Teenage daughter refusing to come home

[belge2]

I have posted before about my 16 yr old DD... She stayed overnight at a friends last night (fine) , got home at lunchtime and then asked to go out again. I said no as she has school work to complete before next week. She repeatedly asked, I said no in no uncertain ways. I turned my back and she climbed out the window! Haven't seen her since. She has blocked me on her phone, refusing to come home . No idea where she is, with who. Really really worried. Our relationship is pretty strained as she refuses totally to follow any rules. I really have no idea how to play it. I put consequences in place but nothing, literally nothing works.
I suspect she is involved with an unsuitable crowd and I know for a fact she sometimes smokes weed which is a MASSiVE issue for me. Literally she does exactly what she wants with zero thought for anyone else. I really don't like her very much.
No idea what to do tbh .... I think we need to go to therapy to sort out these issues but that doesn't help tonight when I have zero idea where she is. And she is refusing point blank to come home :(

Please definitely do not do this.

I pushed boundaries with my mum at this age and honestly I did It because I thought she didn’t love me or care for me and I wanted to see that she did. So if you think there’s any chance your daughter feels you don’t listen to her and aren’t ‘close’ to her, do the exact opposite of this advice and make it very very clear to her that you love her unconditionally. Be her best friend- on her terms aswell as yours.

Something I somehow see in parents of difficult teenagers is this focus on meeting their needs - well what the parent thinks is their needs. Like schoolwork, being sensible etc etc. Are you also being a friend to her? I mean in the most literal sense of it; ‘shall we go for lunch today?’ ‘Shall we go see that film together on Friday?’ Please treat her like a friend- if you had a distraught friend what would you say to them?? Say those things to your daughter. Don’t lose sight of closeness and kindness. The way you love her now and the way she thinks you love her will be two very different perceptions and she doesn’t understand yours at this point in her life. Don’t push her further away.

good luck to you both. I’m 35 now and still wish my mum was my friend. Xxxx

Yes you are right. I have been approaching everything wrong. What an idiot :( Parenting is so bloody hard, relentless!

Are you being sarky because of the stupid advice or are do you think this is good advice?🤷‍♀️

I've not RTFT so really sorry if I'm repeating but once the dust has settled a little from tonight I recommend reading Untangled. It was recommended to me when my DD started her teen years and I've reread it a couple of times along the way.

For sjxoxo : I try to be her friend - often suggest we go out and do something but she always refuses. Says why would I want to spend time with you etc ... which hurts of course. We recently had a nice few days away with her middle brother and it was nice and a bit like old times.

Thanks will take a look

You can report it missing and ask for it to be blocked I think.

Just ordered the book- need all the help I can get!

Take her by a surprise…she will come home eventually. Tell her you are sorry she felt she had to run away from her own home and ask if you both could just spend some time together and perhaps talk as you would like her to feel good around u and in her home. Dont let her provoke you by rejecting it, she might be mean. Keep pushing, ask what she would like to do, suggest something she could like. She will talk eventually, and you just listen. Tell her you would like to hear all about how she feels so you BOTH can work on things etc. regardless how ridiculous her reasons are, validate them and make her feel she has a voice. Eventually she will listen to more as she wont be needing to do everything against

@belge2 aw that’s nice that you do still try and befriend her. I’ll be totally honest- even now if my mum says something nice I feel like I want more.. so please don’t give up on her! My mum also tells me now to clear out anything I have left at my parents’ home etc because she wants it for a spare room and do you know what - it cuts me deep!! Still!!! I know it’s a reasonable request but it makes me feel so much like she doesn’t really want me around and I really feel like I miss having a mother to mother me sometimes. I never ever get that now or really got that when I was younger. I dont know if it’s the same sentiment for your daughter but please don’t give up on being her friend and trying to be close to her. Do you do things just the two of you? Please find something you can do together - a spa weekend or a concert or whatever, just the two of you. I appreciate it Might not be the same dynamic for you & your daughter but my mum was crap at talking to me about anything and I just so wished she would shower me with love when I was a teenager - even though I behaved the opposite, it was what I really really wanted and just from my mum. Xxx

This is a fantastic one too www.amazon.co.uk/Get-Out-Life-bestselling-twenty-first-century/dp/1788163826. Really explains how to navigate that shift from parenting small child to a teen, explains a lot about how their minds are working then, and how to manage it all.

As someone who was this 16 year old once, I cannot emphasise enough how damaging it will be to try and force her to do, literally, anything. She won't. There will be perpetual conflict. This is, IMO, a reasonably natural stage of attempting to branch out and become independent, and it's the controlling parents who lose out the most. So she has school work: it's her school work. If she doesn't do it, the consequences are hers. By attempting to force her to stay in, you are simply creating a situation by which she refuses. How would you even force her to do the work if she was at home?

As difficult as it is, you need to back off and allow her to decide how to behave in regard to school work etc as she will. Taking her phone will, again, just antagonise things.

To be honest the partying wouldn’t annoy me as much as the complete disrespect and phone blocking.
That would be a complete no for me and would really upset me.
so difficult though and I really do sympathise

I think you have to trust that you've done enough in the previous 15 years to help your daughter make the right choices going forward. Be more open to her doing what she wants but have lots of conversation around risks and consequences. Good decisions and bad decisions. Whether they listen or not is a whole other topic but I hope it might make my daughter just stop and think for a moment. My daughter (18) is leaving home in 4 weeks to go to University and it's going to be really hard letting go completely. 16-18 are the years where you have to pull right back in readiness and just pray you've done enough. It's really hard.

