow-up vertically, so to speak, because you can’t control what she will do or say next (and, in a sense, neither can she). You must, however, contain it laterally, which means: one and only one person must engage her in the confrontation until it’s over. No joining in, no helping, no taking sides. Withdraw from the argument and, if possible, from the room. The argument is over when the sulking begins.

  4. This is just my opinion, but I can’t imagine a worse time for a fourteen-year-old than a vacation in Las Vegas. All that wonderful stuff that, unfortunately, you’re not allowed to do because you’re underage. Go ride the go-karts again, dear. I understand the unwillingness to cater to a moody child, but this seems like needless torture for her. Oh, well, whether you go or not, remind the parents that the hotel will shut off and turn on long-distance service in their room on request.

Your niece probably is a beautiful, intelligent and good-hearted girl who has no real idea where these tantrums are really coming from and why they get so bad. She’s not enjoying herself. There’s an intolerable, unlocatable itch somewhere and she’s scratching everything in sight trying to get some relief.

7

Well said King of Soup. I remember those years well.

8

You could have been describing me at 13.

It’s the age. It’s puberty, and hormones, and mood swings. It’s natural.

Relax.

9

Enjoy the next 10 years Soup :slight_smile:
One of my friends has an 8-year-old son who is hyperactive(he’s also extremely weird.His most imaginative excuse for not going to bed was that the gravity was holding him down and he couldn’t escape its forcefield.Yes he talks like that)
Well,his father is a strapping bloke and when he gets annoyed you know about it.Last visit to them ended with Father trying to throw son down the stairs because he’d tried to stab Mother,who was threatening to leave.That was a fun experience… :frowning: spending three days with them…
Mother thinks they both need help.Father thinks son is simply a badly behaved brat.Son thinks Father is an ogre… :frowning:

10

She sounds like a poster child for adolescence.

11

Yeah, she’s a teenager.

I was exactly the same at that age, and so was my little sister. It wears off.

12

There are two major possibilities here:

  1. She is a hormonal, frustrated teenager. Which is sort of normal at 14

  2. Something is actually wrong.

Problem is, there’s no way to actually tell over the internet. In fact, it can be almost impossible to be sure even face to face in real life. Most likely it’s “just a phase”.

Does anyone ever ask this girl what’s wrong? Preferably during one of her more rational moments when she might give a coherent answer?

I have a sister who did the “angry all the time” thing for a number of years. Turned out something was wrong. When she dealt with the problem her temper improved immensely.

13

My only experience is having been one of the monsters like your niece, and no, I can’t explain it.

My dad had six of them. He said we all turned subhuman around 13, 14, or 15 and didn’t turn human again until 23, 24, or 25.

Wishing you the best.

14

Like most other posters in this thread, I was exactly the same when I was that age. These days, most people describe me as having the emotional temperament of a mountain. Back then, I was a walking bundle of nerves. Just lock her in a solid trunk for a couple of years and she’ll get over it.

15

Yes, this behavior sound normal. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be done and it should be ignored. This is exactly the age where “normal” can slip into “depressed and suicidal” with no one noticing.

Yep, I remember so well screaming at my step-mother, “I KNOW, I KNOW!” (my mantra, apparently) and her just in exasperation asking me, “Well, then why aren’t you doing it?”

Thing was, although I would have rather died than admit it at the time, her saying that actually made me stop and think. Huh. I didn’t actually know. So why was I saying I knew? That was kind of dumb.

I’m sure my behavior didn’t improve any, but the point was that her saying such a simple thing caused heretofore unfired neurons to fire. I didn’t know. I wasn’t ready to let her know I didn’t know, but in my own brain, I admitted I didn’t know. Which gave me a lot to think about and possibly know, you know?

Point is, you can never know what she’s really thinking. You can never know when something you do or say is getting through, even if she won’t let you see it. So keep on trying, keep on desperately attempting to be reasonable, and sooner or later something will stick. You may not see the results right away, but you will have an impact.

