Anyone want a mum of teenagers support thread

[Ledkr]

Thought we could swap ideas, sound off and generally help each other through it.
Lots of you will know from here I'm no shrinking violet but my nearly 14 yr old dd is slowly breaking my spirit, home has become a miserable place to be and I know I'm messing this up.
I've had 3 teen boys and have worked all my life with various types of challenging young person and I'm pretty well respected but my own child is draining the life out of me.
The thing is, it's not huge behavioural stuff, it's probably very normal. I need to learn to pick my battles I know but I simply cannot ignore blatant rudeness or pick up someone's knickers often still containing a sanitary towell and not react.
Is this the answer? Compromise my integrity and become a skivvy just for a quiet life?
I could go on, but I'll see if anyone wants to listen first.
Thanks if you read so far

Yes! The pony coukd sit in Dds phone and all woukd be well

She says she didn't buy the alcohol but a friend did. It's not the first time. I'm really upset with her. I was staying calm though and she seemed quite remorseful, but DH got really angry with her and massively escalated the whole thing into a big row, things being thrown etc. I'm in despair.

Oh it's horrible isn't it? You feel like you are constantly getting it wrong.
Truth is there is no right way, parents have been battling this crap for millions of years, all that changes is the temptations.
My house often feels like a totally dysfunctional mess and my job is with troubled families 🙄 I'm feeling my way through like most people and just hoping I do more good than harm.

I have to say I'd have hit the roof too about the alcohol, maybe it will do her good to see how angry dh is with her.

That's funny Ledkr because I am in a helping profession too (psychologist) but utterly clueless at dealing with my kids. Breathe. This will pass. Tomorrow will be better.

Majestic, mines a bit older, but we did have problems with alcohol. It ended up with me thinking she was somewhere, and she wasn't. In fact, she didn't even know where she was, as in which part of the city, street, etc. I had totally banned alcohol, so she took to lying.

It transpires they are all doing it. If they don't they are not worth knowing. Shit isn't it. So I had to change my stance, I agreed to the alcohol / parties if I could pick her up. She was more than happy with that and has never been legless so far. If I'm picking her up, I may as well have a car full, so I drop off her mates too.

At a party recently a mum sent her 13 year old with alcohol, instead of banning it. To begin with I was horrified, but with hindsight I think she was a very tuned in mum.

I have to work with dd on this one, not against her, as she will put herself at risk otherwise. She did at the party where she didn't know where she was.

Believe me, I would rather have a total ban and heavy consequences for breaking the rules.

TickTackTock - I can see your point of view. And I think maybe I agree with it if the drinking is happening in the relative safety of a party or a friend's house, and for kids who are near to the legal age. But I do think 13 is far too young. My DD is too immature to make sensible decisions about this. She will follow whatever stupidity is going on just to feel like she has friends. If I can't rely on where she is or who she is with, then she can't be trusted with alcohol. She has not been drinking at parties or sleepovers, but drinking neat vodka outside somewhere, presumably in a park. And then she is getting on public transport. It's really dangerous. If it was DD1 (who is 15) having a couple of drinks at a party which I then collected her from, I wouldn't kick up a big fuss to be honest. I was doing the same at that age.

DD packed a bag last night and put her coat on and say she was leaving. DH sat in front of the front door on the floor for a while in an effort to prevent this. I poked my head around the door just now and she is in bed. I hope she is feeling like crap to be honest.

First post, chaps. Not the remotest idea where to start, it'll all sound probably familiar, maybe a tad sorry for myself, definitely convinced I'm a failure but also convinced I'm not. In other words a typical mum of a teenager. Problem 1: I haven't got any friends I feel able to talk to about our problems because I suspect at least some of it is because of me & OH's somewhat upsy downsy relationship. Problem 2: I cannot yet control my emotions when he (13 nearly 14 year old) behaves like a total sh!te ... so he knows he can upset me bigtime. Problem 3: The family is fractured by distance as well as emotion so I parent alone something just more than half the time (now's one of those times) and OH isn't guaranteed to be 100% behind me if it's an issue he disagrees with, despite distance.
To get to the nub of this morning, he (son) has gone to school an hour and a half late having told me he no longer looks up to me, wishes Dad was back, having tipped over a wood basket (thankfully empty) and a tall breakfast bar stool, etc etc etc....... I don't see much point droning on because I still haven't read the whole thread to see how much burbling others do when they're screwed up!!

Golly Majestic that's worrying for you. It's an offence round here to drink in public. Is it the same everywhere, I don't know? I carted mine off to the police station for a good talking to a while back. I wonder if you could orchestrate that somehow. Mine was also caught drinking under age and brought home in a police van. That did wonders. It was the mum of one of the girls she was with that reported her dd missing and told the police where to find her.

I too hope your Dd is feeling like crap. I mean that in the nicest possible way! It's the only way to learn, they won't listen to their parents.

It's so hard trying to muddle through the teen nightmare years. We are only human.

Me me ! I don't talk to anyone in RL about DD as they don't understand. I sit in awe wondering how people get their DCs doing chores, cooking and working I'm lucky if I get mine to get to school on time. She doesn't even pack her own school bag . She has no motivation and will text me from her room saying "I'm thirsty" when I say (as always) come down and get a drink then she replies "not thirsty anymore". Every day she gets in vanishes to her room to FaceTime till I remove her phone st 10.30 she doesn't chat to me anymore , I find her company awkward , I question she either ignored or gives abrupt 1 word answers. She literally never says "How are you" or anything. She is the laziest person ever and unbelievably selfish! Rant over.

