I'm done

[CouthyMow]

DD school refused this morning. First she refused to give DS1 back his iPod that he had kindly lent to her yesterday because hers is broken.

I insisted she give it back. She then decided

Couthy, I don't think that you are in the least passive in this situation btw. But you are at the end of your tether .

I have no real advice for you but the only thing I will say is please read and take note of Maryz posts...

And I definitely agree that her dad doesn't get to have a say in any punishments that go on in your house...

Take care of yourself OP

Oh jeez couthy just reading through this and how awful for you.

In response to your questions about is it her or is it her difficulties - answer is probably both. I have a nt 14 yo and although we are now getting on (too?) well for a couple of years she we had complete melt downs now and then when she didn't get her own way (difference being she wouldn't smash and break things but there were doors slammed to the point I threatened to remove the door from her room before she did damage it). Hormones are awful at that age. And couple that with a functional age of 10-11 and she's not able to process things even when she has calmed down.

One thing that jumps out at me which no one has mentioned is her sexual activity if she is functioning at a cognitive age of 10-11 and I think you should raise this with Ss as well. She is very much in a vulnerable position where she could be easily taken advantage of.

Right now though, the best thing for everyone is to defuse this situation somehow because it is jsut escalating and you are going to make yourself I'll with it.

As for your DS, have you tried explaining to him that he isn't treated in the same way his 3 yo brother is, so he shouldn't be expecting to be treated in the same way his older sister is, and that fairness is about making sure everyone has the rules the need to keep them safe, which changes as you get older? It's a bit of an advanced concept but if you point out things he can do that the 3 yo isn't allowed to he might grasp it.

Good luck to you x

I've tried explaining to him. But he sees it as that he has done his time of being 3yo, and he isn't treated the SAME as DD, but he IS treated the same as DD was when she WAS that age. And unfortunately, he does remember what rules she had at 11yo. PITA.

I've always followed up on any rules that my DC's dad's have set out - we co parent and if one of their dad's has said that X will happen if they do Y, then X does happen.

In return, they do the same at theirs.

I don't feel I can undermine her dad by giving the phone back before she speaks to him - all she has to do is TALK on the phone, yet she won't.

He's not stupidly strict, he just wants her to talk to him, or her SM, as sometimes she opens up more to her SM and her SM can get to the bottom of what drives her behaviour at that time IYSWIM.

So talking to her dad / SM before she gets the phone back is partly to help as she might be able to get to the bottom of it.

The sexual activity - I know she's not EMOTIONALLY ready, but she WANTS to be the same as her friends. It wasn't so bad when she was in the long term relationship, he didn't push it, he was younger than her, they both chatted to me about it together, about how to protect themselves of they took that step etc.

It's far more of a worry now she's going out with anything with a pulse. And I can't guarantee that she is looking after herself in the same way.

I don't think going against the rules you agreed with her dad is Thr way to go tbh.

I'm sorry if my suggestions didn't help, it's a far more complicated issue than I have faced (so far anyway).

My worry with Thr sexual activity is that there is a situation there where she needs protecting, it's one thing in an 18 month relationship but if she's being effectively passed round now and we are talking nt 17 year old boys potentially I find that very worrying.

Sorry to suggest this but there couldn't have been an incident related to that which has helped kick her off? She sounds very low, as if she isn't valuing anything right now, her body, her possesionsm her education, her family - I know it comes over as its all about her but she sound like she's screaming for some type of help.

Thing is though, making sure it doesn't impact on the littlers. Not easy at all.

No, by her fb messages (yes, I HAVE read them, but she doesn't know that I have. She knows I CAN, not that I HAVE IYSWIM), it's all through choice. SHE is often the one suggesting it tbf to the boys.

And as she can appear NT, in a group, what 16-17yo boy is going to turn it down if it's offered to them on a plate?!

It's not that she is being passed round, more that SHE is passing herself around. But all her 'new friends' do the same. One of them is only just 14, in Y9, almost 2 full years younger than DD - and her mum is well aware.

This is the group of teenagers that NOBODY wants their DC's to hang around with - one of the girls got expelled from DD's school in Y9 for beating a girl on the school field so severely the girl was in ICU. She was tagged for 6 months after, and moved to the PRU.

At the time, DD was fucking horrified. Yet now DD is mates with her and hangs around with her.

The boys all have multiple convictions for assault, minor cannabis related drugs charges - no, she ISN'T smoking weed, I used to myself and would smell it on her - criminal damage convictions...

This has all happened since a) her very BFF dying from leukaemia when she was meant to be in remission, and b) her being ousted from her other BFF's by this new girl.

Now DD has only one friend from her own school, who also hangs around with this shitty crowd. The rest come from about 5 different schools and the PRU, and the local College.

Everyone knows bloody everyone in this town - it's like living in a village, but with the population of a city. (It's only not a city because of the fact it would lose the Britain's oldest recorded town thingy, but it's a city in all but name).

Six degrees of separation doesn't cover it here - it's more like two degrees of separation!

