DD and family are asking me not to use mumsnet

[Minifingers]

My 13 year old DD has stalked me across mumsnet - logging on to my settings and searching my history to see what I've written about her. I've tried to cover my tracks by clearing my history and occasionally name changing, but she's seen quite a lot of what I've written. She is furious that I'm talking about her on an internet board and has asked me to stop. I have explained that I've had fantastic advice and support from this board which at times has been sanity-saving for me, and that it's all anonymous. No matter. She doesn't want me to talk about her here, or to phone parent line and discuss our problems there either.

She has support in this from my mother (who is 78, has never used the internet and doesn't understand how boards like this work) and from DH who I suspect feels pretty contemptuous about mn generally. I've not had one family member support me in seeing this board as useful support and advice.

Should add - I have been bought to the edge of despair by dd's behaviour over the last few years. I feel my life is very stressful - I have an autistic child as well as dd and there are times I have felt like I'm hanging on by my fingertips. The thought of not being able to get support or 'talk' to people outside of the family about what we are going through is very upsetting.

But is it wrong of me to carry on using this board if I know DD is accessing it, and if there's no way I can stop her from seeing my posts?

It's becoming a real issue, and dd has raised it with the psychiatrist she is seeing at CAMHS. She says that they have told her that it's wrong for me to write about my family on mumsnet. I doubt they've actually said this, but he may have acknowledged her feeling her privacy has been violated.

Wonder what you think?

Thank you. :) It is such a relief!

And that last paragraph of yours, starting "She doesn't want to do what she doesn't want to do"... I could have written that, exactly, a year or two ago.

You know I often wonder if what is at the heart of all this for dd is an absolute terror of growing up and saying goodbye to her childhood. She wants the trappings of growing up - more freedom (which is a bit of an illusion in many ways), but not to take responsibility for herself and to master her feelings and take charge of the direction her life is going in, which is the REAL work of growing up. When I think back on her childhood it was pretty charmed. We have a lovely extended family, she was the first grandchild on my side, and she was ADORED and spoiled rotten by my parents and siblings. She was healthy, bright, popular and so completely pretty and cute that she spent her life seeing admiration in other people's eyes. I have 100's of pictures of her looking like the happiest little girl in the world - her face was so animated, with huge, sparkling eyes full of life and good humour. She was the life and soul of family parties and ALWAYS up for a laugh. I was very, very proud of her as a little child. I'm still proud of her ability to enjoy herself now, her sense of humour, and how she engages with people in her charming way, if only it was balanced out by some attempt to start to move towards adulthood.

It is a real threat of physical violence, from two people,

Have you read this book? (I recommend it a lot but I'm not on commission, honest! )

It suggests that teenagers need to be foul to their parents as part of the emotional process of 'breaking free'. They need to convince themselves they don't need you, and that they'd be much better off without you, before they can leave you.

I think that's true. And it set me thinking that it might explain why some of the most horrible teenagers actually seemed to have had the closest childhood relationships with their mothers... They were closer, so they had further to travel, emotionally speaking, to feel separated and 'free', and had to work harder at creating distance and rejecting their parents...

Minifingers Tue 04-Jun-13 13:13:59
"You know I often wonder if what is at the heart of all this for dd is an absolute terror of growing up and saying goodbye to her childhood. She wants the trappings of growing up - more freedom (which is a bit of an illusion in many ways), but not to take responsibility for herself and to master her feelings and take charge of the direction her life is going in, which is the REAL work of growing up."

You know, that sounds rather plausible to me. So it is a kind of fear, but not the fear of actual real life circumstances. More perhaps the fear of being found inadequate.

I always remember the day we were turned down by CAMHS, and told my son didn't meet their 'threshold' for receiving support. Their main reason was that he and I had a "stronger than usual, positive relationship". But (I thought then, and I think now) where the fuck did that leave me?! Because it meant that DS1 dumped all of his shit on me, and I had absolutely no support to deal with it. :(

Flow - that book has been on my bookshelf for a long time and I've recommended it to loads of people. Was your son very close to you as a little boy? It worries me when I think about this in relation to my youngest, who is my right hand boy. We are very, very close indeed. Not sure whether I am so close to him because of his autism, which has made me extra protective, or whether it's because I find his personality - his complete and autonomous 'selfness', enchanting.

Cross posts flow!

Yes, I think schools and services for families see children like mine yours and basically think 'Oh they'll be all right' because they know that we will grind ourselves to dust trying to help them. The only reason we got a referral to CAMHS in the first place was because dd ate 5 of my thyroxine tablets in a fit of pique (then came up to me shouting 'I don't want to die!') while we were having an argument, and we had to go to A&E.

That's interesting, flow. And may well be true about the closest relationships.

I am new to this mini but I wanted to add my support. I know several people who were troubled teenagers who have gone on to live happy and constructive lives. Sometimes people dont find their passions or path in life until well after school. I know this doesnt help the now, but there is no need to give uo the future xx

Digressing slightly: I had a friend at uni who would regularly go up for exams (and they were oral exams making it even more painful!) on books he hadn't read. He was brilliant at his subject, in that he knew a lot, but terrified of failure. So to his twisted way of thinking failure wasn't so bad if he hadn't read the book because then it wasn't proof that he couldn't do the work, merely proof that he hadn't.

Could it be some similar way of thinking that drives some teenagers: if I don't get up and engage with the world nobody will see me making a mess of it.

'It is a real threat of physical violence, from two people,

'

See? See?
You've gorn and traumatised another one Fellatio. Another tender blossom trampled, another delicate soul squished. A fragmented flower flattened.
You have no shame.

You are making a lot of sense to me cory, that's exactly the way my DD is when she's lost the plot.