I disagree. I was also this type of 16 year old but I was forced - grounded to not going out leading up to my GCSE’s. (Although I wouldn’t have dared running off and there was nowhere or no one to run of to or with!)
Yes it caused a thousand arguments and I hated everyone and everything. Screamed and shouted and cried myself horse many a time. But ultimately I got the passes I needed by being in the house and the revision books being there and my mum drumming it into me every day how important it was.
So so thankful as those passes allowed me to go on to a levels and then on to uni where I has the time of my life and got a career from the degree.

Yep exactly . It's the utter disrespect that really gets me. The not thinking about how it may affect someone else , the not caring !
Am going to bed now and will try to sleep and hope she turns up in the morning ...

I’ve been your DD (not literally!)
Shes nearly an adult. She could live alone now if she wanted to. As she sees it, it’s time for her to make her own mistakes. Let her make a few, now, while consequences of missed work are less. She’ll learn, I promise.
And meanwhile, make yourself available when she wants to talk through those mistakes and learn from them.

I think it is great that in the short passage of time on this thread that you have conceded you need to adjust your parenting style.

Having boundaries is not the same as being hardline, my way or the highway.

I totally understand your anxiety about her sneaking out and your frustration that she does not appreciate how worried it makes you.

Teenagers’ brains are still forming, their capacity for empathy is literally impaired. They are biologically designed to be selfish and to push boundaries. It can be an extremely painful time for everyone in the family! But it is nature at work, she is flexing her independence and she has to do this in order to become independent.

At the same time, maddeningly, she is very much still a child who needs her family as a soft place to fall.

The way through is communication and mutual respect. Easy to say, not easy to achieve.

In my experience the most important thing is to listen more than talk, listen, really listen when she talks to you. Hear her out. Let her see you taking her seriously, however ridiculous you may think she sounds.

Take your time before responding with absolute no. If your instinct is no, say you are not liking her idea, explain why (worry about homework or safety etc) then ask her for her ideas on this. She may surprise you by coming up with a plan to get her schoolwork done or a safety plan.

It won’t happen overnight, especially when there is a pattern of distrust and disrespect, but it is absolutely possible.

Well done for reaching out to other parents. I am in touch with all my teens’ friends’ parents. We all check in with each other about whereabouts and we have been each other’s biggest supports when one child has been in a vulnerable place.

Stop dictating and try having open discussions instead. Make rules together.
Why couldn’t she go out again?

My nearly 16 DD regularly tells me that she hates me, I’m embarrassing and offensive and fake and try to hard. It’s really difficult to hold my thumbs and stay calm (I don’t always manage) but at the same time she follows me around, asks my advice, tells me loads of stuff and is clearly still in need of her mum, despite her belief that she doesn’t need me and can do anything she likes - ‘you can’t stop me’. Honestly OP I feel
for you. It’s so hard. However, I really don’t think that taking things away is the answer. I still have control over her phone if I want to (I don’t generally use this
power) but literally the only thing that really stops her in her tracks is threatening to block Snapchat! I have to use this threat sparingly and only when in dire need! I try to remember that for all the bravado she’s still a child. I try to lead by example by being kind ( very hard at times) and I talk to her when she’s calm and try to get her to see things from another perspective (tricky as teenagers have no empathy it seems!).

I think the key thing here is that she initially asked you if she could go out, which is positive really. I don’t think I would have said no because after all it’s Saturday. I would have said ok but you’ll need to do your work tomorrow then. It’s harder said than done but try not to get into a cycle of removing/banning things because it doesn’t work and what then?

I wish you luck OP. Let’s hope we get though these years with our sanity and dignity intact and end up with fierce and passionate but also kind and
empathetic daughters in the end!

As hard as it is, don’t take it personally. Teens are going through huge changes and their brain is completely different. Their empathy paths are closed off and all they care about is fitting in. More important than their studies or future or parents. It is a very difficult stage but normal.

My 2 eldest had/have part time jobs and although they find/found it ok, they wouldn’t have wanted to do it full time for the rest of their lives. They now understand the importance of having qualifications so you have a choice in careers and not end up in a dead end boring job.

But maybe tonight you could have compromised. Said she can go out but you’ll pick her up so she gets a good night sleep and can catch up on her homework and next time to be better prepared so she can go out more.

But I can’t imagine any teen not being annoyed at missing out on a party on a Saturday night to stay home and study.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. I’m all for consequences too. You are doing your best. Parenting girls is definitely harder than boys imo. As you said once she’s home you can sit down and have a proper chat x

Phone EE/Vodaphone or whoever the contact is with and say the phone is lost please can they temporarily lock it until the device is found

She'll come back when it's not working!

Don't confiscate her phone, OP. If you're concerned she's getting in with a bad crowd, you want her to be able to make contact if she ever ends up getting out of her depth.

To be completely honest, I was her but worse and at a younger age. By her age I lived away from home.

I fully understand why your worried but go easy on her and yourself.

I hope you do get some rest tonight. Draw a line and start again tomorrow.