There's about 9 Secondaries here, ranging from 700 pupils each at the two Grammars to an average of 1,600 at the Comps. And she has friends that are the 'bad kids' from every damn one.

And I KNOW she is needing help - but I can't access any meaningful help, and she won't bloody TALK. No matter whether I go in and try to hug her (she's NOT a hugger), or sit on her bed and ask her gently if she needs to talk to me, I've told her I'm always ready to listen if she needs to talk about anything worrying her or upsetting her, and she always used to. It's only been since around September / October that she stopped talking to me.

Another thought - hs she had specialised bereavement counselling?

You've been brilliant at pinpointing the flash points that have made her react like this, are you able to work through her thought processes to see what it is she is trying to achieve with her behaviour? She's certainly engaging in a lot of risk taking behaviours and as I said that tends to point to not valuing yourself very much.

Sometimes I think Maryz is spot on and you need to just let them go for everyone's sake but I'm not so sure that you completely can with a 15 yo with her type of problems.

Been thinking about the 11 yo as well, does he have a friends parent who would reinforce that his peer group has similar boundaries to him. That's worked with my kids sometimes. So then the focus on fairness moves from parity with the older sibling to parity ?ith his friends (ones who are appropriately parented!)

Meanwhile is there any way for you to get a break this weekend? Even for an hour or two?

And I can absolutely see how hard you are trying and how much you are in pieces, that comment up there about being passive or whatever is complete crap.

She used to talk to me about anything, we're a very open family.

I know it's not working, MaryZ.

She's in her room listening to Eminem at the moment. Not banging, music loud but not loud enough to cause an issue.

It'll be later when she's meant to go on this bloody date and she's meant to be grounded that it'll kick off again.

Do I let her go? DS1 will see that as carte Blanche to ignore my rules. Because she is.

If I let her go, how do I stop DS1 from leaving whenever HE wants?!

DS2 has a different personality, he won't give a shit what I do if it stops her from scaring him.

It's DS1 that will be pissed off, and then HE will just walk out too.

Argh! I don't know what to do.

Let her go, and have DS1 go out whenever HE wants too, or keep her grounded and have her shouting, screaming and smashing up the house.

When I've tried talking yo DS1 about it, he just says "Well, she should be following the house rules, it's not fair for her to ignore them and you still keeping the rules for us, she should just learn to behave if she wants to get the things she wants. I have to. I don't care what her problems are, I'VE had bad problems (his have been FAR worse) and still had to behave"

She's just come down and asked for a lighter to light her candles.

But I don't trust her not to chuck a lit candle around if she gets pissed off, so I've had to refuse. I don't have contents insurance so I can't fuck about with fire.

She has kicked off again.

I told her that when I can trust her not to throw things around, and treat my house with respect, then I will be able to trust her with the candles.

(She has form for throwing a lit candle at her curtains when in a strop, not wiling to risk it right now)

Hahaha bereavement counselling? What the one 20 minute session she got from the school? The GP refuses to refer her because "she's young, she should be over it now, it's not a parent, she can make new friends"

I've begged left right and centre, fir counselling, after a 4 month wait for the charity to give her some , I rang in tears in November and they pushed her up the queue.

It's not specialised bereavement counselling, but one session a fortnight at school is better than the fuck all she got before. And that's only because she self harmed for a couple of months.

I'm worried she has a psychiatric issue on top of the SN's. Or maybe because of, I don't know.

She DOES occasionally have flashes of being a lovely, caring girl, but then she flips back into massive selfishness and histrionics at the least 'slight'.

Like earlier, when I told her that I would listen to her as soon as she spoke to me reasonably, but I was going to ignore her if she spoke to me like shit or shouted and ranted at me, as I did not have to listen to ANYBODY speaking to me that way.

She went bloody stratospheric over that one "I'll talk to you however I want, you will fucking listen to every word I shout and say to you, you evil bitch"

Yay to MaryZ about the police being on first name terms with all her friends.

In fact, last night, when I was telling them who her friends were, the police seemed rather worried? concerned ? To find out that this group of teenagers have all gravitated towards each other. They groaned louder with every name that I said.

Everyone in the town knows their names tbh, not just the police.

Is she taking drugs? I do wonder if this is contributing to her increasingly aggressive/antisocial behaviour.

Nope, she didn't obey rules at 11yo either. Or 7yo. Or 4yo. But the difference was that she was smaller than me and I could physically 'contain' her...

She went out on a Saturday night at 11, but had to be in by 7.30pm on a Saturday night. DS1 manages that fine. Unless she ISN'T punished for missing curfew. Then he misses it the next night. And argues that he shouldn't get punished if she doesn't. He only does it because he sees it as stupendously unfair.

DS1 is actually FAR more responsible and kind and thoughtful than DD in all but the area of 'fairness', especially wrt punishments for rule breaking...

If she tries to leave, I can't physically stop her anyway. Might as well just give up trying to keep her in, it's so obviously not going to work any more.

God knows how I will deal with DS1's reaction to that - HE will go stratospheric!