To exclude one child from family holiday

[Mama1209]

I have a strained relationship with my eldest daughter. She basically lives with her grandparents. I try my hardest to make her feel loved, wanted & included. We have booked a summer holiday abroad this year. 6 of us in total so it’s not cheap. We have just been on a weekend break and she was a nightmare! Shouting and swearing calling me names in public etc. I don’t get it because she was really looking forward to it. It’s as soon as she doesn’t get her own way she kicks off. Now me and my husband will work hard all year to pay for this summer holiday and I don’t want her to ruin it for us and the other kids! AIBU to cancel her off? I feel like she would never forgive me and it would ruin any chance of building a stronger relationship so I’m torn!

She is completely dismissive of her daughter’s needs. Knowing grief is a million off understanding the full impact of her daughter’s early years.

Yep. That’s the sum total of her life.

I bet alot of kids would like to be neglected in this way.
The daughter didnt need to exclude herself from the family and be angry. She wants in her life an abusive dad whom she idolises because her mom is the 'bad cop' so it's easy to pin positive feelings to a dead person (who was not even a positive influence in her life). And people seem to be sayign it's OK to treat her mum like shit because trauma. It's not.

You are aware that letting kids do stuff because they want to is an example of neglect right?

her dad is dead. The fact that you’re berating her for that complex situation tells me all I need to know about your parenting.

I mean, the apple clearly doesnt fall far from the tree if this is how you model having a difficult conversation.

Your poor daughter.

Holidays are too expensive to be ruined by a stroppy teen! I wouldn't blame you for not taking her, as she has brought it on herself.

BUT, I obviously don't know this girl's side of things. How did things between you get so bad?

*Completey dismissive of her daughter's needs ...

Is that why she's taken her to doctors numerous times, taken her to therapy, included her in family holidays, engaged with school and college, not thrown her out, spends one on one time with her?

You are the one who is dismissive of OP's attempts.

Knowing grief is a million off understanding the full impact of her daughter’s early years.

Thats why OP has sought and continues to seek help!

People seek help when they're at a loss of where they're going wrong.
When what they've been doing isn't working.
When they feel they've tried everything.

People offering first hand experience, offering support and links to suitable places are helping.

Bashing OP isn't helping.

No parent is perfect and to have such disdain over her trying to get help says a lot about you.

I haven’t RTFT, but I agree with the posters saying that an open and honest chat with her is needed to set expectations. I would definitely not just leave her out of the trip as I don’t think she would ever forgive you for it. She is clearly still struggling with the death of her dad and the restructuring of her family. Also, at 17, her prefrontal cortex (the part of her brain responsible for things like impulse control and behavior management) is not fully operational yet. Her brain is still ‘under construction’, which does not excuse terrible behavior, but does go some way toward explaining why she has trouble controlling it.

I think this is a crucial time to communicate to her that 1) your love for her is absolutely unconditional, no matter what she is like, and 2) she is not a second class citizen in the family who is in danger of being jettisoned if/when she is difficult to be around. Bringing her along in spite of her behaviour will go a long way toward communicating these things.

Presumably she is aware that things deteriorated on this last trip, so maybe you could sit down with her to discuss what went wrong and how to avoid that on this big upcoming holiday. I would be very clear as well about what the consequences of a repeat of her behavior would be.

And your vile post berating OP who came to look for help and flogging the dead horse tells me all I need to know about you as a human being. Hope you felt better about yourself :)

My disdain of her is a direct response to the screaming disdain toward her daughter.

Vile is a bit dramatic.

You seem fixated on not helping.

@Otherstories2002

its not an overstatement to say your posts was vile. Why are you vilifying OP (who is also a victim of trauma) in this way? it’s odd

This was very similar to my life growing up so I hope I can give you some relevant advice.
My mum had me at 18 and then decided she wanted to go back to college so I lived with my grandparents from age 4. She met my step dad there and made an entirely new life for herself, she had two more children from when I was 8 onwards - my sister was even born the day after my birthday!
I always lived feeling that I was a terrible mistake - my mum celebrated my two other siblings - birthday parties, holidays, going to their sports matches etc
She never once attended any of my sports, arranged a birthday and in fact I found out that their 'adult only' holidays to Portugal each year were actually with my siblings - I presume she just didn't want me to come.
Not to say you are like any of the above but giving some context about my experience.
From this I would say that she is acting out of shame - no matter what you do right now she will feel like the unwanted one - whether you are good to her or not there are younger siblings who live with you and have a present father and it is unavoidable for her to feel like this. It is also a very hard situation for her to explain to people around her - friends, work colleagues etc
Being naughty will probably be the only thing she has that she has any control left over and it will mask her feelings of shame and being different which are trust me literally crippling - been there done it got the t-shirt on being naughty to cover the feelings inside.
It will naturally subside with age and the difference will be if she looks back and knows that you stuck with her through it all or not.
My advice - do everything you can now - take up a hobby together, write her letters to explain how much she means to you that she can keep and look back on later, take so many photos everywhere you go together, talk her up infront of the siblings - 'what would would do without her, she is so good at this etc'. This is important as otherwise the siblings will deem her as unworthy moving forward in life (been there too!) - the relationship between the siblings and her is hugely important as they are a bridge to you. For every naughty thing she does reply 'I love you' - because think how many times you casually say that to her siblings in day to day life and compare it to how much you say it her. Naturally it will be less as you don't live with her but you need to compensate / over compensate.

