Standoff at the Riang corral 1

I seem to now have an 11-year-old on my hands who would either (a) engage in heated debate with me or (b) stare sullenly at the ground refusing to answer whenever we go head-to-head. It seems to be the start of the adolescent/teenhood "you-don't-understand-me" phase?

Just on Friday, she yelled at a neighbour's kid to "Get out!" Loud enough to be heard several houses down the row. When I told her off, she came back with: "You never listen to me! You never listen to me even when I am telling you the truth!" and then as the conversation went off on an emotional tangent, she started counting off on her fingers the number of times she helped me carry the baby, gave me the thermometer when I was sick, kept everyone away from me to let me rest etc. Which prodded me to retort and say something which I thought I would never say:"If you want to count the number of times you did something for me, how about the number of times when I did something for you! Starting with the fact that I carried you for nine months and gave birth to you!"

Yikes, sounded like a bad soap opera script! As soon as I said it, I wanted to laugh. I didn't of course, but it did help cool me down pretty quickly though. The rest of the argument went on with her staring sullenly down at the floor. But I was calmer and at the end, she understood what I was talking about. By the time we finished, we were ok with one another and ended up playing a game of TextTwist on the computer together.

So what were we arguing about?

She felt that the neighbour's kid she was yelling at was never going to listen to her if she told him nicely to go home. My POV was: Try that first. She said: But the guy's a jerk! I agree - the guy is a jerk, one that is spoiled rotten to boot, one that has taken my stuff without my permission, stolen stuff from Isaac and told Cait to cover for him. So yes, the guy's a jerk. But you still shouldn't yell. What will the neighbours think? Her point was: she does not give a hoot what the neighbours think of her yelling at someone like that. My point was: she should, because it reflects poorly on her and on us as a family. The neighbours, after all, do not have the full picture of what this boy is and as people do, will only judge on what they see/know.

I don't know if I told her the right thing. I do see where she is coming from and I don't know if this stems from being oblivious and insensitive to the opinions of others or if she knows but just does not care, but she seems to think that people will not talk about bad behaviour and even if they do, she does not hear them and so she does not care. I can understand and admire part of that philosophy because I am somewhat like that myself.

I guess I am just worried. My relationship with her has been rocky at times and I am now beginning to see that she is no longer a little girl but getting to be a pretty vocal teen! Discipline is like walking a tightrope these days. How do you guide, be sensitive to her growing sense of self, not intrude unnecessarily? Without blowing your top? Particularly so with her ADHD, the impulsivity factor is so strong.