17 year old daughter..need advice...

[baffled123]

I am going to try to make a long story short.

I have a 17 year old daughter (soon to be 18). Her dad and I divorced 2 years ago, I now have a fiance that I will soon marry. About 3 months ago I got into an argument with my daughter and took her phone away. I found out all in one afternoon (and a search of her phone) that she has been ditching school, smoking pot and that her boyfriend was doing a pot deal by text from her phone. The straw that broke the camels back so to speak is when she posted my private medical issues on her Facebook page for all to read. I knew I had no control of her and drove her to live with her Father across town. He told me he would help straighten her out, etc. Instead it has turned into an opportunity for him to get in her good graces. He bought her a new cell phone, money for the prom and last I heard is paying for her apartment when she turns 18 in a few weeks. My daughter and I haven't spoken in almost 3 months. I sent her a "we miss you and still love you" note about a month ago, no reply.

I am heartbroken. Everyone says she will grow out of this and come back into our lives. I am thinking she is gone forever. When I mention the things to her Father that he is messing up on he doesn't even respond to me.

Half the time I am feeling like I must have done something wrong in my parenting, and the other half of the time I am so angry with her. I don't know what to think, or do....

Has anyone else gone through this? It is crushing me

 

[IADad]

based on what you've posted, and remember all we have to go on is what you've written here...I don't think you're going to like my opinion...and it si just that.

So, if I have this straight, she turned into teenzilla under your watch, since you couldn't "control" her you dumped her on dad and now you feel like you may have done something wrong?

And when you tell ("mention things") dad how HE is screwing up the daughrter you dumped on him he doesn't reply? Really? He doesn't wannt to know more about why you think he's an idiot?

So, what's not in you post is if you tried relating to her before you drove her to dad. Have you done the work of asking her how she felt about what happened, how it fits (or doesn't) into her life goals? Do you think she might have been trying to get your attention?

I'm not saying you're a bad mom or that you're to blame for anything, but look at it from her point of view. About all you can do now is let her be. Let her know that you love her and IF you feel bad for anything, tell her, heck even if you don't know what you did or didn't do, tell her. How you feel is really not important if getting her back in your life is your goal. You're probably best off to state your love and apoloigies and let her go. She will come to realize you weren't evil someday, maybe in months, maybe in years. I wouldn't save a place for her at the wedding.

 

[baffled123]

I didn't send her there because of this being the first signs of trouble. I have been battling with her for years. Anger, disrespect, etc. This was done at the end of my hanging on to the last thread. I sent her to her Fathers because he had promised he would help her, change her school to one on his side of town, drug test her and keep her away from the boyfriend. He has done none of that.

 

[Xero]

I definitely feel for you, teenagers are enough to drive anybody insane. Sorry things aren't working out between you and your daughter right now. I think a couple things that you could try to understand are A: Skipping class, smoking pot, being angry and disrespectful towards parents, and saying stupid things on facebook are incredibly typical behaviors of kids her age. None of those things you mentioned surprise me at all. Don't get me wrong, none of them are okay or acceptable, but they are pretty darn normal. Your daughter is not a problem child or a freak of nature. And B: You can't hand over parental responsibility of your daughter to someone else and yet still expect to be able to dictate how she is parented.

I think what went wrong was that you tried to take the easy way out and when she got too much for you (I don't blame you, sometimes we just lose our last threads of hope and slivers of sanity, it happens, its okay) by sending her to her dad's. You have to realize that sending her to live with him was not a way for you to control her through somebody else, it was just a way for you to get away from the stress between the two of you being in a day to day child/parent relationship. Once she's there, the ball is in his court and he can make decisions all on his own without you breathing down his neck or telling him what to do. Maybe he doesn't agree with everything you think, and really you don't have any right to try to force him to.

You need to let him take care of her in the way that he feels is right, and stop stressing about it. As long as she is okay, safe and healthy, well taken care of, and maybe even HAPPY, then YOU should be happy too. If she's not getting into legal trouble, not getting pregnant, and not failing school, then what is wrong? I am a little confused about what makes you so mad that someone would do nice things for your daughter: buy her a new phone, give her money for prom, help her get out on her own by paying for an apartment etc... Those are all things that would make me happy for my child, not resentful. Why are you mad about that stuff? You should really be focusing on her happiness more than her obedience at this point, you know she is almost an adult already and you will have no option to control her after that, so why hang on to controlling her so hard that last few months until she is an adult? Is it that important?

