Think DD has just destroyed relationship with DH her dad. Final straw.

[Facefacts]

After a long rocky period with DD 17, I thought things were getting better. Again, tonight, DD determined to get her own way. Wanted boyfriend to come over we said no as I had to be away all day and overnight, husband had to leave later as working away. So after I left mid afternoon she has massive argument with poor DH who is already having counselling (partly from previous rocky period as well as other things). She is so unsympathetic and uncaring and verbally very attacking. DH in pieces, DD just continued attack. And flounced off to boyfriends saying would be back for 11. Just arriving back now. Refused lift back and DH couldn't face scene if just went to fetch her. He now has two hour drive and has to be up early. He's broken and I'm fuming with her. She has a brilliant social life. Saw boyfriend 2 or 3 times in week. Nightclub Friday and friend stayed over Saturday. Don't know how this is going to go but we have been on edge of throwing her out before for stunts like this. Is this what we have to do to save DH from total breakdown. When she decides she is doing something there is no compromise, no care of the impact on others. It seems the more understanding and caring we are the more she takes. Someone please give me a plan to change this before she throws away a lovely home and family.

get your family to a counsellor specialising in family issues

Any advice on how to find a good one? Genuine question; some of this could be useful for (ahem) more than one family reading this.

(Can I lend you our kitten, Facefacts? Thrusting the Emergency Kitten into the arms of whoever is currently having the meltdown is my only genuinely useful tactic.)

*No kittens were harmed in the making of this post.

Please do not dismiss the opinions of the people on this thread who may not have experience of being the parent in this situation. Some of us have grown up in households with a similar dynamic, and that is valid experience of the situation, and gives an insight into a different viewpoint.

I may not have been there as the parent, but I was there as the daughter. I am now a parent myself, and I can bring the two together.

LizKeen - agree - I should have expanded to say experience of this type of situation

mathanxiety and others have offered excellent advice, but OP won't listen to anyone who suggests that she and her husband have been anything other than perfect, blameless victims in all of this. She still insists on demonising her daughter for displaying the exact same behaviour as the father. Or even just for having a talk in which she asks for things and craves attention. Teenagers asking for stuff and wanting attention from parents. Is that really so heinous?

Maryz advice is excellent, because she's essentially telling the OP not to escalate situations, but I don't think OP properly realises that this means not blaming the daughter for everything and taking some personal responsibility for the situation. The only advice OP seems to like is family mediation, which could be great, but I'm not convinced she realises that this means properly listening to the daughter and perhaps accepting that there is another, valid version of events. People often like to go for counselling because they think it's an opportunity to talk about their own side of things and claim they've done their best... and don't realise it's supposed to be a proper two-way channel of communication through an objective third party. If the family goes to mediation, will OP and the husband listen - honestly listen - when the daughter tells them why she's so unhappy?

And so many people making so much of this supposed 'violence'! There has been one reference to breaking a door - sounds likely to me that she slammed it in a strop. Obviously that can't go ignored, but is it really a physical threat to another person? My father banged on and on about how I destroyed property in the house when I accidentally broke an armchair that was 25 years old, split, dipped and worn.

And of course, OP explicitly blames her daughter as a partial cause for a trauma condition which is more commonly associated with war zones and sex crimes. I mean, seriously?

I think the amazing thing is that the daughter is actually still asking permission for anything, talking to her parents and sharing her plans with her parents so they can even express their inevitable disapproval. But then again, OP did actually admit at one point that things are fine a lot of the time. So...what?

Parenting a violent child is one thing. Parenting being the operative word.

Parenting is genuinely desiring to help your child. Not holding their mistakes against them for years. Not privileging a parent's experience of a situation over the child's and choosing to view the parent as more vulnerable.

Not coming down hard on children because it so help a parent's mental health, but because it is the right thing for the child. Not losing your temper and failing to consider how that, or any number of traumatic family events and adult mental health issues, could have affected the child.

Parenting is not about attributing blame and deciding who owes who more. Parenting is owing your child a everything you can give them in the way if a healthy relationship, first and foremost. It's not about threatening to abandon your child if they're not grateful enough, or about blaming them for situations not of their choosing.

It's not about making discipline decisions on the basis of what will keep your marriage apart. It's not about remembering a child of twelve and writing them off as 'always a stubborn, willful teen' who therefore cannot have been influenced by subsequent events, presumably because they were bad to start with.

It's not about only accepting your child as good if they are grateful and extra thoughtful and generally perfect. It's not about thinking about your child in terms of 'I'll never forgive them.. Look what they've done to me'. It's not about losing your temper but thinking the relevant bit is that the child lost theirs. Not about overlooking everything a kid did right to focus on the one thing they got wrong.

