MaryZ's support thread for parents of troubled teenagers

[MaryZcary]

I am starting this thread in the hope that it will become a safe space for those of us strugging with very challenging teenage behaviour.

I'm hoping that it will be a support thread, rather than descend as so many threads do into a "criticism of the parents". Those of us in this situation know that it is pretty much impossible to just "tell them to stop" or to "ground them", and taking away phones, money and gadgets leads to lying stealing and running away .

Sadly it seems cannabis is at the bottom of an awful lot of these children's problems, and I'm hoping we can talk about that here without having to defend ourselves against the "cannabis does no harm" brigade. So if anyone tries to turn it into an argument about whether cannabis is addictive or harmful, could you please just ignore them and hope they go away - or start another thread which I can hide where they can argue away happily.

Anyway, sign in if you are interested. I'll be back later.

[teapot5]

Confession - I used to be one of those parents who think 'not my DC. Those things (drugs, MH issue etc) won't happen'. I simply got puzzled, horrified and didn't know what to say when some of my friends had problems with their teens.

Merlott - I,too, feel ashamed from time to time. I think it's only natural. It's particularly hard when you are surrounded by people with high acheiving DCs (my situation is similar). But I'm beginning to accept and 'allow' me to have these feelings.

Flow said in another thread something really useful - this may not have been her exact word, but something like 'it's (when your DC is giving you a hard time i.e. abusive, violent ete, like a hurricane. Rather than trying to stop it think about how to survive it'. In extremely difficult situations with DD, I remember this (if I'm relatively calm) which helps a lot.

[flow4]

Wow, how wonderful that you remember that teapot! It was something a friend said to me, one of the first times I dared to 'confess' to having problems with DS1 (because I'd heard they'd had similar problems with their DD). He said "Difficult teens are like hurricanes. When a hurricane warning sounds, you don't think 'oh, how can I stop this hurricane?' - you batten down the hatches and make sure you and your loved ones are safe, and wait for the storm to pass". Wise man. And it has given me a lot of comfort, too :)

The idea that we should be able to 'make' our teens to go to school, or stay in at night (or do anything they don't want to do) is utterly ridiculous. The first time it happened I just failed: I grounded DS over something or other and he just laughed at me, picked up his shoes and climbed out of the window. :( But as I carried on trying, bad situations just got worse: each of the three times my DS lost control so badly that I had to call 999 were Monday mornings when I was trying to get him up for school. If I had that time again, I think maybe I'd have told the school how impossible it was; but I didn't want to be judged, or to feel like I was utterly powerless, so I kept trying to achieve the impossible :(

[brighterfuture]

I really like the hurricane analogy flow.. i'm going to remember that too.

[MaryZcary]

Welcome daisy

We need a variety of parents here, not just ones whose children are really awful, we need a few "pretty awful but not as bad as yours" too. The whole rainbow that is teenage life . You do need a "no violence under any circumstances" rule, though. It is one thing that I know I should have done earlier. Violence sort of crept in, I should have called the police earlier and made it an absolute no-no.

I agree we can't make them do anything, but the one thing we can do is stop them being violent against people. I can ignore the holes in walls, doors off hinges, but it was the day he attacked ds2 I realised that there was still, just about, a line I wasn't going to let him cross.

I think the hurricane analogy is very true. Life is much more peaceful since we went from actively fighting to waiting for him to grow up (which, touch wood, he seems to be doing very, very slowly).

[flow4]

I agree with you about the 'no violence' rule, Maryz. I also think it's linked to not being able to 'make' them... What I said to DS after I had had him arrested (the 3rd 999 call) was "I can't control you. You need to control yourself... And if you don't, I'm going to call in reinforcements".

[Ghouule]

"do damage limitation for the rest of the family"

This is a challenge in itself.

[teapot5]

Thank you for sharing your friend's wise words, Flow. It's been really helpful. Nothing as good as the hurricane analogy, but when I'm expecting a hard time with DD I say to myself 'fasten your seatbelt'. I know it seems a bit silly to smile to my own jokes, but at least this makes me relax a bit.

