Dd is nearly 14.
She has anxiety, but we've generally managed at home talking her through stuff and pointing her to stuff that may help (mindfulness, grounding, things like that).
Two of her brothers have ASD, one in particular takes up a lot of our time, but we make sure dd does everything she wants to do and we also make sure that she has time alone with us (which as a teen she's not as keen on, but we have times in the car etc). We've always had a close relationship, but in the last few weeks this has changed.
She's sporty and popular, in a large friendship group, but has regular big fallouts with her friends. She tends to be very rigid and black and white about things, and cannot understand that others have feelings too.
She has been in trouble in a small way for arguing with a teacher, believing she knew best, but otherwise she is a model pupil.
Lately she is being very rude to us at home, not answering when we talk to her, rolling her eyes, and saying everything is shit at home (it's different, due to ASD, but in practical terms it doesn't impact on her except, as I said, ds2 having a bit more time spent on him. She claims she is constantly asked to take care of her younger brother, this happens maybe once a month when Ds has a particularly bad meltdown, which I don't think is too much to ask, when we ask very little else of her.
If anything, I think we have allowed her too much freedom, because in general she is always up to get ready for school, does her homework on time, has done well in school (but I think because of that she's been put under more pressure which she doesn't thrive under). This is something we are planning more control on - earning wifi time with jobs (for all DC), no internet after a certain time (we've slipped into not doing this because of the meltdowns, but it is something we know we need to address).
We can barely talk about this now because she ends up storming off or having a panic attack.
She will talk to friends, but I worry that, as they are telling her what she wants to hear, it may be feeding whatever's going on. She's gone to a friend's house tonight because she doesn't want to be at home.
From where Dh and I are standing, yes things can be tricky at home, but we manage things well, it's not the same as her friends' lives but it's a long way from shit! The fallouts with friends in all honesty sound like they're caused by her being rigid (but we cannot say that, simply try to explain what others might be feeling), but don't seem any more extreme than teenage fallouts that I can remember my sisters having at that age.
She says she cries every night about how shit things are, and has run out of some lessons recently crying. But she won't tell us why things are shit. Well, she will say she is treated differently to her brothers, but in all honesty, apart from having their ASD taken into account, we do try to be very fair. She goes out more than they do, we make sure that she has lots of opportunities to do things, so she doesn't miss out.
From our point of view, wrongly perhaps, we are getting frustrated. We love her very much, but it feels like she's determined to make out that everything's crap when we work hard to make sure it isn't.
CAMHS doesn't feel like an option as they are shit around here and we wouldn't get a referral unless she tried suicide.
How can we help her?
How can we talk to her?
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Teenagers
Worried about dd and not sure what to do.
15 replies
PhilPhilConnors · 25/06/2016 21:46
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