Not about trying to define a child and your relationship with them by the worst moments, simply because your marriage/mental health is in trouble. Not about refusing to get professional help because you're not prepared to go to that trouble, yet quite happy to take time to slag the child off to anyone who will agree she is awful.

I would have sympathy for you OP if you weren't so very good at self pity. What you need is empathy for your child and a large helping of parental responsibility.

Unfortunately when children don't behave in a way you want, all you can do us alter your own behaviour. For that I agree with maryz and others.

I do feel for you op, but children don't always turn out how you'd like or expect.

from our own situation, I'd say it is indeed true you get more flies with honey. Also I'd only ask for stuff that will matter in the long term, don't sweat the small stuff!

And like others have said, you can't retrospectively say look what I've done for you this week...as she didn't know it would need a payment back.

She does sound like a typical teen.

Your dh sounds like he is not a coper.

I would back right off and concentrate on enjoying my own life with dh to be honest.

Yet to read the last two pages but wanted to say that I think you should find a joint interest/hobby and spend nice time with your DD. That way you can aim to be together and have a positive focus. Be it cycling together, films, games, walking etc. Can you block out some weekly time together?

And I agree, you just have to concentrate on your behaviour rather then hers.

OP your DH is nt coping with life in genera so your DD is deprived of the support of two parents at a time when she needs it most. Can you try to take your DH out of the picture if his contribution is counterproductive at this time for all concerned? Can you look for it not to be her vs "us" - can you find the focus, strength and energy to parent / mother her one to one for the forseeable - she was a perfect child - her behaviour has only gone downhill in the last few years - your job is nearly done - it is the last lap - please try to find some compassion and focus to get her through the last bit. My son was the same - my natural reaction was to square up and enforce boundaries - but it does not work with difficult teens - there is another way - your DH may not have the capacity for it - but I am sure you can dig deep and find the compassion and one to one relationship that will support and pull her through. I had a spineless husband in the picture who could not parent with me shoulder to shoulder sue his own neurosis ... So I sought advice of those who walked this path, took it - did it alone - even when DH did not support me (calling the police) - it was a hard and lonely place in RL - but experienced MNers told me what to do - it worked - son is fabulous now - respects me - DH not so much. I wish you well.

I was a teenage scapegoat... I'm over 50 now, parents dead, still can't understand how it happened. I recognise myself in the young woman being discussed.
Parents with lovely, clever, popular daughters who seem to change into monsters at puberty could ask themselves, has she really changed much? Or is it my perception of her that has changed?
My parents separated (briefly) when I was 17. First I knew of it they appeared at my bedroom door the night before, said my dad was leaving the next day, and it was my fault. They blamed me for many things I had never done but I didn't see that one coming.
I did not cause my parents' marriage to hit the rocks. I doubt a 17 year old can be held partly responsible for a parent's mental health condition.
However, I can't say I know best. Who knows how other families operate. We only have our own experience to draw from.

"She has a bit of history though for using this to try and make me feel sorry for her as reasons why she can't do something, or has to do something I don't want her to do. I can end up feeling manipulated and pressured when I'm just trying to be understanding."

This is horrible. You can't offer your support to her just when you like what you are hearing. That isn't how parenting works. You don't just get the good bits. If she's opening up to you with something that may seem major to her, and you dismiss it because it isn't a big deal to you, what message is that sending her about the support she can get from her parents?

As for your comment about them being lovely when they were younger... that's what this is all about really, isn't it? They are now not fulfilling the roles that your DH wants in his perfect unit. With his comments on the other thread combined with these, do you really think you are in a healthy relationship right now? Because you're not. And so the children are not having healthy relationships demonstrated to them. You go on and on about how vulnerable your DH's mental state is, yet seem to have completely forgotten that you are responsible for forming those of your children. If you are constantly sending your daughter messages about how she is responsible for his illness, how you are only there for her when you like what you are hearing, how do you expect her to react?

If by 'being there' you mean having had a child who has hit the wall/exhibited troubled behaviour, then many parents have been there. And it's not necessarily the ones who have been through the worst of it that have the most to offer.

A bit like talking to sufferers of depression if you also have the condition. There are ways in which it's helpful and reassuring to hear that others are also there and share some strategies for coping/improving. But it would not be helpful to only listen to people in this group. Listening to the perspectives of people without depression is also important. Hearing what life looks like from that 'well' perspective is a reminder of the new normal that you're trying to get to, and may also offer strategies for maintaining that 'normal' (not saying this is always the case because depression is obviously a complex condition with lots of factors contributing to it). It can shed light on blinkered thought processes that may have seemed perfectly functional until contrasted with someone who is not suffering in that way.