There are a lot of suggestions that I could think of to help her get out of the bad habbits if she were still in your care, but unfortunately I have no advice on how to control your daughter while she is living with someone else who seems to think things are going okay. If she were any younger I guess I might say that you could try to get her back under your care, but she is too old for that at this point. So my advice: Stop worrying about what she is and isn't doing, whose rules she is or isn't following, or which parent she likes more. Don't place any judgement on her or treat her like she needs to be controlled, its just too late for that. Try to be her friend and gain back a relationship with her, but a different kind than you had before. Let her know that you love her and you're there for her and you're sorry that things didn't work out before, and that is all. Hopefully she will come back to you if you lighten up a little and make her feel like you're not just out to get her all the time.

I hope you don't take offense to any of this, I know everything you've done has only been out of concern for her safety and well being, and your love for her. I just think its a good time to change things and give her time to come back. Chances are it wont be long before she is able to shrug it all off and have an adult child/parent relationship with you. Don't feel bad, a TON of teenagers and their parents drift away for a while during the transition between teenager and adult. Its hard on the whole family. Good luck.

 

[singledad]

Ok, I have to agree with Xero, ditching school, smoking pot, etc is fairly normal. Not OK, but normal. I wouldn't consider smoking pot to be "no big deal" (becasue it could potentially turn into a big deal - but that's another debate all together) but if she is still doing good in school and otherwise, I wouldn't make too big an issue of it. I would be worried about the pot-deal via her phone though, because it could have legal implications for her.

Unfortunately you don't say how she is doing now. Is she doing well in school, staying out of trouble etc? If yes, then I agree with the others that you may need to back down. If no, then you definitely have a case.

If I can look at it from her perspective for a moment, there are a few things I want to point out. Her acting out, especially things like posting your info on facebook etc, was quite possibly an attempt to get your attention. She had her world ripped apart when you divorced, and then she had to deal with another man walking into your lives and taking up your time and energy. (bear with me, I'm trying to write from her perspective). Perhaps she felt left-out and unimportant, and she just needed someone to also acknowledge her feelings about everything that was happening. But then you sent her to her dad - an act that could easily be interpreted as an act of abandonment. As in - you have a new man in your life, now you don't want her around anymore. I know this isn't true, but it could be how she perceives it. If I'm right, then it would make sense that she wouldn't want to have anything to do with you.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't what you wanted to hear.

So how can you fix it? You may need to wait for her to come around, but perhaps you can write her letter, explaining that you love her and miss her, and that you never intended to stop being her mother - you were just worried about her, and thought that a change of scenery would help her. (That is true, isn't it?) Then, you'd have to wait. It could take weeks, it could take years. But if she does come back to you, be prepared to listed to her side of the story. And I mean really _listen_. Don't tell her she is wrong. In fact, don't tell her anything until she has finished talking. If she felt hurt/abandoned, that is how she felt, whether or not you meant it that way. If you are going to fix the relationship, you'll have to start from where she is, even if that means making up for pain you never intended to inflict.

 

[baffled123]

I did write her the letter. I got no response. Thank you all for the advice. I guess I am going to have to wait this out and see if she comes around eventually. I was told by my therapist to offer her therapy and then disengage... That nothing would change until she hit her rock bottom (the tough love approach because nothing else had worked). I feel that if a child is two inches and up in your face that something had to be done. Thanks for sharing what she may be feeling. I think I feel a bit stung today. I thought that despite our problems that we had a bond, but it seems as though her love is going to the highest bidder (her father that is paying her way...and then some.

Then today her brother is disrespectful and getsminto trouble, his response "I want to go live with dad (because there is no discipline there). The same boy who came home heartbroken the other night because the day he spent with his dad was spent with him playing video games and his Dad ignoring him.

 

[MomoJA]

I guess your therapist is the expert, but from what I've read here, I would think that part of the problem is that the child (rightly or wrongly and probably wrongly) feels usurped by the fiance. Chances are she has convinced herself that you've chosen him over her and by "disengaging" you could cement that perception in her mind. How do they get along?

I'm sure the son is just pushing your buttons for the same reason and because so much of your energy is now being expended on his sister who isn't even there.

You may need to make some grand gesture to reassure your children that they are more important than your fiance, but that's just my sense of things from what I read here.

Good luck. I fear the teenage years because as a highschool teacher, I see how they get to a point when it seems they are completely out of your control.

 

[baffled123]

Actually my daughter and my fiancé get along great. He took the friend role and I toke the disciplinarian role. We didn't want her to feel like he came into her life and started telling her what to do.

 

[singledad]

I was told by my therapist to offer her therapy and then disengage... That nothing would change until she hit her rock bottom (the tough love approach because nothing else had worked).

OK. Clearly there is more to this than you are telling us. Offer therapy and disengage? Rock bottom? Is she really, seriously in a self-destructive cycle that threatens to take down the entire family? I ask this because those are the circumstances that would warrant such action, and smoking pot, cutting school and arguing with your parents just isn't that serious.