Yes, Mary, 'no violence allowed'. However in practical terms I'm still not sure how to effectively prevent or stop it. This is another difficult thing to admit for most people that you are scared of your own DCs. It is extremely distressing and intimidating when they are verbally (and/or physically) confrontational. When they are in such a state it's hard to remain calm, but I guess they (teem) themselves are scared of something and reacts like a scared dog barks. Also when they can sense the other person's fear the intimidation escalates.

[MaryZcary]

You have to call 999 teapot, you really do.

You will probably only have to do it once (I only did it once, after that he hit things not people).

Interestingly, Ghouule, I have found that my younger children are never upset as long as I am not. It doesn't seem to bother them too much what ds1 does or says - they just stay out of his way and are very clear in their belief that he is ill and troubled rather than deliberately violent (to them he is possibly mad, certainly sad, but never bad, to use the analogy). But the times they have seem me break down and cry, or be openly scared or emotionally involved have been the times that have upset and worried them.

Since I have decided to not get emotionally involved (or at least pretend I'm not) in his behaviour, they are much less affected by it.

[barbarianoftheuniverse]

signing in

[flow4]

You really do have to call 999, teapot. You probably can't prevent or stop it. I was very slow to accept this: it took at months and months of me being scared of DS. I suppose most of his violence had been directed towards walls and doors and other things, but there were also a couple of occasions when I had to 'fight him off' - one horrible one where he broke my necklace pulling it off my neck... But I 'tolerated' it, because it felt 'wrong' to call the police on my own child: it felt like failure, and I was afraid of being judged, and of social services being involved, and of what would happen to DS...

I had to do it more than once - but only three times. The third time I had him arrested, and he was warned for assault and criminal damage. It was a grim thing to do, and it made DS very angry with me for a while, but it was not as grim as the way we had been living. And he did not lose control and hurt me ever again - after more than a year of violence and abuse.

The police were really good, BTW. And said they get very many calls from parents with violent teens. I absolutely do not regret doing it.

[amillionyears]

merlottits, I hope you dont mind me asking something.
To be able to sit and start at a blank piece of paper for 1-2 hours, implies that he has a lot of willpower or something, I dont know what.
He appears to have a lot of inner resources of something.

Do you think that deep down he is very angry or upset or got a lot of teenage defiance against you or something.

Did he suddenly become like that,or chooses to mix with a different crowd nowadays?

Perhaps this thread is not really the place for me to post this.

[flow4]

It's an interesting question, I think. My DS would also be capable of sitting and staring at a blank bit of paper for 2 hours (although it's a long time since I could've 'made' him sit that long and not just climb out the window and go and do something else). Or doing 2 days' punishment in school because he argued about the first. Or going without pocket money for 3 months... Or any number of other 'avoidance' techniques that get him into more trouble, and take up more energy than the thing he's trying to avoid ...

I have sometimes wondered from the 'challenging teens' I know in real life whether they actually have extra energy and (as you say) 'inner resources', compared with other children - but are struggling to use them constructively within the relatively narrow worlds of school and home. My DS is the most difficult teenager I know; but he also has more bloody-minded determination, loyalty, sense of justice and potential heroism than any other teen I know. In dramatic crises of the house-burning-down, kittens-stuck-up-trees, child-falls-in-canal type, he is great... But of course we don't get major crises very often, and when we do, we don't generally ask teenagers to help... So he (and others like him) are left with a lot of unexpended energy, and therefore frustration.

Personally, I think a lot of the 'troubled teens' start out angry at how useless the world makes them feel, or bored out of their minds. Almost all of the ones I know who've gone really off track have then gone on to create further problems for themselves by smoking skunk and taking other drugs.

For me, one of the biggest frustrations of the past two years is that although I can see DS had all that potential, and that he really badly needs something to engage him, there is nothing I could do about it. By the time I worked out what would help, he was already alienated, so he wasn't volunteering for anything, and I can't 'make' him. I really feel I wouldn't have had all the problems I did have, if he could have left school at 14 and started work then, and 'headed off' his sense of uselessness... As it is, it feels like maybe (just maybe) he is growing up a bit and beginning to work it out for himself...

