“Everyone hates me,” she said. The 13-year-old was sitting on the floor next to the couch, her legs drawn up tightly to her chest, arms folded on her knees. For the moment, her eyes looked up at her mother, glistening with the threat of tears, but as soon as her mother responded, her head would drop down, burying her face again.

Anita sighed. She would swear on her own mother’s grave that this child needed a set of T-shirts that said “Drama Queen” in about ten different languages, so people would know it was coming. Mary was the utter definition of the phrase. It was always someone else’s (or everyone else’s) fault, and she would never accept any consequences for her own part of what was going on. Instead, when things went wrong, she would blame, blame, blame – and then sit down and cry and feel sorry for herself.

Anita wanted to put her arms around her and make it better, but whiners could not be tolerated. Mary needed to learn to stand on her own two feet. “That’s enough, Mary. Get up and go do the dishes. It’ll give you time to think. You need to stop complaining and doing the ‘woe is me’ act and start acting like the person you want to be. Stop blaming everyone else and figure out where you messed up so you don’t do it again.”

Mary looked at her, her jaw open in shock. She then burst into the predictable tears, and only stood up to clean the dishes when her mother nudged her with her foot. “Stop kicking me!” she screamed. Anita just rolled her eyes and sighed – this was a level of frustration she was becoming all to familiar with. She turned on her heel and went to take care of Mary’s younger brother. “Just do the dishes, Mary.”

Mary stood up and screamed, “You hate me too! You don’t even care!”

Anita turned on her heel and stood her ground. “Do the dishes, Mary, unless you want to get grounded. As for the ‘hate’ thing, get over it. I’m not going to get into this again. You have a responsibility for your choices, and now you’re seeing the results. If you don’t like it, then learn from your mistakes. I’m not going to sit here and baby you so you feel better. Now GO DO THE DISHES.”