Any parents of teens want a chat thread?

[IndigoSkye]

We adopted our 2 dds ten years ago. Our oldest is now a full on teen and I am struggling working out how to put boundaries in place and deal with her mood swings without her feeling like we are all against her. She has difficulties with planning and organising but hates having any structure imposed on her so we are always having to bail her out of trouble at the last minute. The school are not helping either. We always aimed for natural consequences but this doesn't seem to have any impact. And the stress of everything has a negative effect on her sister who gets very anxious. Thought there might be others out there in the same boat that might like to chat.

Are you me 3 or so years ago?

We have had a very tough time of it with each DD once they individually turned 16, with similarly impact of DD1 onto DD2.

We got post adoption support in part way through the pandemic and DD2 is now having therapy. Almost certainly should have done it earlier.

My friends and family all have high achieving kids too so it is hard to find people who understand.

One of the things is not knowing the 'best' place to go for advice:

• adoption


• education


• SN


• mental health


• teenage

Everything is so inter-related, so on MN as in real life it isn't obvious to know where to go.

That sounds hard. Have you had her assessed for ADHD? If she struggles with mood swings, planning, organisation and learning from experience, it might be worth checking.

Disorganisation can also be Dyspraxia (are there any motor skills issues?).

DD1 with dyspraxia railed against organisation but I kept plugging away at it. I was sympathetic to finding it hard to be organised, but not if she hadn't followed the few simple things we had in place.
DD1 never ever forgot to charge her phone or have it with her. If she cared enough she could do it, but she could only prioritise a few things and sometimes her priorities did not align with mine...

Yes we are having similar issues. We adopted my daughter 13 years ago, and the teenage years are proving very challenging. I agree with Underthenameofsanders that it’s difficult to know whether the issues are just normal teenage stuff, adoption issues or other. My daughter is constantly arguing with us, doesn’t respect boundaries that we set, it is exhausting emotionally and wears you down. I don’t have any answers I’m afraid, just feeling your pain x

Oh yes please!

We adopted 10 years ago and they're now 14.

It's...hard. And the last 2 years haven't helped. At all. I feel like my child, and their life, has been ruined by the pandemic.

The early trauma is really making its presence known, there's depression, anxiety, an ED, sleep disorder, SH, all the mentals. It's exhausting and scary and painful. For all of us.

We have got post-adoption support and therapy, it will take time.

I just want my darling one to be happy again. And to believe me when I say I love them.