Dealing with a Disruptive Daughter? Creating Clear Consequences

Is your daughter regularly throwing tantrums and disobeying everything you ask her to do? Is she disobedient to teachers and other adults? Young girls who are disruptive are so difficult to deal with because you probably have no idea what’s going on in their minds. Dealing with a disruptive daughter may be challenging, but improving your relationship with her is very possible.

Working with your daughter, not against her

The first trick to dealing with a disruptive daughter is to be aware of what triggers her outbursts. This is a great thing to know to prevent further disruptions. Additionally, begin noticing recurring patterns of behavior which occur after these triggers. Following the triggered behavior, take note of the natural consequences that follow. From there, you can make your plan of action.

The Do’s and Dont’s of Consequences

Creating clear consequences for your disruptive daughter is pretty essential in creating a plan to work through her disruptive behavior. However, keep in mind that not all consequences are positive. Some may even do more harm than good. On the flip side, forming consequences that work can help your daughter avoid negative behaviors.

Here are a few ideas for creating the best consequence for your disruptive daughter:

• Don’t react negatively towards your daughter. Spanking and yelling may seem to scare your daughter out of her behavior in the short term, but it’s not going have lasting positive effects on your daughter. Instead, notice when she does something positive. For example, if she does chores without complaining, compliment her on her positive actions. This way, you’ll be reinforcing positive behavior with positive feedback.
• Don’t delay consequences. That will only make your daughter think she can get away with her behavior. Instead, make consequences as immediate as possible.
• Consequences should affect your tween in the long term: Instead of threatening to take away her cell phone or something she knows she will get back, take away something that would be more meaningful for her. For example, if she throws a major tantrum or gets in trouble at school, forbid her from going on the family vacation you had been planning.
• Actively ignore the misbehavior. This should only be done if the behavior is not aggressive and overly destructive. Instead of engaging with your daughter when she’s being disruptive, ignore her and wait for her negative behavior to end. A lot of the times, tweens act up just to get a reaction out of people. You don’t want to give that to them. So don’t react.

Asheville Academy can help

If you have a disruptive daughter on your hands and you need her behavior to get better, look no further than Asheville Academy. Asheville Academy helps young girls ages 10-14 struggling with emotional and behavioral difficulties such as defiance issues and depression find success and fulfillment. For more information, please call 800.264.8709