My daughter has been going to therapy for over 6 months now. Our case, Thank God has been close, my D testified and had made peace with herself, but now puberty has hit. She is 11, has grown lots, not only physically, but mentally as well, her level of maturity is very visible. She is going thru the normal changes and growing pains that come with the teenage years (including hormonal due to her 1st period). She has decided it that she is not a little girl anymore and cleaned her room, everything and anything from her prior 10 years is gone, we had to go buy new Comforter, and now change the room color (from pink a year ago to a gray which is a compromise since she wanted black or red). My problem is these changes had come up suddenly within the past 2 or 3 weeks and she is doing everything on the extremes, I do not know if I can explain it in a way that you guys can understand.
I have a 16 years old that has gone thru puberty also and some of the same changes that my 11 years old is going thru now, but my experiences with the 2 girls are totally different, my 11 yro is totally out of control, her attitude, the tone of voice, the mouthy talking, the bad mood is terrible and she is not eating as she should. Even she told me she was been too mean and did not like it. I had to take her cell phone away (she used up all the minutes for 4 phone in 10 days all by herself), and limit her computer time, she is been spending too much time on those and the sad part is that we are not home all day to control her more. Now, we do not know how to handle the situation, how much is growing pains? How much is what happen to her with SA? She is a very smart girl and has realized that she needs the extra help, told me she is going to talk with her T when the sessions resume on January (took break because of the holidays) about her confussing feelings.
Her T had told us that she might be ready to stop therapy, but that was before this sudden changes happen, I told her everything and she said she will look into it. Even my H who tries to not get involve to much on the "Girls issues" had mentioned to me that our D has him worried, he has also notice all the differences between the 2 girls, and puts the blame where it belongs, with the s..b...h that is spending his time in jail right now. We believe that she is overwhelmed, with her normal changes, enhances by her experience and what she knows, it has made her more aware and overloaded her.
My need on advice is, how can we handle the situation? Like I said we do not know how much is regular growing issues and how much is intensify due to SA?. Does anybody has advice on what to do? How do we handle the all the issues without making her feel that we are been tougher on her because of what happen? Please help.