That, I decided, was exactly my DS's way of thinking too. :(

A friend of mine (a former psychi nurse and someone DS cares about) put an interesting extra perspective on it... She said that when people get afraid of failing, and allow this to stop them from trying, then they only experience the negative feelings - they never push through to feel the positive feelings that come after trying and succeeding. So they come to associate trying with feeling bad, and begin to avoid even trying. It becomes a downwards spiral. :(

Also, they never experience failure - only fear of failure - so they don't know that they'll survive and feel OK again afterwards - they just think they'll feel bad always - and of course because they never try, they always do feel bad, because they stay living with constant, low-level fear.

On the other hand, a person who has experienced and understands that trying leads to good feelings of success, achievement, praise, admiration, euphoria, etc. has the motivation to push on through the fear.

That all rings true to me.

My very able DS didn't have to try at anything until he was in y2: it all came entirely naturally to him. Plus of course he was my first child (and my only, for 5 years) so he had the 'benefit' of my undivided love and attention. With hindsight I wonder whether all the supportive, enabling, 'positive parenting' I did was actually a Good Thing, and whether I ought to have let him struggle more often, and fail, just to give him 'practice' for the bigger challenges of teenage (and adult) life.

But of course the 'what ifs' are pointless. We're all living with what is, now.

When was the last time your DD tried at something, mini, and discovered that she could survive the 'fear of failure' and move on to better emotions afterwards?

"Also, they never experience failure - only fear of failure - so they don't know that they'll survive and feel OK again afterwards - they just think they'll feel bad always - and of course because they never try, they always do feel bad, because they stay living with constant, low-level fear."

This is spot on!!! That's where dd was!!!

See, you doubters: this is why MN is important; this is why mini must be able to continue to use it... Between us, we all shift our understanding of what is going on for us and our teens, and learn, and deal with our own 'fear of failure' as mothers. No 'service' in the country can replicate this.

Not sure. She has a really good singing voice and loves singing but won't join any groups or choirs (since starting secondary). She hasn't got a massively strong voice or a huge range but she is incredibly tuneful and has great musicality. She enjoys singing but thinks that because she can't do all that R&B showboating like Beyonce that she 'can't sing'. It is true that she is frightened to try things. Such, such a shame. She also thinks that if you're not immediately brilliant at something then you can't do it. She has no experience of sticking at anything that she finds hard. I have not allowed this to happen with ds1. He is 9 and has been doing piano for 2 and a bit years. He's grade three. He often says "I can't do this!" When faced with a new and more challenging piece of music, but then he tries and if he keeps going he can get to grips with it. Such a good life lesson for him. He has also taken part in 2 music competitions, one which he won and one he didn't (trumped by an incredible Korean 5 year old girl!). Again - a great life lesson in taking risks and coping with success and failure.

A friend who was really worried about her DD in a way that is similar to the way you worry about yours ended up being the mother of an author. This was the last thing this particular mother thought would come of the stage of the journey they all took during the years of the book. Don't give up on your DD.

She is not the 'adorable' child she was when she was younger but don't be afraid of her process of growing up. Maybe try not to see any of this as a reflection of your own success or failure as a mother? Disinvest yourself from her outcome rather than disengage from her as a person going through turmoil.

(You can't help her by being a pushover though, and you need to stick to your guns where your right to support goes.)

mathanxiety Tue 04-Jun-13 15:50:11

"Disinvest yourself from her outcome rather than disengage from her as a person going through turmoil."

That is so wise I think I might cut it out and stick it on my wall somewhere.

I think part of the problem for those of us who are fairly conventional parents of troubled teens is that we keep comparing the outcomes to those of other people's teens who are not troubled.

Easily done. I am similar to my friend X in values and outlook and aspirations, so does it not follow that my child should be similar to X's child?

That way imho lies madness.

But that's why we need Mumsnet.

Just came across this thread and just wanted to hopefully encourage you with the story of the son of a close family friend who had an incredibly troubled adolescence.

Like your dd, he came from a loving, supportive family and for no apparent reason became impossible to deal with. He refused to go to school at all after the age of about 14, became involved in petty crime, was abusive and violent towards his parents and almost destroyed his family. After threatening his mother with a knife he had to go in to foster care for a period as they simply couldn't cope any more.

He's now in his mid-20s and in the last few years seems to have turned his life around. He's now started his own business which is thriving, has a long-term girlfriend and they have a daughter together and has a pretty good relationship with his parents. It's not all roses, but it's a million times better than we all feared.

I really think the suggestion that posting on MN is a problem because it's an invasion of the OP's dd's privacy is a red herring - she doesn't want the OP to phone Parentline either which is confidential! It's about controlling the OP, and in the same way that nobody would suggest a woman being abused by her partner shouldn't post to protect his privacy, I think it's outrageous to suggest that the OP shouldn't be able to ask for help on here. Just because she's a teenager doesn't mean it's not abuse.

Hi, minifingers, I'm thinking a bit more about what you said about her not wanting to try things.

This has been my main worry about ds, who is the same age as your dd. Not exactly a troubled teen- he Very little effort in school and nothing organised outside it. I've made endless suggestions- drama (for which he has a real talent), sport, music- nothing happens.

But in the last year or so we have seen a change in him anyway; a change that doesn't seem related to any plans we have made for him or any measures we have taken, but more about him growing up and bedoming more comfortable in his own body. His school reports are slightly more positive, he seems happier and more cheerful. He still isn't doing anything organised but he does go out with friends, and thinking it over I suppose there is no reason why that can't be equally valuable. I do believe one day he will find something that engages him, maybe work experience will help.

not sure if anyone suggested that - create separate account for her and you to us on PC at home, set your time out on your account to sleep within 1 min of inactivity to log you aout

set your browser to clear history and browse in private

those should not take long to set up by yourself or with a help of someone who understands PC's/laptops