So my DD disengaged from education at 16. The country we live in has mandatory education up to 18, and there was a lot of active input to try to get her back to school. My GP said to me that I need to make it so that either education or employment is better than being at home!
Right now, she can’t keep her bedroom tidy, we live in a relatively new house and she’s had mould growing on the (internal) walls and the inside of the windows (which I had to clean as she refused and at the end of the day, it’s my house that is being ruined). She doesn’t put rubbish in the bin, she doesn’t put clothes in for washing, she never changes her bed sheets, she doesn’t brush her teeth, she doesn’t shower. She says she can’t get a job or do a college course because she has anxiety, for which she is medicated, when she bothers to take the medication and she literally spends all day (and night) in her room, watching films, chatting to her friends or trying on outfits and doing make up.
A couple of months ago, I told her that I would take her devices away until her room was clean and she snuck out of the house, sent a text that she was in a “safe” place, said she didn’t feel safe at home and went off for a week, where we didn’t know where she was, so we left her to her own devices. She returned home, said that she owned her devices and that if we took them off her, then she would call the police as that’s theft. To which I said that we (her dad and I) paid for her SIM card, bought her the phone and laptop, paid for everything for her, including her clothes and the broadband she uses, and should we be calling the police for her essentially stealing our SIM card and broadband? I said this to show her how ridiculous she was being.
Since then, I’ve managed to get her to change her bed sheets once, help me change my bed and launder my bedlinens twice and she’s also done her brother’s bedding once (he works a 40 hour week, which would be 42.5 hours but he gets a 30 minute meal break, and he works shifts. He also pays keep, as we pay for everything for him, except his smokes and clothes). She averages once a week for vacuuming common areas and mopping floors. Twice a month for cleaning her bathroom. The only thing I absolutely insist she does is hanging out the washing to dry, emptying and refilling the dishwasher, feeding the cats twice a day, and cleaning the litter boxes.
Last week, she said she was going to stay the night with her friend - she came back late Monday night after a week away. She then asked why neither DH or I had contacted her and DH said that we had been here and she should have contacted us to let us know she was staying away so long. She did phone me on her way home, saying she had missed me and could I collect her from the train station! DH went.
She can’t cook, even though I try to get her to help me in the kitchen and she says that she has an eating disorder, which the psychologist she has started seeing for her anxiety, told her that she has. A couple of years ago, she was seeing a counsellor about her refusal to go to school, and at that time, she came home saying that the counsellor (who isn’t allowed to diagnose anything due to only having a 1 year certificate from college) said that she had PTSD and ADHD (which she has never been diagnosed with, and that no one else has said either). She is having an assessment done to see if she has an eating disorder.
She has gone through a stage where she refused to eat with the family, but then I caught her eating late at night (think 2 am) and also eating lots of junk food (getting her friends to order her Uber eats in the middle of the night), but she will tell the GP, for example, that she doesn’t eat as she’s not hungry, and has no appetite.
There is no bullying or anything in her past, in fact she was a very popular girl with lots of friends and she did very well at school, although to hear her now, she can’t add up 2+2, doesn’t know how many grams in kilo, etc., etc., and I told DH that I think she has weaponised incompetence because things she could perfectly well, she will now say that she can’t do, and never has been able to do.
Anyway, this morning (Tuesday, I’m a lot ahead of the UK), she comes and says to me that she thought that everything would fall apart without her here as she’s the glue that holds the family and house together. To which I just stared at her, in disbelief and shook my head!
Both DH and I have refused to give her money, or buy clothes, makeup, hair dye etc., for her, and we’ve said she either goes back to her job (which was a casual job but she was being trained in lots of different areas, such as cashing up, etc., and didn’t have to restock shelves or anything like that, so not strenuous), finds another full time job, or goes back to education and gets a qualification (if you drop out of school before the end of the school year where you turn 18, you don’t get a qualification at all).
So, my dear fellow parents, am I being unreasonable with my demands of daily dishwashing emptying/refilling, laundry hanging out and bringing in, and cat care?