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

Gleekster my DD is the exact same I was hoping by 18 it would have ended. If I have 3 more years of this shit I might run away !

Thanks pink

I just feel like I have been waiting and waiting for it to be over but we never get there and actually now I don't think we ever will.

My "D"M has narcissistic personality disorder and I had a very abusive childhood. I sometimes feel like I have escaped her ( totally NC for years) just to be abused by DD. I try not to compare them but the feelings are just the same. That feeling of being unloved, unloveable, not good enough.

Sorry if I am getting too deep and self pitying. It just all feels so awful sometimes, like history repeating itself. Thank God for DS!!!!

re phones. No I don't take them. I wish I had started the rule of them not taking the phones to their bedrooms when they were younger and I'm wondering if it might be too late now. They are "not allowed" to be using them at night, and if I find they are then I confiscate. Also I turn off the wifi in the evening. I have a way of removing the DC access to wifi while DH and I can still use it. I figure at least then they can't be downloading or watching movies all night because they won't have enough data without wifi.

I'm just amazed that so many of you actually manage to take their phones off them!

I physically wouldn't be able to get hold of DS's phone. I have, on occasion, asked him to hand it over to which I get the answer "no". He's 6'1" now and I'm not going to get into a wrestling match with him. The only way to stop his phone usage would be to cancel the contract.

Example of how he speaks to me - I've changed his name here

I go to his bedroom door -

Me - "Bernard?"
Him - "No"

Not even a "what?" Just "no".

I will admit the first few times I took it things got so out of hand I considered calling the police. We had threats of violence, threats to hurt herself, damaging property, screaming swearing and crying whilst throwing items around. She even ran outside and shouted "if you don't give it back now I'm jumping under a car" . I didn't give in and thankfully she didn't jump under a car, after 6 days of hysteria she hands it over no fuss now, the deal is its charged in hall so I'm not snooping through it, which I wasn't anyhow. I wish I'd made it a rule from a young age to! I have noticed she is not getting in as much trouble at school so think she was sleep deprived before!

DD just ignores me if I call her we often communicate via text whilst in the same house!

At DDs parents evening a teacher said "I really admire you, I don't know how you do it honestly" I had a moment of pride then walked away thinking WTF !

hi all just a quick up date, ill catch up on everyone in the morning.
have been at the hospital all day with ds, we were waiting for a bus this morning and he had a seizer, hes never had them before and took one heck of a wack to the head. we eventually got home about an hour ago. they dont know what caused it and said it could be a one off, we will have a follow up appointment. i dont think it was the drugs as he stayed at ours last night after the police brought him back from the B&B that he eventually went to. there was a problem with someone else there as to why the police were called. i dont think ds felt safe there so they brought him back to us. i dont know exactly what happened.
he ok for now and after some food and a bath for his aching muscles hes just gone to bed and thats where im off to now.
take care all xx

I just want to quietly offload something here. I have posted about this before, but DD1 (15) is being seen regularly by CAMHS for suicidal thoughts, self-harm and anxiety. DD2 (13) (the vodka-drinking phone-breaking little treasure, see earlier in thread) is being seen by a private psychotherapist for anger issues. CAMHS are also now introducing some parenting sessions for me and DH. I can see why they are suggesting support for us too, firstly because we are very stressed dealing with our DCs problems but also because if 2 kids are having problems, then it points to a general problem in the family rather than a problem with them. CAMHS are also potentially going to think about family therapy too.

I want to have faith in the CAMHS service and go with the flow with whatever is being offered, although I am not convinced about whether any of this is helping. DH thinks it's all a total waste of time. I haven't told him yet about the parenting sessions and I think he might refuse to attend, or if he does attend I think he will get really defensive and just start talking absolute rubbish to try and deflect any responsibility.
Thanks for listening.

majestic
From experience I would say get as much out of CAMHS while you can, as once DD15 turns 16 there will be bugger all you can do to make her go.

My DD had a session at 13 and we had a joint session.She refused to attend any more as the therapist didn't agree with everything she said, which she interpreted as "totally taking mums side." The therapist said she wasn't acute enough to refer on and felt if she wouldn't willingly attend future sessions there wasn't much I could do.

I actually found it really helpful and would have liked more sessions.

Yes gleekster I agree with taking everything that's offered. Just need to have that conversation with DH now...

Fortunately DD is happy to attend at the moment. Although she probably likes it too much. She seems quite keen on the medicalisation of emotional problems. She tells her friends she is "going to the hospital".

omg i give up . ds was here crying, monday night. he wanted to come home, he wanted to change and sort his life out. he didnt want to end up like the others in the B&B. then of course yesterday he had a fit and spent all day at the hospital. we decided to let him stay here for a few days to keep any eye on him after yesterday.
well the little shit, (putting it polietly) started off the day fine no issues, i fell asleep and while i was sleeping he went over to his nans, she wanted some shopping this was 12.20. she gave him £20 to go to shops. he hasnt been seen since, his nan didnt get her shopping and we have no idea where the little shit is. suffice to say he wont be welcome here when he comes back and his nans reported him to the police for stealing. if i had been awake i would have told her not to give him money, he cant be trusted.

i'm so annoyed right now, with him and myself. i so want to believe he wants to change and he was saying how scary it was that he had a fit yesterday and that he needs to look after himself better.

