Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
In between the past and the future. Raising a teen as a single mom. Raising teens as a part of a couple was tough. This is tough and presents its own complications.
She is 14. Her grades have suffered. She is angry. She lashes out at me.often.
Some day, she will be grown. I will be proud of her. We will be close.
This part is hard. I can't devote myself to only being a mom to a teen and career and homemaker.
Life has to be fun for me as an adult as well. She doesn't understand this. She doesn't understand that I am an individual. She doesn't understand that I need adult conversation, adult company, adult activities. I am a school teacher so I'm with kids all day long.
I'm getting close to my wits end. She is so critical of me.
I admit that early on, I tended more to myself than her. I felt I was doing well to provide financially, security, food and stability for her. I was limited in how long I could talk about Mike. Exhausted all the time!
Any advice on this? I am so tired of feeling worn down by her words and criticism. She criticisizes my clothes, my housekeeping, my style, my decorating, the way I treat my friends and many other things.
I'm open to advice.
She is 14. Her grades have suffered. She is angry. She lashes out at me.often.
Some day, she will be grown. I will be proud of her. We will be close.
This part is hard. I can't devote myself to only being a mom to a teen and career and homemaker.
Life has to be fun for me as an adult as well. She doesn't understand this. She doesn't understand that I am an individual. She doesn't understand that I need adult conversation, adult company, adult activities. I am a school teacher so I'm with kids all day long.
I'm getting close to my wits end. She is so critical of me.
I admit that early on, I tended more to myself than her. I felt I was doing well to provide financially, security, food and stability for her. I was limited in how long I could talk about Mike. Exhausted all the time!
Any advice on this? I am so tired of feeling worn down by her words and criticism. She criticisizes my clothes, my housekeeping, my style, my decorating, the way I treat my friends and many other things.
I'm open to advice.
The stage of development that kids go through during teens is to establish their own identity, which is separate from their parents. It is a requirement for them to be an adult, to establish their own identity. Oftentimes they will rebel at the norms that you and Mike have established. They have to find their way.
As others have said, the activity of the father in the home is important to girls when they go through this stage. It's very complicated, but I certainly did not treat my two girls as princesses, but they know we loved them. That is the important part. Also we would not tolerate disrespect. A difficult time for both of you.
I think the thing to remember is that the person that she will become was patterned after her most early years. The funny thing is that rebel as she might she will still end up as the person that she was in those early years. It seems a joke that God would have our kids torture us with these teen years, and yet they will turn out to be the loving people we knew as kids.
So my advice is to just do the suggestions that seem reasonable to you. She does not know this, but she is going to turn out a lot like her parents anyway :). So just keep that in mind, you have already done the most important work ( you and Mike did it ) so she will be fine. Just have the strength to believe that!
Bob
Give her time. And give yourself time. I suspect your counselor may encourage you to do that also. To set your desire to start back into the singles' scene just a little longer. Try to engage yourself in things you and your daughter can do together. Things she enjoys...shopping, movies, having friends over. I used to keep a jigsaw puzzle going, and often my son and I would work on it together. I was a single parent through those teenage years, and younger than you, so I can relate. It was amazing how gentle conversations flowed while we were each looking for those hard to find pieces.
Sometimes, writing things down together helps. For both of you. Getting your expectations out, and letting her express her expectations of you out in the open. And put them on paper. Once the elephant is off the table, it may become easier to reach healthy compromises.
Good luck to you in this process.
The loss of parent is extremely traumatic, and will forever change children's lives. The child has, in some sense, a lifelong task of working, re-working experiencing and re-experiencing the loss of the loved one. Available, nurturing, and caring mother, and other relatives will all make this journey easier.
Be available, nurturing, reassuring, and predictable.
All of these things make the her work easier. She needs to feel safe and cared for.