While parents of very troubled kids may understand the temptations better, it is very important that parents who are just ordinary come on and say 'hold on, parents don't hold their children responsible for things they did when they were 12 and they do have a responsibility to seek professional help for the family when it is appropriate. Because this is not normal, neither the parenting nor the child's frustration levels nor the way you're choosing to discuss this child now'. It's a wake up call and one that has been invited by the OP, insofar as she has sought opinions from other parents in general.

I suggest that a family counselor could be accessed through BACP though quite honestly, an emergency kitten sounds much more fun.

sleeponeday I KNEW 'How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk' would be one of your three, it is brilliant.

I was also the family scapegoat. I was just unhappy at home.

OP if you can do anything, please decide to accept her as she is and treasure her

Lots of comments are incredibly rude and clearly unhelpful, seem to take pleasure in just being mean but it is wrapped up in concern for the OP's dd.

It almost looks to me like some posters are just reading a totally different post. Anything positive the op says is viewed with suspicion. It's total crap and totally unfair too. I am sure the OP can do more but I also think people are just extrapolating from what is written and assuming their own story! People have said things like OP is not supportive. How do you know she is not supportive, or has not been amazingly supportive in the face of very bad behaviour. It's all very well saying step back and ignore, and sometimes that is right, but sometimes not.

LyndaNotLinda no one is attempting to diagnose anything. Your comment is very silly, we are suggesting real conditions that affect real children, including some children we know or parent. No one is attempting to diagnose the Op's DD!

However, many people here are attempting to diagnose the OP and her DH based on the amount she has revealed here. Just stop it! Offer support or help, or criticism, but stop layering on your own experiences and assuming that because it was this way for you it must be this way for the OP's dd, it may be, it may not be. I feel sure you cannot tell from the little revealed here exactly what the full story is.

We are no more capable of diagnosing PDA or ODD or ASD than we are of diagnosing a brain tumour or liver disease. Just stop it.

Firstly, talking of things people need to "just stop", I would say comparing autism with brain tumours and liver disease would come high on the list. Difference has benefits as well as deficits.

And while I agree that online diagnoses are destructive, whether that be insisting parents are sociopathic or that kids are neurodiverse, I've not seen anyone do the latter - did I miss it? I've seen people with autistic children suggest it is worth exploring as an option, alongside the OP and her husband seeking help for the family dynamic. It's impossible for anyone here to know what underlies this situation, but given ASD has a strong genetic basis, and the OP has one diagnosed child, and girls are massively under-identified due to different presentation, I don't really understand your issue with posters suggesting she should talk to professionals about the situation? I mean, it doesn't actually matter what is causing this. What matters is that the family, including the DD, have appropriate help and support in moving forward more constructively.

Personally I think she may be impacted by being the sibling of a child on the spectrum. It's not easy, especially if the autistic sibling hasn't had good support, and acts in a very tempestuous and controlling way as a result, and the parents have focused on that child, and lost management of everyone's emotions and the needs of their neurotypical kid. But again, I can't know if that is remotely relevant. It may have no application at all.

What I do know: it is always necessary, when situations reach the point described in the OP, for families to learn ways of managing their relationship with their kids more constructively. Which is harder when they are very explosive - whether due to autism, or unfortunate family dynamics, or just situational stresses. Nobody here has a clue what is causing the problems here. All any of us can know is that professional help is clearly needed.

Not sure how anyone thinks attacking the parents will improve matters, either. If there is a fucked up dynamic and they are the creators and perpetrators of that, as several posters believe, then they still need help if their daughter is to be helped. That's axiomatic.

To be fair Italian, there is definitely a tendency on mn to diagnose troubled teenagers. I think a lot of people think that such a teenager must have some sort of SN, and if you could only just discover what it was you could manage them better. Most of them, though, are suffering from the condition of "not having grown up yet" and they need their parents to calmly mark time until they do.

I do agree with that. But I also think that for whatever reasons, the family situation is fraught, and they need support. Whether that's because the parents are finding normal adolescence very hard, or because she has an unsupported issue, or because she has had a very tough childhood and it is now coming out, nobody knows (including the OP, I would say) but there is support that could help in all, any or none of those situations, and the girl in question needs it to be accessed, so she in turn can be better understood.

I agree with Maryz wrt 'violence'. To clarify what I posted I would only call police if incidents were repeated, or threats made and then carried out. A once off teen makes full restitution. Door slamming is small potatoes imo. I have one DD who slams doors once a month, predictable as a cuckoo clock.

Marchate reading that made me so angry for you. That's absolutely fucking outrageous.