On a more practical level, find out what she does know. Ask her questions about music, books she’s read, TV shows she likes - hell, maybe it’s only cell-phone features she dreams about. But there’s got to be something you can ask her about that lets her be the “expert.” Let her teach you, let her show you what she does know, and perhaps she’ll be more receptive. Everyone likes to feel like they’re the expert on something (look at this board - thousands of experts!) You never know where such a conversation may lead you. But let her talk. Your job is to listen, listen, listen. Ask open ended questions that require more than a yes or no answer and then just hush. Even an interested silence will keep people talking. I learn so much more about what my kid is thinking when I just let the silence linger. Sooner or later, he feels the need to fill the silence with speech. (Works for getting confessions out of guilty husbands, too!)

You’re not her parent, and 14 year old girls are really titchy about anyone other than parents imposing limits on them. (OK, they get titchy about their parents, too, but even more so others). Let them be the diciplinarians, try not to jump into the fray, and you may have the perfect opportunity to be the cool aunt (or uncle, I don’t remember your gender). And the cool aunt may one day soon be literally in the position to save this girls life - or at least her sanity.

16

Thanks, all. It’s just a new thing to me, believe it or not.

GorillaMan: I should have clarified that I was there the whole time and saw everything firsthand.

They take a lot of vacations together but Dana never complains about them. They live just a few hours from Vegas, so it’s a place they’ve been to often. She and her sis enjoy going to the Star Trek attraction and other things geared towards youth since the parents don’t care much for gambling. They do quite a lot of family gatherings and have traveled with the extended family (SIL’s side) more times than I can count.

About the phone business: All true. Dana loves the phone and the cell phone even more. She’ll happily tie them up for hours on end.

Maybe I could get some alone-time with her to talk, or Grandma could. I just hope it doesn’t take umpteen years for things to settle down a bit.

17

It sounds to me as if they all need help. Has someone called Family Services in? Because, dude, that is not a healthy family. That’s a family waiting to become the 6 o’clock news headline.

18

I strongly recommend to the parents two books by Gregory Bodenhamer: Parent in Control and Back in Control. Available on Amazon.

PIC is aimed at the younger kids, BIC is aimed at the teens. They don’t have to read PIC first, but it helps.

They need to read, live, eat, sleep and breathe these books. They are outstanding.

19

Teenage years are hard, because in some ways you’re still a kid, and in some ways you’re ready to get out on your own.

Imagine, just for a second, how you would feel living at home with your parents and being treated like a child, whether for good or ill. No wonder teenagers are such testy creatures.

(No, I am not a teenager. Anymore.)

20

The know it all stuff seems to be a typical teener phase. I know I had it, as did my sibs.

The anger and volitility though, these could just be teen age phase normalcy, or they could be indicators of a problem.

By “problem,” I don’t automatically mean some sort of abuse, though we shouldn’t rule it otu. Abuse doesn’t have to come from parents or famuly, either. It could be a verbally absive boyfriend, an overbearing teacher, or some sort of pervert. Hard to narrow down.

Other contributing factors can be as simple as diet. My baby cousine was a little monster until certain foods and chems were IDed as causing most of the mood swings. Even today, at age 28, she can shift from way too happy to seething rage in moments if she accidently injests the wrong thing.

Then there’s “mental illness,” a tricky phrase in these ultra PC times. I have a form of of bipolar disorder. I can instantly become severely hateful or completely depresed. It can last for moments or days and weeks. What has helped me (and my sis who has similar probs) is therapy and “chemical reshaping,” otherwise known as drugs.

Plus, and some have touched on this already, how you guys react (or even PREact) to her can have some little bit to do with what she does. Do her 'rents have consistent rules? Do they show any favouritism? Is she damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t? Is she dismissed as a problem or treated as a youth with oroblems? Being a problem hurts a lot more than having one, trust me.

Lastly, are there any signs of drinking or drug use?

I am not a therapist, nor any kind of child expert. I’m jsimply speaking from a little bit of family experience.

Look closely. Ask questions. Listen.

She might be a true jerk. I’m betting it’s something else.

Q’apla!