My 15 year old daughter...

[kswelter]

I am brand new to L&L and need some advice. My husband and I have three children, our son is 10, middle daughter is 12 and oldest daughter is 15 1/2. Our son is very sweet, has good friends and grades as well as our middle daughter. The problem is our 15 year old. For the past 2 years we have had problems with her language, talking back, being disrespectful, bad grades, bad choice of friends and horrible grades (we are surprised if we see a 'C' on her reports... most are 'D's) and it is effecting how her brother and sister act.

Our 15 year old has ADHD (she had a brain scan done and we work with a specialized Ped, plus we take her off her meds every summer to make sure she still needs medication). When she takes her medication on a regular basis she is able to get along with, but when she is off them (lies about taking the med's) she becomes violent towards her brother and sister. My husband and I are at a loss on what to do about her medication.

Tonight she refused to clean the kitchen and played around and then said she cleaned it. I was going to cleanup and sand the wood floor in the pantry right after I was done with dinner, but I could not get to it because I had to clean the kitchen before I could cook... so I cleaned it, made dinner and then told her that it took time from my evening to do her job so she needed to do mine. She ho-hummed around, complained constantly but my husband and I made her get the palm sander out, find the sandpaper and a few other tools and then problem solve on how to get it done. She threw several fits, ruined several sheets of sandpaper and kept coming to either my husband or I saying she could not do it. We gave her one hour to get the task finished (the time it would have taken me.. it's only a 5x5 room and the floor was ready to have a sander run over it quickly) and when she was not done we told her that she could finish the task tomorrow. I told her I would be waking her up at 8:00 and she will be using her own money to replace the 5 pieces of sandpaper from Wal-Mart.

What do I do? Do I continue... am I on the right track? I do plan on waking her up and taking her to WalMart for the sandpaper plus she still needs to do her usual chore of cleaning the kitchen tomorrow.

What do I do about her influence with her brother and sister... the curse words, and everything else?

BTW... I started ignoring her when I was walking away and she was badmouthing me and she stopped! She also apologized for calling me 'fake'.

[c0ppertantrum]

I can't begin to tell you how 'unqualified' I am to comment on your situation, even though mine is similar in so many ways. I did however, want to compliment you on walking away- no matter what she said. Sometimes it's really hard to do that. I find myself arguing in my own head- a million things I would love to say to wipe the smirk off of her face. But I don't! I just keep it to myself! THAT in itself is priceless.
Practice Practice Practice! That's what keeps me on track!
I would try something other than the floor- if she ruins it- it will cost a lot of money to replace!