Teenager Schhol Avoidance

[TiredParent999]

Seeking Advice from Parents Who Have Experienced Similar Challenges with Their Teenage Daughter
Hi everyone,
I'm a father of a 15-year-old daughter, and I'm reaching out because my wife and I are going through a very challenging and sad phase with her. I'm looking for genuine advice from parents who have experienced similar situations and successfully helped their teenagers.
My daughter is a bright girl, but over the past couple of years, we have noticed several behavioural and emotional challenges that seem to be affecting her everyday life, particularly her education, confidence and relationship with family.
Some of the things we are struggling with:

1. School avoidance: She is increasingly reluctant to attend school. She seems worried about facing friends, friendship issues and social situations. She sometimes avoids school rather than dealing with uncomfortable situations.She stopped going school for small small reasons for past two weeks and now thats becoming an issue at home and with school.
2. Low self-esteem and appearance: She is extremely conscious about her looks and beauty. Despite constant reassurance, she often feels she isn't good-looking enough and seems to depend heavily on external validation.
3. Social acceptance and relationships: She gives a lot of importance to what friends think, social media attention, relationships and being noticed by others. Having a boyfriend also seems to have become an important part of how she views herself.
4. Emotional reactions: Small issues can turn into major arguments. When we try to give advice, set boundaries or correct something, she can become extremely defensive, angry, scream or cry. Sometimes she even hits herself during emotional outbursts.After the episodes she says she takes on us as she think we are safe targets.
5. Difficulty accepting parental guidance: Anything we say seems to be taken negatively. She often argues, challenges our decisions and refuses to follow suggestions, even when they are intended to help her.
6. Inconsistency: She may listen and agree when speaking to a psychologist or counsellor, but once she comes home, she doesn't seem to implement any of the strategies suggested, such as breathing exercises or CBT techniques.
7. Family relationship: We love her enormously and want to support her, but sometimes we feel she takes our love and efforts for granted. We are finding it increasingly difficult to communicate without arguments.

We have already started seeking professional psychological support, and she has been experiencing social anxiety, generalised anxiety and depression. We understand that recovery takes time, and we are committed to supporting her. My questions to parents who have been through similar experiences:

• Have you experienced school refusal, social anxiety and emotional outbursts with your teenagers?
• How did you help them rebuild self-confidence and stop depending on external validation?
• How did you get them to take responsibility for their actions without constant arguments?
• What worked when they refused to follow advice or practise the techniques suggested by psychologists?
• How did you establish boundaries without damaging your relationship with them?
• Most importantly, did things genuinely improve as they grew older? What made the difference?

I'm not looking for ways to control or punish my daughter. I want to understand her, help her develop emotional maturity, self-respect, confidence and responsibility, and most importantly, see her happy and healthy. As parents, we sometimes feel helpless and emotionally exhausted. We love our children more than anything, but it is heartbreaking to watch them struggle and feel that we cannot reach them. Please share your real-life experiences, what worked, what didn't work, and any advice you can offer. Even small suggestions would mean a lot. Thank you.

This sounds very difficult for you.
i don’t have a teenage daughter, but I’ve taught thousands of teenagers and have a teenage son.

Here are my thoughts, they’re blunt, feel free to disregard:

1. School attendance unless vomiting or fever. No other reasons to stay off. Allowing absence for minor reasons amplifies/confirms the perceived threat. The reality won’t be anything like as bad as the anxiety.
2. Get her off social media. All social media. Children do not need it.
3. Again, get her off social media. Including WhatsApp. Friends can text or call, though you should restrict this to sensible hours, protecting her sleep.
4. The reaction is part of the growth. It’s distressing for all involved, but it’s part of the process. Let her let it out, don’t try to engage while shes in the storm. Offer a peace offering (snack, drink etc) once it passes.
5. Shes a teenager, this is standard. Hold your boundaries. She can dislike them but call out rudeness.
6. Again, she’s a teenager. What she can rationalise when she’s calm is different to what she can implement when she’s distressed. Keep going.
7. Shes a teenager. She’s not going to exude gratitude. Yet. Though she might well be grateful for your loving boundaries when she’s old enough to understand and reflect on these years.

I recommend the book: What Your Teen Is Trying To Tell You, by Stella O’Malley.

Teenagers, particularly girls, are in a storm of hormones, brain development, and increasing social pressures via social media (even second hand from others’ social media use).

Setting sensible boundaries around technology use, school attendance and communication isn’t controlling, it’s responsible parenting.

But you need to look after yourselves to look after her.
Read the book, it’s good.

And she needs clubs/groups: real people in real life, get her out of her head and into her body. Sports, horses, walking/hiking, running, skateboarding, cycling, yoga, weightlifting.

Something physical and ideally outside. The emphasis on the joy of movement (and being outside in nature), of the mental health benefits of physical movement.

if this isn’t something you model as parents perhaps this is something you could explore together

We’re going through some of these issues currently. We’re working out where the needed boundaries are and where we can give more flexibility. So, school is always non negotiable bar serious illness. However, we allow her not to do other things if they seem to overwhelming to her.

re: not following advice, many grown adults don’t follow advice- everything to stopping smoking when it’s affecting health to not seeking medical support for mental health issues. To some extent I think people have to work some of this out for themselves and this is particularly hard for teenagers who have brains still developing. We try to gently support on this.

Things that have helped- keeping channels of communication open, not being overly judgemental, having an outside activity (a sport in our case) having a non parent adult to speak to sometimes, and working with the school so they understand what’s going on for her. Also finding things for her to do which get her out of the house and don’t focus on looks etc.

Also remember that she will also be feeling helpless and emotionally exhausted. She may be struggling to understand what is going on for her. I would decide what is non negotiable- school, politeness etc and try to work with the rest

Hi , It does not feel like a normal teenage behaviour.

She reacts extreme , crys alot , screams alot .

She is avouding school now for more than 2 weeks as she is not ready to face her peers and imagines they think about her talk about her alot.

She is a beautiful girl and still thinks she is ugly.

She takes on perents all the frustatiins and makes us feel emotionally drained aswell.

We are taking help but the session is once a week and seems like far far from the crisis we are having .

Any other thoughts or suggestions that might help pls welcome.