I have to also say that even in extreme circumstance, I am not an advocate of tough love; especially when you don't know the cause of the problem. Even for hard-core drug addicts, tough love isn't always the right choice, IMO. From the receiving end, tough love looks a lot like abandonment and/or giving up on someone. Also, I have often seen that people say "nothing else worked" but everything they tried was aimed at controlling the child - they have never made an effort to find out WHY the teen is acting up, and to work WITH the teen to find a solution for the problem.

Teens don't act out for no reason. Find the cause of the issue and deal with that, or you will be left continuously fighting to manage and ever-growing problem.

I feel that if a child is two inches and up in your face that something had to be done.

Yes, something needs to be done.

First thing to keep in mind: Anger is not really an emotion. Anger is a response to an emotion, and usually a defence mechanism.

Secondly - If you do not love someone, then what that person says or does doesn't really matter to you. From that follows that if you can hurt someone, it means that person cares about you. I know, when I was a messed up teen I used to go out of my way to hurt people who cared about me, because the fact that I had the ability to hurt them, proved that they loved me. It is a sick and twisted way to test someone's love, that happens purely on a subconscious level. I think you can see that disengaging emotionally under such circumstances, will only make things worse.

Remember that a teen usually isn't mature enough to step back and ask themselves if their reaction is warranted, and if their response will help solve the problem - they react purely on an emotional level, and if the anger is that out of control, then I would say that the underlying emotion is probably also off the scale. Once again - there has been a lot of upheaval in your children's lives, and change, especially when you have no control over it, is scary. Now add teenage hormones to the mix, and you have a recipe for disaster.

The fact that your daughter and your fiancée get along well is excellent, however, that doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't subconsciously feel threatened by him.

As for your son - I agree with MomoJA - he is probably feeling the same way, and reacting in a typically immature, teenage fashion. What I would recommend is that you simply do not engage with him on that level. Set boundaries, and explain them to him. If he gets in your face like that, tell him (calmly) that you are sorry he is upset, but you will not argue with him while he is that emotional, and that you will be in the next room when he is ready to discuss the matter calmly. Then leave.

Keep your promise - be available to discuss his issue as long as he stays calm.

With your daughter - as previous posters have said, she isn't under your care, so there really isn't much you can do, other than to extend the olive branch. Set boundaries (don't accept verbal abuse), but enforce them in such a way that they always know that they can talk to you as soon as they can do so calmly.

I know this is very simplistic, and probably not nearly enough to actually help you. There is a book,( I'm not sure who wrote it) called "Anger is not an emotion". It might be worthwhile trying to get your hands on a copy.

 

[teenage_parent]

i don't have that much experience yet on parenting but i am sixteen so i'll answer this from the point of view of the daughter.

i don't know how she was raised and how she came to this point and everything depends on the kind of relationship you have with her. she is experimenting and didn't tell you because she felt like she couldn't tell you.

if you scold her, be angry at her, you will just drive her away more. she needs your understanding, she needs to be listened to not be told what to do.

listen to her. it does wonders.

 

[mom2many]

UGH...teenagers! Nobody really warns you for those years, we hear about them sure but until you are in them with a teen there is no way to know how hard it can be.

Honestly at this point all that you can do is step back and let her know that no matter where she is, no matter who she is that you will always love her.

Teens know it all, it's not until they are a little older that they realize just how little they do know.

 

[emergencydentis]

I totally agree.. just past "teenager" stage and now I am with a teenager who is worse than how I was!

 

[gew]

Give her some space and try to stop stressing over it. She will accept your goodwill gestures when she's ready.

 

[Dagwood]

You have to understand that your daughter will almost assuredly see your transferring her to her father as "dumping her in favor of your fiance". It may not be fair but that's how she probably sees it.

Much of what she's done was bad, but as many people have said, not that unusual for teenagers. I don't know the full situation, so moving her may have been necessary but it was a fairly drastic step. She's probably very hurt and it will likely take some time to redevelop the relationship. All I can suggest is to keep trying. Invite her to something that the 2 of you enjoy doing. She's almost an adult now, so I would try to redevelop the relationship on that basis and try, as much as possible, to make a fresh start.

 

[SusyLoren]

Getting rid of a child that is having a problems is never the way to go. Basically you pushed her into her fathers arms.. Your should have dealt with her behavior but not sent her away..

 

[mmarymom91]

seems like all we do is try to make a fresh start with my 17 yr old daughter....aaahh its so hard...

 

[Normal Parent]

Thanks so much for sharing with us! It hard when these problems happen. I was referred for my younger daughter from a friend to this parenting blog. Think it might help you or other parents with behavior issues. Good luck and god bless

http://helpgetcontrolofyourchildren.blogspot.com/