13 year old dd staying out after school - how would you deal with this?

[Shagmundfreud]

Dd in question very angry and oppositional - has been referred to CAMHS. Her latest thing is deliberately making herself late for school every day and stopping out afterwards without permission - she doesn't phone to say where she is and we don't have a clue. Last night she didn't come home until 6.55. I was on the verge of phoning the police.

She didn't have her phone - it's not working and on her current behaviour (we have had 4 months of regular battles about her refusing to hand the phone over at 10pm every night so she can get some sleep without being pinged in the early hours) I'm not sure she's going to be getting it back. Even when she does have it she doesn't answer if she knows I'm going to tell her to come home, or she uses it to try to harass me into allowing her to go to go to the houses of people I often don't know, phoning me a dozen times (literally) after I've said 'come home' to argue as to why she should be allowed to stay out.

How would you deal with the disappearing act after school? We've already phoned the police once this month - she got up at 5am after a row the previous evening and just took off. We got up at 6.30 and she wasn't in her bed. We ended up calling the police. Turned out she'd wandered around a bit before heading off to my mums. She missed school on that day. She also missed school on Monday this week - refused to go.

I can't talk to her at all. She hates me. Her whole raisin d'être at the moment is to hurt me and defy me.

hi, didnt want to read and run, but i have no advice that seems to work. been going through a horrid time with my 14 dd for last 12 months and my dd is the same staying out after school the only thing that seems to work pratically for me is she knows that she HAS to be in for curfew or the police are rang. also camhs are good, also look at maryz thread on here loads of brill advice, hope you sort it soon :)

Working on the principle of keep em on their toes - how about reversing your stand?

You - "are you going to flo's tonight after school? That's fine, just be back by 6.30. You'll have to sort your own supper though cos the rest of us will have eaten"

Walk off, keep busy.

Maybe if you give her some responsibility for her actions, she will feel she has been treated like the grown up SHE feels she is.

Little steps

I think I'd probably go with watchingout's suggestion. We are doing something similar with our nearly 13yo- he knows that he has a 7 o'clock curfew and as long as he keeps that things will be pleasant, but that if he slips up on that everything will be withdrawn. We've only had to ground him the once since we decided to sit down and discuss the rules. I've found with this age group a little bit of freedom and responsibility goes a long way.

I wouldn't do an all out ban of anything as this will just encourage her to disobey. I would suggest telling her that if she insists on being independant she can be, but that means doing her own washing, etc, cooking if you can trust her in the kitchen. She'll soon learn that she needs to compromise with you.