A complete failure and heart broken

[Emjxxx]

My DD is nearly 15. Her behaviour over the last couple of years has got increasingly worse and has now got so bad that she is no longer living at home and I have a planning meeting with SS tomorrow. I feel like i have failed her so badly and i am completely heart broken with the situation that we are now in.

Realistically and logically I know that we have done everything we can as a family to help and support our DD but my heart is breaking.

My DD is very abusive and aggressive. She calls me all sorts of horrendous names, belittles me and degrades me. She's not been going to school and has already missed so many exams that she is failing most of her GCSE's. Shes out drinking and smoking cannabis and most nights we have had the police out looking for her because she just doesn't come home. She lies about everything and says the most awful things just to get a reaction from people, she even went round telling people i was dying of cancer. She steals from us (about £400 in the last year) and is horrible to and hurts her little brother who is only 7. For the last 4 weeks now we have had intervention from SS and the ISS team and they have been fantastic and very supportive, but unfortunately they have been unable to get through to DD and all their offers of help and support have been refused by her. Her school is not the best, but again they have been very good and have offered her a lot of one on one support to try and catch her back up so that she may have a chance of achieving some GCSE's, but she is point blank refusing to go to school. Shes is on the waiting list to see a professional counsellor from CAMH which i feel is desperately needed and can't come quick enough.

I can no longer cope with her and the situation that all her choices and decisions put us in, the impact on what she is doing on the family is awful and she fails to see it. it has made me so ill that for weeks now most nights i am up having panic attacks and feel like i am heading towards a complete break down. She walked out the house last week refusing to go to school and refusing to come home because she did not want to tidy her room!. That was 6 days ago and i have not seen her since. She is staying with a girl who is nearly 18 and who she has known for about 3 weeks. SS have been to see her and have said that she is now likely to go into care and tbh, I'm re-leaved but at the same time feel such a failure. :(

It's the same thing, he will have unrestricted access to her BY THEIR AUTHORITY. State this point often in a stuck-record-stylee.

As for the police, who gives a shit if they are reluctant. It's their job, make them do it.

Keep on making a huge fuss, you can do this.

I feel so sorry for you. Try to keep calm.

You have been let down by the SS and police, but can you talk to the boyfriend and/or his sister? As they aren't the ones with the hormones at the moment, maybe they will be reasonable? Go round to the house (if possible with one of your daughter's friends) and explain that it is illegal. You don't necessarily have to threaten to call the police, but once they realise they are committing an offence - and the bf could be put on the sex offenders' register - they might persuade her to go home.

But I think you do need to stay level-headed, calm and reasonable and talk to her as if she is an adult and you are just discussing the options open to her. Be prepared to give way on some things?

Even if she doesn't come back with you there and then, in a day or two when she looks back, she might just be touched that you care so much about her that you came round to try to persuade her to come home.

Apologies if I am way off the mark. I don't have any direct experience, and maybe it shows ...

Good luck anyway.

Thanks KatieScarlett, getting little ones in bed and will be making call to police. Staying calm firm and focused.

Solopower, if i thought that speaking with these people would help in anyway then i would do it, but the older boy is a drug user and although he is meant to be an adult he is still a teen aged boy thinking out his pants! Plus this family is very well known as a bad family and the SS team manager was very concerned when it was brought to her attention that my DD was involved with this family as they have had dealings with them for many years, this is why i'm so shocked the service manager turned the placement need down. This family are really not good and approaching them could also be putting me and the rest of my family in danger. My DD really has put herself in a very dangerous situation. I'm out of mind with worry.

I was told never to contact the abusers family directly too for all of the above reasons.

OK. Really hope the police do something to help you this time.

You need to keep on at SS to fulfill their duty to your daughter, especially as she is underage. The police should surely understand that the boy she is sleeping with is committing an offence, the sex can't be consensual when she is only 14. I think the broken record technique works, it seems you only get somewhere with SS by being a pain in the arse.
Trouble is the situation needs you to be strong just when you are at your weakest and completely ground down by it all. There 's some good advice here, and I hope that reading my thread will make you feel less alone, there seems to be a lot of us in the same position. Thinking of you x

Thinking of you Emjxxx

If they are staying with a family then don't ss have to do an assessment after 28 days?

Going through similiar here

Hi, sorry to butt in, I hope you don't mind.

I was a lost teenager, out of control, off the rails and in dangerous situations.

I was blamed by my family and rejected. The reason I was out of control was because I'd been sexually abused. I'm not saying your DD has, just there might be a horrible cause to her behaviour. CAMHS needs to help her.

Please don't reject her, do everything to let her know you love her and are there for her even if she rejects you. Please keep loving her.

Oh Emj, what a nightmare. Hang on in there.

It is incredibly hard when kids are old enough that you can't 'make them' do anything, but too young and immature to make themselves :(

I don't know whether it helps to know this (I hope so), but when SS say they're not arranging a placement, this is their acknowledgement that they are pretty much as powerless as you. They don't "think it's OK", any more than you do; but once they decide that you are a competent parent - that the problems with your daughter are not 'your fault' - then they know that if you can't 'make her', neither can they.

So if your daughter is happy where she is and has no desire to go into a placement, SS are very unlikely to try to force her. They theoretically have the power to recommend a secure placement for your daughter if they consider that she is a risk to herself and can't be safeguarded in a non-secure placement; but they have to go to court to get one, and they will weigh up the 'pros' and 'cons'. It really comes down to whether the risks to her are so great that she needs to be 'locked up for her own safety' :( You probably don't want this anyway.

The issue of her sleeping with an older boyfriend is different. If he was under 18, SS and the police would be very unwilling to prosecute him.. He is 18, but they may still be unwilling to prosecute unless your daughter wants to make a complaint, because (horribly true I'm afraid) they'd be unlikely to get a conviction. BUT if you make a complaint, both police and SS should take action to safeguard your daughter, which could include arresting him, arresting his sister if she is allowing them to have sex in her house, or removing her.

When things last went pear-shaped with my son, about 5 weeks ago (he smashed things up, I had him arrested, I wouldn't let him home while he was still angry, I didn't know where he was for several days) I realised that when teens go 'off the rails' like this, as a parent you find yourself in impossible situations. Totally impossible. There isn't any way to 'do the right thing' - you just have to work out what the 'least worst thing' is.

And you really, really, really need to find some ways of being kind to yourself, comforting yourself, doing something nice - to help you cope with the horrible stuff that is going on Good luck :)

Olympia2012 - I don't have a clue, although she hasn't yet stayed in the same place for longer than 3 weeks.

CoffeeAhorlicksAnonymous - Thank you for your post my DD is meant to be having her first initial assessment with CAMHS on the 15th of this month, but what with her not being at home i don't even know if shes going to go, or if SS will make sure that she gets there! I Love her with all my heart and soul and what is happening is completely breaking me. I will always always love her, no matter what. I'm not blaming her for anything and desperately want to get her the help that she needs, but at the same time I have 2 other smaller children to look after and her actions and behaviour have been seriously affecting them. I pray that nothing like what happened to you has happened to my little girl. I feel that she is depressed and she has issues with bingie eating, she is deeply sad and unhappy and is a very angry young lady.

Flow4 Thanks for your post and yes it does help to know that, thank you. I had DD arrested last year when she had not long turned 14 because she completely and utterly smashed her room up and assaulted me. It was horrendous. I think you are right trying to decide on which is the "least worst thing" is the way we seem to be living our lives at the moment.

I'm so so sorry to hear that, I understand you have other responsibilities and her depression and binge eating are problems you can't sort without help.

I hope CAMHS and SS do do something, she can be helped, she just needs the right services to kick in and help her. Depression and eating disorders will twist her view of reality, she won't mean to cause the hurt she does and with the right help she can turn around.

My heart goes out to you, your DD and the rest of your family. I hope you get help, x

Any developments, Emj? How are things today?

Well haven't got anything sorted and am being left hanging! There really seems to be nothing that I can do at the moment. I spoke with the police who wouldn't do anything as they where told by SS that SS knew where my DD was staying and that at the moment an assessment was being made and until that assessment has been done DD "is where she is" and DD still doesn't want to come home. I spoke with SS today and they seemed more concerned with her getting back to school and meeting with the EWO then they were about where she is staying. They said that they are having to do another assessment because of her moving to another address and that they felt it best to wait until DD's SW is back off holiday next week before they begin doing anything for consistency reasons. I just want DD to be placed somewhere safe and appropriate and then hopefully we can begin to work on getting her back home. Shes got her first initial CAMHS assessment appointment on Tuesday, whos going to make sure that she goes? If she doesn't go she loses her place and won't be offered another, she needs this help so badly!

It really is extraordinary that the police can't/won't do anything. Does the SW come back before Tuesday? Will she be able to make sure your daughter goes to the assessment?

Getting her back to school will be an important step because at least that gets her out of her bf's flat and in among her friends who might be able to talk some sense into her?

I can't imagine what you must be going through. I hope you have some good friends who can give you some support.

Oh Emj

I can't add to the great advice you've had here. I must admit I found the police and SS useless. I was pretty much told that they won't do much unless the girl is 13 or under. In the light of a recent court case you'd think they'd have a change of heart...

But the main reason I'm posting is that I wanted to give another glimmer of hope. My horrendous DD is now loving, mature, delightful and wise beyond her years (and very remorseful about that period in her life).

Never give up hope x

Oh emj :( I wrote you a long response last night, but fell asleep doing it, and it has vanished! It was basically about needing to come to terms with being powerless, in order to stay sane. It has certainly been my experience that I've had to recognise that I no longer have control over my son, tho I do still have influence. Ironically, when I backed off trying to 'control' my son at all, and didn't even contact him for 4 days, that was when he finally realised he actually wanted to live at home and was prepared to accept some rules to do so.

It's harder for you, cos your daughter is 15 not 17. But even so, the more you can 'let go', the easier it will be.

I'm not suggesting you duck your responsibilities as a parent, but I am suggesting that when you have a child who's fighting to be 'free', the way you exercise that responsibility is, and has to be, totally different. You stop being the person who 'carries' them and prevents them from making mistakes, and you start being someone who advises them and then picks up the pieces when they don't listen ... Or something like that... I think...

One thing I found helpful myself when I was trying to work out what to do, was to sort out and separate in my head which bits of my son's behaviour I would accept if he was 18-19-20, and which I wouldn't tolerate whatever his age... Then focus my efforts on the latter. I didn't think he was old enough to do X, Y and Z... But he did, and ultimately I realised there was no way to stop him. On the other hand, some other bits of his behaviour - like smashing things - are intolerable to me whatever his age, so I have drawn a line (had him arrested once and told him I will throw him out if he ever does it again).

Sorry, I don't know if that makes sense... Hope so!

Hi tall, mine is too (thank God)

Just waved her off to sit her first higher exam this morning. 3 years ago she was not going to school at all.

Emjxxx Can you do something nice for yourself over the weekend?

I wish Mumsnet let me 'Like' some of these posts, like FB does :) It's so good to hear about teens growing up and out of this nightmare stage!

Hi, Sorry to hear that you are having such a terrible time. My daughter was exactly the same, but went to school everyday and caused havoc!

Anyway, we managed to keep her at home only because we just let her do her own thing more or less. It was a bloody nightmare but it managed to work for us. The only crunch point came really when I discovered that she was using that Meow Meow drug almost daily and was making her paranoid and very sick. I told her that if she made me choose between her and her younger sibs then I would choose them as she was ruining the family. She broke down and we turned a corner.

She is 18 now, no gcse's, self esteem issues, but still alive and managing to get to college. She can even be civil and cook a sunday lunch now and again. Keep the faith.

On another note. SS have a duty under the CHildren Act to provide accommodation for children like your daughter. Legally they have to take her into care if she is at risk and you are not able to care for her. Get some legal advice as soon as possible.

Good luck