Life with an 11-year-old

I take my hat off to single parents.

If I had to do it alone, with an erratic 11 y.o. daughter being passive-aggressive and playing mind games nearly everyday, I hesitate to think what desperate things I might do.

Yesterday she took her iPod Touch to church, in breach of our family's no-gadgets-on-Sundays rule.

I confiscated it and put it in my handbag.

At some point in the afternoon, said daughter claimed she needed her wallet, which she had kept in my handbag (which I was certain I had not seen). She then relocated iPod so I could not find it (in my handbag). When accused of having taken it, she denied it and said she had merely hidden it in a secret spot (in my handbag). I thought I knew all the compartments in my handbag, but I checked and double-checked anyway. I told her she was lying, since I could not find the iPod.

When said iPod was eventually handed over by daughter, I issued a stern rebuke and put it away where she could not find it, and there it will remain till next Sunday.

That did not stop her from making a blatant attempt to discover the possible hiding place.

Her bizarre behaviour is getting from bad to worse.

She's a model student at school and a stranger at home.

She shuns showers and abhors ablutions of any kind, and is perfectly happy to go out with skanky, uncombed hair and her daggiest clothes. One time, she zipped a hoodie over her PJs and pronounced herself dressed to go out! And this from the person who loves commenting on celebrity fashions and mocks my hair and dress sense.

She doesn't do chores unless asked, and even then, she doesn't do them immediately.

She has trouble getting out of bed in the morning, keeping her room tidy, and doing simple things (simple to me) like hanging up her clothes and putting clothes for washing into the laundry basket.

She has clocked a few late passes this year, and they are increasingly her fault rather than her little sister's.

When introduced to new people, she refuses eye contact or mutters something no one can hear, or outright refuses to acknowledge the other person.

Interestingly, she is more polite with my Asian friends and will say "Hello Aunty so-and-so", but she won't extend the same courtesy to our angmoh church friends, adults and (unfamiliar) youths alike.

She is extremely moody, and I never know where I stand with her. She can be chatty and friendly with me one moment, then give me the evil eye a half hour later, like when we want to go out for lunch after church and she just wants to go home.

She has no concept of saving face, and I cringe everytime she does something smart alecky or inexcusably rude in public. I feel like she is looking for ways to draw some kind of unhealthy attention to herself. Or maybe she is just looking to embarrass her parents (who just happen to be Sunday School coordinator and teacher).

Where I used to blend into the group and let others take the lead because I was too shy to speak up, she is the complete opposite. She takes her relationships with the older youths in Sunday School for granted, acting bossy and disrespectful and trying to prove she knows more than the others. It won't surprise me if they get fed-up and put her in her place soon. It's like watching a trainwreck and being powerless to do anything about it.

There are these two boys at our church, 14 and 16, both very well-behaved and mature, whose parents we get along well with. The kind of boys I wish were my own. One time I heard that Miss 11 had said something sassy to the 16-year-old. I told him he had permission to sit on her the next time she did that.

She is nasty to her little sister and I feel so bad for the latter, who despite knowing what lies ahead will persist in hugging jie jie, or asking to look at the iPad or iPod Touch while jie jie is watching a YouTube video or playing a game. Jie jie will say "NO!" in the meanest way, sometimes employing a not-too-gentle shove, which makes the little one cry.

I feel like I have to go back in time to find out where I went wrong in my parenting.

No more co-sleeping

Four years after she first announced she would move out of our bed into her own, Miss B has done it.

Every year we would nag and remind her of her promise to move out by her next birthday. The birthday would roll around, and she would postpone again.

With four to a queen bed, getting a good night's sleep is no joke. I sleep like a sardine between the girls, and inevitably wake up with a sore neck or other discomfort from having had to contort myself during the night.

Miss B had no such compunctions. She is a restless sleeper, the kind who kicks and thrashes.

So the months went on.

In typical B fashion, there was no notice that a change was about to happen in the household routine.

A week ago, she decided to sleep in her room. And that was it.

Now, as soon as she gets home from school, she goes straight to her room, settles herself into the upper bunk, and reads.

She complains of the purple/pink walls - a colour she has outgrown - and tinyness of the bunk bed, but it is still her special hideaway.

As for the rest of the family, the three of us now have more room to spread out in our queen bed.

With Miss J in the middle, who is in no hurry to move anywhere.

Thank goodness there is still one little one to snuggle up to at night.