DD's diary - "I miss my HOY's attention" what???

[Clipstroo]

Hi, DD is 16 and left her diary out. It's not like I went sneaking around for it.

One sentence that really stood out was "I miss my HOY's attention" and HOY means Head Of Year. She was very close to her Head Of Year, due to there being some behavioural issues/self-harm and she was always very patient. But I do provide DD with lots of attention, I'm here for her. I'd do anything for her. I don't see how she can miss the attention from her - what does that even mean? DD has now left school and is doing an apprenticeship which has less emotional support so I get that, but I'm here for her and emotional support isn't exactly 'attention'.

That's very odd phrasing.

"I really miss Mrs. X's help"
"I wish Msr X was here"
"I wish Msr X was here to help me"
"I wish Msr X hadn't left"
"I wish I was still at school with Msr X"
"I fancy the arse off Mrs X"
"I want to marry Msr X and have her babies"

All perfectly normal phrasings.

"I miss the attention" is not. Whilst suspecting this is a GF thread (amongst many others scattergunning over the last day or so) did the diary really say that? Did it go on to say something about you not giving her attention?

All very odd.

But obvs, you shouldn't have read it anyway.

I have read dd's, when she was about 9. I wouldn't read it now because she needs to know she can trust me and have secrets.

MrsJayy it appears the advice is "don't betray your daughter's trust, don't take away one of her healthy coping mechanisms and don't make it all about you".

The sentence doesn't necessarily mean anything - it could just be bad phrasing.

It's clear your DD needs your support and violating her privacy is NOT supportive. Don't read her diary again - that's a really shitty thing to do! If you have concerns, talk to her, don't spy on her!

Just a bit of support and advice for an OP who has a child who is self harming and could possibly be suicidal, might be more constructive, than a flaming.

I think the point has made several times about not reading a diary!

Wow DPs are super paranoid on this thread.

What's the difference between that and everyone insisting we have our children's device passwords so we can check up on them? Genuinely puzzled.

You have your children's passwords to remind them that how they conduct themselves online will be monitored and checked, on the understanding that having social media accounts is a privilege and they have a responsibility to behave appropriately with their friends, not engage with strangers and treat others as they would like to be treated.

A diary is private, a place to vent, to express their innermost thoughts and feelings, especially the things that they feel unable or unwilling to share with the rest of the world. The two are worlds apart.

OP, stop making this all about you. You have no entitlement to demand to be your daughter's only source of emotional support. She was well within her rights to talk to her HOY, and to miss that now.

Isn't it normal to want the attention/validation/interest/input of different people as we grow up, and in different situations: parents, siblings (if we admire them), peers, boyfriends, mentors of different kinds, teachers (again if we admire them), colleagues? Who wants to feel unseen by everybody except their mum? The phrasing may be a little clumsy, but what the girl described seems a perfectly normal thing to me. We are flock animals and designed to function within a flock, in a series of different interactions.

I am 53. During the last week I have benefited from the attention of my husband, my daughter, my HoD, my elderly parents (over the phone) and a colleague from the other end of the country who has just heard over the grapevine that I have made some progress in my field. Each has contributed something different that, say, my husband could not have done on his own. If he went into a sulk because he clearly wasn't giving me "the correct" attention if I still needed to feel seen by those other people, I would feel he didn't understand me at all.

OP thought 'missing attention' might equal her dd's behaviour was attention seeking. A common misconception, even from professionals.

She's young and she's struggling emotionally from what you say. I imagine it's very likely just clumsy phrasing.

She likely means that she misses having someone in her school environment to talk to, someone to confide in during a school day when things get too much. Often when kids are struggling they don't WANT to tell their parents because they worry that their parents will panic too much. A relationship with someone who is supporting them can be very special and very intense. Just because she says attention it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. It could simply mean she misses someone taking the time to find her and ask how she is, to talk to her and comfort her DURING the school day. That's attention in my book.

My DD got a lot of support at primary school from a TA with councelling training. I know she misses it now she's at high school. She has had some support from the pastoral team at high school but she misses that close relationship she had with her TA. I imagine she might say she misses the attention because she doesn't really know a better way to phrase it.

It's also not meaning you aren't doing your job right. She is allowed to miss someone else who was very important to her, supportive of her and who helped her through a very rough time.

It is easy to dismiss 'attention seeking' behaviour without looking carefully at the reasons a child might be seeking that attention.

And OP you are VVVVVU

If you have concerns, talk to her, don't spy on her!

Gawd all these holier than thou DMs all paranoid about the DDs secret lives.
I remember my DD climbing out of her bedroom window after lights out - fortunately I found out by spying on her.
I also remember all the stuff I didn't tell my DM, lying by omission.
If you don't want your diary read by others do not leave it lying about open.

Are you my mother, Mistress?

I was brought up by a mother like this - always blamed me for her actions.

Always violated my boundaries, always blamed, always made everything about her.

As a result I ended up in a string of controlling abusive relationships s because that kind of behaviour was 'normal' to me and have spent the whole of my adult life blaming myself for other people's actions.

