Q: My 12-year-old girl easily gets irritated and even yells sometimes. She also nags and bothers her younger siblings and displays selfishness a lot. What can I do about it as her mother?
A: A 12 year-old-girl is considered to be in the phase of formation of self-identity in psychological development. Girls at this phase have many thoughts and they feel difficulties when things do not accord with their thought standards. Before they enter the phase of formation of self-identity, they have gone through the phase of adaptation to relationships, where they have learned to form, maintain, and deal with good and bad relationships.
From the girl's point of view, she is irritable and selfish because she does not have anyone in the family who has a good relationship with her. She may have accumulated psychological wounds at home or at school, but has not been able to treat wounds by talking and sharing with someone in a good relationship with her. Since she has wounds accumulated inside her, any stimulation, good or bad, triggers wounds and leads to negative expressions. She may not express her negative emotions toward adults but toward younger ones since they are weaker than her. As a parent, you can first understand the reasons behind her behaviors and figure out what is or has been bothering her to accumulate such wounds inside her.
When you approach her to find out what causes her wounds, you will only add more wounds if you bluntly demand for her revelation of problems, saying things like, “Just tell me what is bothering you.” First thing to do is to build a good relationship with your daughter. Then, you can first begin to tell her about your own thoughts and feelings or your own experiences in a natural and comfortable way. Then, she will also begin to talk frankly about her thoughts and feelings.
Mother is the best person who can protect and empathize with their children. If your daughter begins to depend on other people for attention and consolation out of desperation, she may not feel the need for parents and even put herself in the danger of being exposed to harmful situations. You may have thought that your girl is peculiar or has personality problems, but trying to understand the fundamental mechanism behind her behaviors will allow you to view the situation from the child's point of view, and then, changing her behaviors may become much easier than you thought.
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