[xxDebstarxx]

Merlottis and Flow you are both so right. My eldest is so stubborn and can go days without speaking to people rather than do something he would rather not do. I've been told to take away his xbox, laptop and telly but I've tried that and he just sleeps instead. He sleeps for days and gets up in the night to get supplies so he can avoid speaking to me. It breaks my heart that my lovely little boy has changed so much. All I can do is let him know I love him and will keep him safe. He has suicidal thoughts and is supposed to be seen by CAMHS but after two appointments they seem to have forgotten about him despite my endless phone calls to remind them we exist!!!!

[DebbieTitsMcGee]

flow4 I totally agree about being allowed to leave school and work. I wanted to leave at 16 but parents said no, after A levels. Hated sixth form, waited till they went on holiday and quit.

At my Saturday job I was happy, occupied, useful. At school I felt patronised, bored and worthless.

Im hoping my DC will have out of school interests, will certainly do my best to encourage it.

[MaryZcary]

ds2 could also stare at paper for hours.

Hence the (finally) being assessed for ADHD - he is usually over-active, but when he zones out he listens to music in his head and can sit for hours doing that. It's his escape when he is in trouble in class.

ds1 could determinedly avoid doing any sort of schoolwork, but he was different.

I agree about being allowed to leave school. And it's even worse here, kids have to stay in academic schools until they are 18 - doing seven subjects including English, Irish, a European language and Maths - a nightmare for children with issues.

Added to which schools use banning of extracurricular activities as punishment for bad behaviour in class. ds1 gave up sport after being dropped from sports teams as a punishment for bad behaviour - before that he was an exceptionally good athlete, was fully occupied outside school hours and was physically fit and (more importantly) tired in the evenings, so slept well.

If they could leave school younger and either get physically exhausting jobs or move into things they are interested in, we might not get many of the disenchanted youths we seem to have nowadays .

And of course it is much harder to get them back into society once they have stepped off the treadmill than it would be to keep them there in the first place.

ds1 should have been allowed to leave school at 14 and work on a farm. Instead he deliberately got himself expelled at 15 and was out of proper education completely for two years, before going to a sort of training place for another two.

It's only now almost 4 years later that he has decided to go back to college.

[xxDebstarxx]

I hate the one size fits all education system we have. Not all kids are academic and those that aren't need to be able to focus on other abilities. I wish the school system could be changed to help non academic children flourish instead of flounder.

[MaryZcary]

Yes.

I think the English system is improving - your children can leave after GCSE's and go to various "colleges" can't they?

Here it's the equivalent of the whole lot of them having to do A-levels. Which is setting up a fair proportion of them to fail miserably. And if you know you have to spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week from the ages of 15 to 19 being an absolute failure where is the incentive to stay away from "escapes" such as alcohol, drugs, and the underclass of society with its antisocial behaviour.

And for some children it's not a huge step from there to addiction and criminal activities .

[xxDebstarxx]

Yes children can leave after GCSEs and go to colleges so that is far better than the system you have to suffer.

[Ghouule]

I was going to say what a great post this was
"flow4 Wed 31-Oct-12 08:12:25"
and then Mary posted and reinforced Flow's.
You both are so insightful. Thank you.

[daisydoodoo]

