On this week’s ‘Parenting’ segment on Moncrieff, one listener asks what to do about her daughter who has become “dismissive” and “mean”. 

One single parent told Moncrieff and child-adult psychotherapist Joanna Fortune her 13-year-old daughter is going through all the “expected” teenage mood swings – but her poor behaviour is escalating.  

“I’m really struggling to accept her behaviour to the point that I don’t really like her at the moment,” she said.  

“She's quite mean to me in the thing she says about my outfits - or how our home looks.” 

Her daughter also said she wished she lived with her friends’ mothers instead and she is “really hurt”.

The single parent said she has “no life of [her] own” which never bothered until six months ago.  

"Hard not to personalise” 

Joanna said the parent doesn’t really dislike her daughter, but how her daughter makes her feel.  

“She is allowed to be a teenager - she is actually not allowed to be disrespectful,” she said. 

“It's very hard not to personalise or take personally an attack that feels so personal. You know, it's literally about [you], our home, our stuff.” 

Joanna said the parent is “not alone” in feeling guilty about disliking her daughter’s behaviour.  

“Pulling and pushing away” 

Joanna said the listener’s daughter is “pulling and pushing [her mother] at the same time”.  

“She's developmentally at a stage where she has to pull away from her mom in order to separate, to individuate, to grow," Joanna said.

She said the daughter is likely pulling away in the form of “pushing” her mother by “denigrating” her and comparing her to her friends’ mothers.  

“It's that phase of ‘I'm identifying with somebody beyond you, and idealising the outside world,” she said. “it's not nice, even it making sense doesn't mean it's okay.” 

“You have to initiate the repair” 

Joanna said it’s natural that the mother might “shout back” at her daughter after mounting pressure – but she has to "initiate the repair". 

She said the mother should tell her daughter, “I’m available to you - [but] I'm not for disrespect and I will hold that boundary”. 

“As parents, we have to show our children particularly in this difficult stage... I snapped at you, or I did or said whatever I did, because my feelings were really hurt by some of the things you said,” she said. 

“That is addressing everything that's going on, but you're not pushing it on her that she was wrong,” she said. “But you are owning the impact of us.” 

Joanna suggested introducing a ‘red button’ in conversations to allow the mother and daughter to take a 15-minute break from negative conversations.

You can hear Joanna's parenting advice every Wednesday at 3.20pm on Moncrieff.

Listen back to this week's full conversation here: