Need help with Teenage DD

[doneinmum]

My DD is 16. She's doing well at school, predicted to get 5 A's at higher this year. Our problems are at home, her default mode is to lie. We started to unravel just before christmas. My husband was tidying her room, with her permission and found her building society book. She'd been given £2,400 from my parents, to go towards university. She had spend £2,100 in 3 months. When we confronted her, she said it was her money and she could spend it how she wanted! We also found a half empty bottle of Vodka in a drawer, which she insisted was her friends and she doesn't drink. We have in the last 5 months found out that this is untrue and that she regularly goes out drinking at the weekend. She has lied about lots of other things, too long to mention. She has a boyfriend, who she's known for 4 years but they only became an item in September last year. She regularly stays overnight at his house, but we won't let him stay overnight here. She knows this but continually asks, which ineveitably causes angst, when we say no. Things have been worse in the last couple of weeks. She works part time in a shop, and told me when I picked her up after a friday shift that her boss was going to try and get her 9 hour shift changed for the following day, so that she could study for her higher exam. I intially didn't think much of this, but after dropping her off at boyfriends house and driving home, it began to make less and less sense. I phoned her and told her I didn't believe a word of it and thought she planned to phone in sick. She, of course denied this, and said she couldn't understand why I didn't trust her! The following morning I phoned her work first thing, she was meant to be working. I phoned her bf house and told his mum I was coming to take her to work. When I arrived I was invited in, sat in the kitchen and his Mum came in and tore a shred off me. Telling me she wasn't going to let me drag my DD crying and screaming from her house. I've never dragged my DD crying and screaming anywhere! What was my problem, she's a straight A student, did I want her working in a shop for the rest of her life etc. I felt like i'd been beaten to death. Needless to say she didn't go to work, she phoned in sick. We discussed things but DD says his mum was just defending her. This weekend we had a nice peaceful time and we'd arranged to hold off Sunday dinner till she got home from work so we could all eat together. We also have a 6yr old DD. When I went to get her from work, she got to the car and asked if it was ok if she went out for dinner with workmates! Needless to say I let her know I wasn't happy. She txt me later to ask if she could stay at bf. I said no, we wanted her home, because she had Maths higher next day. She turned up at the house, driven there by bf family, collected her stuff and despite being told again by her dad and me why we didn't want her to go, she went anyway! Yesterday, I txt her midmorning to say good luck with exam and ask when she was coming home. She never replied, so early afternoon I phoned her. She said she was going to bf for dinner, I lost it and told her not to come home. I know my timing was terrible and I shouldn't have said it! She stayed there again last night. She has agreed to meet me for lunch today and come home after, but i'm scared witless of what i'm going to say. I've since found out that it wasn't workmates that she went to dinner with, but his family. I feel she just constantly lies to us to get what she feels she wants, and me, my DH and other DD are never given a second thought by her. Sorry if this is rambling nonsense, but I'm at the end of my tether and need help desperately.
Thanks

You probably don't want to hear this,but tbh it sounds as though your dd is trying to get some space between her and her family which is normal.

Thank you for your response. I'm open to hearing whatever people want to post, otherwise i'd have been a little daft to post in the first place. You're possibly right, but it doesn't stop it hurting. When you've had 15 years of closeness and suddenly it's gone, you're left wondering where you went wrong and how you can avoid making the same mistakes with DD2. Especially when you're not 100% sure what these mistakes were. The thing is when things are good, they're great, but when they're bad, they're awful.

Hi, I'm sorry you're having a tricky time with your dd and I can't offer anything worthwhile but I do sympathise. What do you think she is telling the BF's Mum to cause her to be so rude to you,the BF's Mum's attitude sounds appalling and I'd be livid if I was spoken to like regarding my own child.I think I would be speaking to her and finding out what has been said.In the mean time keep up the contact, try not to get angry and hopefully she'll come back.Hope things improve.

Thanks Sugarice. I was livid, but also stunned into silence, which was possibly a good thing. I have thought about trying to find out what she has been told. Unfortunately I worry that dd will be angry if I approach the Mum and our relationship is so shaky that I'm not sure it's worth it. DD and I were meant to be meeting for lunch, but she has cried off to revise for exam, fair enough. DD2 and I are going to pick DD1 up from school and go for coffee. Hopefully having DD2 there will take the pressure off a little. She's told me she's coming home with us, so that's good. DH says we need to back off in order that she doesn't see our house as a horrific place and bf's house as some sort of sanctuary. I'm really struggling with the backing off thing, even though I absolutely know where he's coming from.

Poor you and your dh. Isn't it horrible when kids reach this age and make decisions that we hate. On the drinking thing, our ds1 started to go out with friends to parties at their houses on weekends aged about 16 and I know alcohol was consumed and it seemed the girls drink harder stuff in large amounts and usually vodka by the sounds of it, it seems unusual if they don't drink to be honest. We ended up letting him have Carling lager [quite low alcohol content] in a four pack as otherwise we had no idea what he might end up drinking if we didn't reach a compromise. It's hard to know what to do with the lying thing, has she said what she spent £2,100 on?

The £2,100 went on stuff and going out! The drinking was a big shock, because she always told us about her friends getting drunk, vomiting etc, but insisted she didn't and we never saw any evidence that she was. She admitted it in the last few weeks, and we have since found another empty bottle of vodka, she insists was her friends. We also found a half empty bottle of Morgan's spiced. Which DH insisted I pour down the sink. When she got home she was fit to be tied, because she had got the rum from bf and he had paid for it and wanted the remainder back! I'm almost laughing now, because when i read it back i think you couldn't make this stuff up! Apparently his Mum had bought the rum, with his money! The lying thing is the worst, because it's got to the point where if what she says doesn't make sense, then I immediately start looking for evidence that she's lying. To be honest for a clever girl her lies are very transparent!
I have offered to buy her alcohol to take out, not pure spirits as such, but bacardi breezers or something, but her reply is, I don't want you to do that, because I know it goes against your principles.

My ds2 is 15 in July and I just know he's going to give me trouble this summer. He has drunk alcohol [last summer] and lied about it but he is so bad at lying I don't know why he even bothers. I asked him if any of his friends smoked and he automatically said "no don't be daft" but when dh asked him straight after me he couldn't keep it up and revealed his two best friends did! I'm sure a Mum who has been through this will be able to offer something more constructive than me. ! Hope the afternoon goes well, stay calm and smile through if she's stroppy[ smile]