Hi Pink, I have 2 of those, I sympathise completely. I have one still in her dressing gown. Lazy lazy lazy

Hi Soggy

You can talk to us any time. Tbh, I wouldn't share some stuff with RL friends anyway. My friends appear to have perfect teens!

The worst thing is the arguments between me and dh. I stick up for the kids and he thinks I'm too soft, but the kids still think I'm really really unfair.

One thing I have managed to do is not take the insults personally. She can be really crushing, but now I just think yada yada yada. Roll on 21.

I stopped posting for a bit as didn't know what to wrie when it was bad and felt disloyal when it was better - but I am still reading, ( and still in the diffficult phase). It helps.

Soggy. Much of what you write is very familiar to me. I am trying to find in myself the confidence to believe that we are not that bad and it's not all our fault. I partly believe this, but not completely. I do think it's important for parents to be a solid unit but it's easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like DH is another child.

hi all
having a wobbley moment today, feeling emotional, its that time of the month and i'm taking steroids for my asthma, which says it can make you more emotional. i just want to go find ds and give him a big hug, tell him to come home and make everything aright. i know that ain't gonna happen. :(

this week has consisted of court for resisting arrest, which earned him an extra 3 month on his referral order. yer that's gonna help.
then gave him bus fare as his social worker booked an appointment for him to go to the job centre about claiming benefits, he spent the bus fare on fags and didn't go.
then he turns up the next day and says he agreed to stay at the B&B they want him to go to instead of sofa surfin and someone is picking him up for our to go there. feeling good and thinking his realising he's got to work with everyone instead of against them i put him together a food parcel and some tea stuff. no one turned up dh eventually took him there, they knew nothing about him going so dh had to bring him back. i now believe he never intended to go but know if he said he was and no one turned up we would let him stay the night, which we did, but as we were both working the next day he had to be up and out with us at 7. he then has since refused to go to the B&B and continues to sofa surf.
he turned up at 8 this morning asking could he come back home? the cheek of it lol. he still wont accept help or take responsibility nothing has changed.

i feel a mess today, so housework it is lol.
hugs all

I cannot begin to explain how helpful this thread has been. I have spent the last 2 days dipping into it when I can and have now read it all. You have made me giggle, with some of your comments, when I felt so low! you have normalised my life with my dd of 16. I can relate to so many of your posts. I am so relieved to have found this. I have already read the books you have mentioned and so much online advice about parenting teens, my head understands it all but nothing helps with the emotion/feelings that I experience when in the middle of another onslaught. Thanks, this has really helped and I hope we all find our way through these difficult times as quickly and as sanely as possible!

foxy he sounds just like my DS was. It was terrible.
I took him to a b and b once which was in another town abd when we got there it was packed with mentally ill people, when we were sat in his bleak room someone tried the door so I took him home agsin!
It's a terrible situation.
Is there any chance he'd aggree to therapy especially If he's asking to come home?
There is a new approach called NVR, Google IT and see if you can get any advice. I am training in it next month but I've done one day and it's pretty good and realistic.
Is he using drugs? That's what ds problem was

he smokes weed everyday, and doesn't see a problem with that. he doesn't even like us referring to it as a drug, and he says he has no intention of giving it up either. his behaviour admittedly isn't too bad with just the weed.everyone seem to think he uses it as a form of self medication.

he does sometimes take other stuff, moew moew, and valium. he hasnt had the meow for a while but the valium was last week. the valium makes him paranoid and unpredictable and nasty. he went on a two week bender with the valium and thats when we had to kick him out. he has been calmer the last week so i believe him when he says he hasnt taken any.

Place marking.
I have twin 13 year old DS and DD.
I really need support and advice and will read the thread properly this evening !

Just popped in to say how much I hate my life with dd.

Can't say it anywhere else but I really do.

What's happened ledkr? Bad day?

Ledkr, do you want to vent? (Everything's rock bottom here too, not that it will be any consolation)

I hate my life with Her.
We gutted her room today. It took dh and I a whole day of a precious weekend.
Her make up including stuff that Her bfs ' mum gave her yesterday brand new was shrewn all over the floor, foundation. Open left spilling onto the bed.
We gathered it all up and hid it away.
She has just realised and kicked off. Called me a bitch and screamed like a lunatic.
I went up to explain that she could come up in the morning and select a small bag of make up to go on with but she was so cocky and rude so I removed her phone resulting in more wailing.
I know I shouldn't let it get to me but I literally feel as if I'm going to collapse on the floor with pure fucking stress.
I just cannot stand the constant battles and unreasonable cuntishness

Uggggh that sounds crap ledkr. It's so awful when you're in the thick of it. I do tend to plummet down and think there's no end to it, but things always seem to improve. Tomorrow is another day.

I took DD away yesterday to stay at my parents' overnight (they're a couple of hours away). Thought it would be nice for her to escape college and bf pressures, and for us to bond etc. We ended up having a blazing row in the car on the way. Everything she did yesterday was negative in my eyes. Today was totally different. Hugs to you. It won't always be like this.