to change DD's school & move away to have a life separate from DM?

[YesSheCan]

Namechange as too much personal info on previous thread, now deleted.

Idk if she does want to see my mum. Suspect that if she did, she wouldn't tell me. It must be very hard for her to suddenly not have contact with her nan after 12 years of living in the same home. But her behaviour and the home atmosphere is so much better.

Re DD's behaviour, although much better in that no physical violence or tantrums, a major problem is the amount of screen time. Her phone or tablet is the first thing she looks at in the morning, on a weekend and during the holidays she would come downstairs, park herself on the sofa, stare at the screen for hours. Without me constantly nagging, she would not have got dressed, eaten or washed. I had to go out and leave her in the house alone because she refuses to come anywhere with me. I couldn't not go because I had to do essential grocery shopping or sort house move stuff out. I was so busy with the move that I eventually just had to leave her to it as I wouldn't have got anything done if I'd spent all my time nagging her to get off her devices. Our holiday rental is in a beautiful place. She won't go outside. I want to go for a walk to explore the area where we're staying but she won't come and if I leave her here, she will play games online the whole time and not move. All the advice I look up online says 'reward them with an hour of screen time for an hour of chores/practising their hobby/being active outside' but how do I implement this if I can't physically make her do this in the first place? She's a really talented violinist and played in the county youth orchestra where we used to live. I've signed her up to the youth orchestra here. It starts tomorrow. She says she won't go. She says she doesn't want to give up. She's done literally no playing over the summer holidays. Her old teacher let her keep a violin that was on loan to her on condition that she carried on playing, including in orchestras. I've told her I will give it back and won't pay for lessons. She says she doesn't care. I've said all her devices will be confiscated unless she does other things as well like, er, move and go outside, as well as start to do some basic tasks round the house like help unpack the shopping and make her bed. She says she doesn't care. I can't turn off her access to her phone as she's logged out of the Google account I'd set up family link with, and logged in under a different one I'm not linked to. I feel like I'm failing to parent properly and just allowing her to become a boring vegetable. Am also determined not to allow her to capitalise on the 'I've been through a hard time so you can't tell me off' tactic. Any suggestions for how to deal with all this gratefully received.

How is she online? Wi-fi? Cut it off except at certain times. 4g. Change her contract / payment method.

Unless she has unlimited access to funds you can cut off some access, if not all.

Tell her she does x, y and z first and needs to manage it herself. Negotiate something reasonable. But, you need to show her that you will manage her time for her if she is not old enough to manage it herself.

Wifi. In holiday rental so I can't control settings. Which means I have unplug altogether and lock router in car. No mobile signal in rural place where we are so if I unplug router I can't send or receive important emails. Just telling her when she can and can't go online doesn't work as she just says no and says 'I don't care' if I tell her consequences like confiscated for a week, I won't take her to see her friend etc etc. She has hidden her phone and when I found it, kept it on her person and ran away from me when I tried to take it off her. Laptop and tablet are locked in the car. At least she has got off her bum and is looking at something else now though.

Okay - you could try my technique:

You "It's Orchestra in half an hour"
She "I'm not going"
You ignore but continue to get ready as if she is going. Checking that Violin, shoes etc are findable.

Later "We need to leave in 10 minute, I'm just having a wee".
Ignore negative response.

Etc.
Until "we need to leave now"

9/10 times we got going.

Beka it's a technique I've tried. She is very strongwilled. But it'll be all I can do tomorrow and if she point blank refuses to go then at least I'll have tried I suppose

With regard to screen time I would cut her some slack - she’s been through a lot and screen time can be great for keeping the mind occupied when she’d rather not worry about new house, new school, etc.

That said, maybe do a deal with her where she has to go to orchestra but can then spend the rest of the day on the tablet ( with a long term view for you to wean her off it).

Does she have friends at orchestra!

If so I'd throw in x & y will be pleased to see you again as well as the "we're leaving in 10" type narrative.

I'd remove the the phone and tablet. I've done this with DD (17) before now
We have the ability to turn off different devices on our router, for different times. Can you do that? I could help, if you don't know how.

It's a new orchestra so I get why she's reluctant - because she doesn't know anyone there. But am trying to encourage her not to dismiss every new thing here as 'boring' (as she has claimed so far about school after only 3 days, place we're staying etc) before giving it a chance. I get that she thinks that because her friends aren't here but she'll be shooting herself in the foot if she refuses to go anywhere she can make new friends. I think it's just her way of telling me she finds all the change difficult - she came out of school the other day in a really good mood telling me how funny one of her new teachers is.

@chickenloverwoman can't do that with router at the moment as it's the holiday rental's router but once we're in our proper home it would be really good to know how to do that, thanks!

Well done OP for all you've achieved so far. This is a very tough time for both of you, maybe even tougher for your DD as she wanted to stay out and was forced to move house and school against her will. The fact that it's for her own good in the long run will be lost on her right now.
I'd give her time to adjust to the huge changes in her life. Agree that so long as she's up and dressed, had breakfast and cleaned her teeth etc by a certain time then she can go on her devices. Don't force things. It's early days and in time she will make friends, want to spend time with them and do other things.
I don't think at her age any of my children found the idea of going for a walk with me very appealing😂

stay put not stay out🙄

We used an app called Screentime to limit the time our kids spent on their devices - we allowed an hour per day. You can set tasks up in the app so they can earn more time (oddly enough one of ours was instrument practice ). You can also set times of the day they can't use any apps, that's all we use now our kids are a bit older - at night they are blocked.