Literally smother her with love and try the best you can to make things entirely equal between her and the siblings. Let me know if I can give any other advice.

Has she always been like this?Have you looked into the possibility of her being neurodivergent? Does she have any other potential traits?
I'm only asking as we are currently getting our, much younger, son assessed and the short temper, mood swings, and meltdowns are the main reason.
I don't know your personal situation and it may just be that boundaries have never been set or she is upset because of the loss of her father. But if you feel you have always been consistent. Followed through with your threats and set consistent and regular boundaries and consequences and noting seems to work there is a possibility she has autism or another form of neurodivergency - it usually comes with an inability to fully understand consequence.

Exactly this!

Yes she’s pretty much always been like this and I’ve pushed and pushed for assessments. She herself researches and thinks she has some of these neuro diverse issues. Like I’ve said CHALMS and her GP have been useless we were only there again last week as she was feeling tired a lot (turns out low iron) and I was saying to GP she’s very fussy with food only likes nuggets and beige type foods. They don’t care.

Thank you for this. I’m so sorry your bum treat you like that! I was only 19 when I had her and have been to uni etc but always had her live with me then and gave her and my son as much attention as I could during that time. I would never leave her out like that and do praise her and tell her I love her all the time so with what you have said I hope she does look back and see how I may not have been perfect but I did try my best every day. We do have albums full of trips. For eg when my son was born, for her 6th birthday I took her to Disney just me and her, the year after lego land just us 2. People on this thread will have you believe I never see her lol but that’s simply not true.

Thanks I have done a lot of reading around the brain development of teens as I’d been trying to convince myself things would get better as she got older and in a way they actually have so fingers crossed that’s part of it and we will get a better relationship in the future.

Thanks so much for this! I know I’m not perfect far from it but I do try every single day and it’s not been easy

You said her creaming at you was because she said you always take your sons side. Is there any truth to this?

I'm sorry to hear this. It's an uphill battle unless you are a very severe case. They are extremely underfunded.
If it is high-functioning autism you are pretty much left to your own devices.
If you do feel like this could be the case there are Facebook pages you can join where parents share their experiences and help each other out. I've found these very useful.
A self-funded assessment costs in the region of 2-3k so relatively prohibitive.
Try looking into specific types of therapy that may help and look into pushing to get them on the NHS or self-fund them if you can. Plenty out there on the net but it's a shame there isn't any more funding.

There have been an awful lot of harsh and condemnatory comments aimed at the poor OP on this thread probably from perfect parents who never make any mistakes🙄
14-17 are awful ages for many teenage girl parents, my own were bloody awful! I can absolutely see how the eldest daughter has moved in with grandparents and at the same time while I can see and hear the heart break from the OP I can also see a young girl who is in a mess with her mental health.
I heard that you have accessed counselling for her but I wonder if it was long enough or specific enough and maybe some family therapy might help?
You said that you had already met your new partner and had children by the time her father died, but I am guessing this didn't make it any less that she felt replaced. From her perspective her parents separated (DV brings its own trauma to children) you met a new partner (absolutely your right) so then she felt pushed out and new siblings compounded the feeling of being ousted and replaced. I fully get that you have tried all you can think of to reassure her but it sounds like she still harbours anger and insecurity. Not including her in a holiday will confirm to her that she is the difficult child and make her feel further alienated. I can also see that you need to protect the wellbeing of her younger siblings and that being exposed to anger and swearing will be distressing for them. I wonder if a big family holiday with all its heightened expectations, new unfamiliar environment and language issues of a foreign country is such a great idea? Could you maybe start a bit smaller with a UK break (that doesn't involve other friends) and concentrating on just building family bonding then work outwards to a bigger event? It sounds like the weekend ended badly because of expectations of behaviour and her being over whelmed I also wonder if the friends were other parents with younger children rather than those with teenagers so she felt further “othered”?

I wouldn’t have tolerated that! I’d have told her there and then that she’d lost her place on the family holiday in the summer and driven off and left her there!! (Assuming you were trying to get her in the car at the place you were renting?)… but no she wouldn’t come on holiday with me again till she’d learnt some manners!

I personally think she needs more attention from you not less. If she's bereaved she may be struggling internally and possibly she needs to feel like she matters to you. her lashing out when she doesn't get her own way could be her almost testing that you still love her unconditionally. Maybe try to spend some one on one time with her and see how that goes.