For me it seemed ds1's behaviour came about as reaction to being bullied. He'd alwasy been a quite popular boy, plenty of friends and good social life. In yr 8 he was bullied and badly let down by two people he thought were very good friends (a friend he'd had since primary school was setting him up o be beaten up, spreading rumours about him that were untrue).
He then formed another friendship with a boy new to the area who then somehow managed to exclude the both of hem from other people, but the other boy managed to maintain other friends, he then to set about destroying anything good that was said about ds1, we found out he'd been telling the local boy that everyone wants to stay on the good side of, that ds1 had been messaging his girlfriend and flirting with her. ds1 was then beaten up badly by this boy, while so called frined stood by and watched.
He seems to have victim written all over him and has been a target for bullies and users. Its horrible to see how this has changed him from a happy go lucky boy into someone who hits out at his family.
He won;t listen to me or his dad. He continually seeks out situations that he knows will end badly. Hes horrible to girls, he will have 2 or 3 girlfriends but not actually be a boyfriend if that makes sense, in that he rarely sees them, will send a few texts, calls, arrange to meet a few times but then stop texting/calling/fail to meet up when arranged.
He has short term friendships as well, someone will appear new to us and be with him every day, but then disapear as quickly as he appearred to be replaced by someone else.

I know this probably sounds trivial, but it really is worrying and impacts greatly on family life, you just never know what mood hes going to be in. He can;t be trusted to be in the house alone, he has no sense of value for money or respect for other peoples belongings or money, he steals from his brother, they have to share a room and he destroys ds2's property, will punch him when hes asleep nd wake him up or turn the tv on. Constant fighting with his borther both verbally and physically. ds2 is a big boy for his age and more like a 14/15 yr old in size than a 10 yr old, but even so its not on and i make this clear.

as others have said, taking away the tv/xbox/phone etc doesnt make a difference as he will happily lay on his bed for hours staring at the top bunk or go to sleep.

I guess im not so much worried about ds1 anymore but more about the effect its having on his younger iblings especially ds2 who is beginnign to diaply signs of the same disrespectful attitude of ds1.

Its so hard because on hi good days he is a totally different person. I just want him to be happy and concentrate on his school work and getting into college or a job that he wants to do rather than being so angry with the whole world now that it will screw up his life for ever.

[MaryZcary]

It is difficult to have to watch them being unhappy isn't it. Is there any possibility that your son is depressed? I don't suppose he is willing to talk to anyone about it [sigh].

I always say now that ds1 seems to be trying to live down to expectations - he seems to want to be the worst he can so that he can never be accused of trying and failing . He does the same with friends - there is a constantly changing group of "friends".

daisy, can you talk to your ds2 about it? I can talk to my younger children and express that I'm worried about ds1 and that I wish he wasn't so unhappy. They really don't want to be like him, so I'm lucky in that respect - even though every so often when I don't let ds2 do something he points out that at his age ds1 was drinking, taking drugs and running away for days on end. My reply is always "but you aren't and don't want to be like him", which is knows is true.

[daisydoodoo]

thank you Maryz you are wise woman in deed. Sat here at work crying now as i know you're right. I think there is a huge possibility that ds1 is depressed, he would never admit it in a million years to anyone, he refused the counselling at school and camhs.

I do talk to ds2, but think i need to make much more of an effort to tell him bluntly that if he doesnt as he claims he doesnt want to be like his older brother hen he needs to look at what hes doing and also let him know that im not happy woth ds1's behaviour and that i am worried about him and worried about ds2 as well.

I tried to talk to ds1 last night, to tell him that depsite our fighting (verbal) and constant aggro (his words) and that sometimes as much as i don;t like him very much that i do still love him and will always be there for him, i got a resounding fuck off

[MaryZcary]

You just have to keep trying.

The words do sink in, even if they are running away as you are talking, they really do.

Is there anyone at all who could talk him into a visit to the gp? Or a teenage advice centre of some kind?

I think depression in teens is a massively under-diagnosed and under-treated condition. It's all very well to say "we can't treat them if they won't come to us", but surely if they were refusing treatment for cancer they would be bollocked into it? Just because it's a mh issue, they are left to flounder.

[willwegetthrough]

Getting them to talk to someone is so hard. DD saw CAHMS and just wouldn't engage - rolled her eyes and was rude, putting on a "hard" front. She left the session and when I found her, she was sobbing, but immediately went on the defensive, blaming me for "setting her up for that". She is so angry with me all the time.

[gemblags1980]

Just wanted to add my support and best wishes, you are all doing an amazing job, don't forget to look after your selfs too best wishes Gemma x