You do have to pay a subscription to get all the features, but it's well worth it in my opinion.

screentimelabs.com

Thanks SmallAssassin. Installed screentime on my phone and tried to pair it with DD's tablet, which I just had to physically wrestle off her as she would not hand it over. But when it prompted me to download the screentime app on her tablet, it wouldn't let me! Too tired rn to try to sort it, plus if I get her tablet out now she'll come in and grab it off me. So I've put it underneath the mattress that I'm lying on. Hope I don't squish it!
Need to get her an alarm clock and something without a screen that will play her spotify music so neither of those things can be an excuse for keeping devices in bedroom.

Can you get her an amazon echo dot for playing her music on?

I saw a v1 echo with the full speaker for £60 in CEX yesterday - so you could get a 2nd hand one for a lot less than RRP.

Oh - don't forget to disable buying on the dot if you go down that route!

Alternatively, look for a DAB digital radio alarm clock?

She has a dab radio with alarm but has decided she hates the radio because it's boring, so I have borrowed it! Is an amazon dot something you need to sync with a device or connect to a device to play the music through it? As she has a bluetooth speaker that works if her phone/tablet is in another room but there's always a reason why she still needs the phone/tablet in the bedroom with her (needs to change playlists etc). May resort to old fashioned cd player and make her some 'mixtape' cds.

Exhausting morning following on from exhausting evening. DD had gone to sleep in her clothes with the light on, refused to get up for school because she 'hates it' (clarified that no one has been unpleasant to her; she has decided already, because she's done some stuff in lessons in her first three days there that she already covered in yr 7 in her old school, that she knows everything already and there is no point in her going). She is now demanding to go to 'a better school'. I told her I took her to see a supposedly better school (the very well regarded private one that I'd have had to apply for funding for 50% of a bursary for, the school offered to pay the other 50%, but I decided against the massive effort it would take to secure this funding because DD said she didn't like the school, it was 'weird and posh' and she didn't want to go to an all girls school). The only thing that got her out of bed today (at 8.35) was me saying that I'd speak to her teachers about her having some extension tasks, and we'd give this school half a term and if it wasn't meeting her needs then I'd consider moving her to the private one, if I could get the full bursary. I have given her a good talking to about her not being able to dictate these important things and that it is my decision and also acknowledged that she has had a lot of change and it's been tough for her. I'm worn out and I'm nit even working at the moment. Don't know how I will deal with this behaviour once I have to get myself to work in the morning as well as get her to school. She couldn't care less if her refusal to get up made me late for work. Am anticipating a nightmare.

It will take time to break ingrained bad habits. You are doing great, she is used to ruling the roost but you are standing firm

Yes someone more technically minded can probably tell you more about the amazon dot but pretty sure you hook it up to WiFi, log into your Spotify account and away you go (it might depend on how many devices you can have on your Spotify at one time) so she doesn’t need her phone or tablet near her. You can also set it as an alarm and can ask it the time and it will tell you.

Why are you even considering buying her any other stuff to replace the tech you quite rightly confiscated? Seriously? She is a spoilt little madam, has gained some dreadful behaviour habits from your mother, and imo you need to stop this right now. It will only get worse as she gets a bit older, even without your mum's malign influence! I know she's had to move school and house but really, it's not the end of the world.

Restart2018 I'm only going to get her a cheap alarm clock so the 'but I need my phone for my alarm' argument doesn't wash, and we already have a cd player somewhere in storage which she can have for her music. Amazon echo dot does seem a bit expensive at the moment.

She's a good kid at heart but I agree has been spoilt, as in literally spoilt by my mother's influence. Lots of kids have to move house and school but it's less common to have an emotionally abusive live-in grandparent who constantly runs down the parent and has overly emotional outbursts on an almost daily basis.

The problem with getting kids off tech is so very common and unfortunately because I've been so busy preparing for and sorting the house move I haven't managed to stick to a strict routine of time limits. I tried but it involved me constantly standing over her saying, 'get off that thing, you've been on it for two hours, you need to do x/y/z' and being ignored/whined at for '5 more minutes'/told I'm nagging and implementing consequences became so exhausting and time consuming that I would never have got things done for the move. Now I'm trying to dig us out of the ensuing hole. The tech problem isn't unique to DD. These devices and the apps and games on them are designed to be addictive.

The Amazon Dot could be a suitable Christmas gift especially if linked to improved behaviour/attitude.

I am assuming that it can be used without the internet in the above statement

Just ordered this. Can put playlists on sd card and slot into radio alarm clock. No more phone in room excuses, hahaha! [cunning cackle]
idaffodil.co.uk/fm-dab-radio-august-mb415-white.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqrLA_POy3QIVxrTtCh3nmwReEAQYAyABEgI0dfD_BwE