Maisie - you hid things from your parents, your DD hid things from you, her DC will probably do the same to her some day. It's a normal part of development and to suggest that someone be afforded the basic courtesy of not reading their diary is hardly holier than thou, it's just manners!

And she may well have left her diary laying around, as she wanted it to be read. She may have wanted to alert her parent to how she was feeling, without having to broach the subject verbally. Diary is either here nor there.

OP if you have concerns for your dd's emotional well being, please visit your GP.

MistressMaisie Thu 12-Jan-17 09:05:34
"I would say you have a duty to find out what you can about the thoughts of a DD who is self harming.
No wonder it is so common if poor troubled teens are left to sink or swim, they are teens not adults."

Have you ever got treatment for a suicidal teen? And if so, did not this involve long sessions with a therapist where you, the parent, were made to wait in the corridor and while your teen opened up to a relative stranger?

Ime experienced MH professionals recognise that the way to healing and safety for troubled teens is to lead them to recognise that they have the support of the adults around them but that they are in charge of their own wellbeing. And this won't happen if they are given the impression that their parents are completely in charge and that they can only be safe through being kept safe.

Yes, you need to know if your teen is unhappy. Yes, you need to make sure they know they can always confide in you and that nothing will be too bad for them to tell you. But you also need to know that the object of the exercise is to teach them to handle things on their own and partly by making decisions about who to ask for help at any individual time.

Very sensible insightful post from Helena above.

Maybe DD left it out intentionally. You don't have to be a mastermind to know that leaving a diary open at a page in a common area will limit your expectations of privacy. If my 13yo left a diary out *shrug. The real problem is that nothing in a diary means anything out of context. I have old diaries from when I was a child and they're unrecognisable nonsense now. I wouldn't worry too much op

'One experienced MH professionals recognise that the way to healing and safety for troubled teens is to lead them to recognise that they have the support of the adults around them but that they are in charge of their own wellbeing. And this won't happen if they are given the impression that their parents are completely in charge and that they can only be safe through being kept safe'

Don't totally agree with this. This might be the end outcome, AFTER therapy. However the first step in any suicidal teen, is a safety plan and it's the parents responsibility to ensure their child's safety.

Even if we concede that the diary was a cry for help, I still think the OP needs to recognise that her dd is not just her dd: she is a person who has to function in a number of different roles in a number of different settings and will need different types of support and attention by different people in those different settings.

As a parent you are not a substitute for the specific type of attention given by a best friend or a drama teacher or therapist, any more than they are a substitute for the attention given by you.

My dh is lovely and supporting in all sorts of ways, but he can't stand in for my HoD when it comes to recognition of the way I function in the workplace or the difficulties I might meet there. It doesn't mean the attention given by the HoD is more "correct" or more valued than that given by dh; it's just a different part of the jigsaw. Nothing for anyone to get upset over.

viv you are right I agree with you but when you have a child with mental health difficulties you feel lost and dont always know what to do for the best and sometimes you can make mistakes, I wish i had mumsnet when 1 of my children had problems at 14/15 I would have been on here asking for help too.

Given that this is now appearing in the "Trending" box, I would think about how she would feel if this ends up in a newspaper.

Reading a diary is one thing. Reading it, posting it on a public forum for strangers to analyse and then ending up in a newspaper is a whole different level of intrusion. She may not be identifiable but that doesn't mean she'd consent to her diary going quite so public.

Agree with PPs who have said leaving it out may have been intentional. I would have had a flick through too if it was left in communal family space.

user1483945709 Thu 12-Jan-17 09:44:55
"'One experienced MH professionals recognise that the way to healing and safety for troubled teens is to lead them to recognise that they have the support of the adults around them but that they are in charge of their own wellbeing. And this won't happen if they are given the impression that their parents are completely in charge and that they can only be safe through being kept safe'

Don't totally agree with this. This might be the end outcome, AFTER therapy. However the first step in any suicidal teen, is a safety plan and it's the parents responsibility to ensure their child's safety."

What the Crisis team explained to me (while we were still in hospital) was that the safest way of ensuring dd's safety would be to get her to understand from the outset that she was the one who could own her situation and that it was all right to open up to professionals about things she might not feel she could say to me. Those talks started before she had even got out of bed.

Unless the child is ill enough to be sectioned on a secure ward, you really, really cannot keep her from attempting suicide simply by watching her: sooner or later you do need to sleep or do a dump and it only takes a minute to take a life.

Most children feel a need to spare their parents at least some of their thoughts (the kind of thing they won't put on FB or in a text either), but sometimes in that situation it can really, really help for them to be able to verbalise even those thoughts to a diary or a non-involved adult who isn't going to feel criticised by them.

totally agree with this:

"OP, stop making this all about you. You have no entitlement to demand to be your daughter's only source of emotional support. She was well within her rights to talk to her HOY, and to miss that now."

everyone needs a support network, nobody can be "everything" to anyone else.

It's wonderful that she had support and attention from the HoY