Good god, foxy, u must be thoroughly sick of him.
Was the fit drug related?
It's so hard, he sounds just like my ds was. You can't trust them at all.
You are just going to have to stand firm, he obv thinks hard when he reaches rock bottom so he needs to get there and stay a while.
My son is thirty now and says I was right to kick him out.

he hadn't had any drugs when he had the fit but his social worker said it may have been withdrawal that caused the fit. he has just turned up 15 mins ago, expecting to come in like nothing happened. we gave him his bag and told him hes not welcome. que the i've got no where to go, i've had nothing to eat. what am i going to do. i informed him his social worker was informed he would now need somewhere tonight and he had a room at the B&B. dh is taking him there now. i know its not the best place but its all his got. he doesn't like it as its in a different town and he doesn't know anyone there. but tough.
the police are coming to see his nan in the morning as they are busy. she is going to report him for stealing. she is very upset about it all.
i think its time to cut ties and leave him to it. i know it will be hard, i worry so much about what he is doing to himself. i know he need to hit rock bottom before he will make changes, but its so very hard
thanks for listening x

ahhh F***G social workers, the B&B just phoned they got no room for ds after being told to take him there by the soical worker earlier, but they didnt tell the b&b. we said we cant pick him back up (we cant we live in in a small town and no petrol stations are open and dh used the last taking him there). i phoned out of hours social service, what is the point of out of hours they never do anything when ive phoned except to tell you to contact his social worker int he morning. so ive no idea what the poor B&B owner is going to do with him.

Foxy, that all sounds incredibly stressful. I imagine they will find somewhere safe for him to go. He has rather brought this on himself hasn't he.

Nope they didn't find him anywhere, I can only assume he stayed at a friend's. The owner of the B&B brought him back to our town, but dh told him and out of hours social worker that he was not staying at ours, so he could bring him over but he wouldn't be let in. We had no knock at the door.
The out of hours social worker was useless, what's the point of an out of hours service, when they don't do anything. All she did was tell us we should have him, we have a duty of responsibility to him, we are his parents. Dh told them wr also have a duty of care to our 12 and 9 yr old and as ds had spent the money he stole on drugs his behaviour would likely be unpredictable and unsafe for the younger two. They still would accept it. He told them what he's like, that he gets aggressive and breaks things and frightens the others, he told them he threatened dh with a knife in the past and the stupid woman still just kept on about him staying at our. She was a right pain in the arsenal. At this rate anyway he won't be social services problem, but her majestys instead.
Oh well rant over, I'm in uni today, dh in work we shall usurp have to see what happens today.

Hi all, back on the thread after posting earlier on about DS 14 (almost 15) smoking weed with his friends.

Since then we have bought weed tests and they come negative and he also swears by the fact that he doesn't do it anymore however I am now concerned that he may have moved on to proper cigarettes or something else. I drove him to school one day (he normally rides his bike) and as I dropped him of before reaching his school I noticed that he was anxiously looking towards some bushes on the side of the road, as I checked my mirror (as traffic moved I was a bit further ahead) one of the weed friends pops out of the bushes with a rolled up cig (splif?).

Approached DS that evening and the answer was that X is now smoking roll up cigarettes and he is not but he can't not be friends anymore as they meet as school.

So we keep going with me not trusting him anymore (even though he may be saying the truth) and feeling like I am ruining our relationship as I question everything he does.

Not sure if this is the right approach and I am torn. When he says he is going to the gym I wonder if he is there or up to no good with his friends, when he says he's playing football with his friends I wonder again if that is true and so on.

I find it exhausting.

Other than that we get along well, he is a messy pig as most of the teenagers but he knows the drill: every Saturday I hand him a bin bag and ask him to clean his room and he does it. Phone is downstairs every night at 10 pm and he seems to accept it even though he is glued to it until then.

So all in all normal teenage expectations but the broken trust is affecting me more than I thought.

In my view trust has to be earned back. It's as natural as night following day that you will not trust someone who has lied. But I guess we have to give them a chance to earn back the trust too. The not trusting can't go on indefinitely.

Trust is the big thing in our house at the moment. Ds (17) has been caught lying again, completely unnecessary lies. I just want to be able to trust him but he has broken that trust so often, it makes me feel sick.
I gave up alcohol for lent but wine is very tempting right now.
Is it terrible to look forward to October when he will be off to university?

Another one here that can't trust dd. She lies and steals and gets caught. She has stolen large amounts of cash in the past, and I carted her off to the police station for a good talking to, but only a couple of weeks ago stole one pound. It took her two days to admit it after the usual phone confiscation, but the most disappointing thing is she said ' Why does it matter so much to you, it was only a pound'.

I despair. She just does not get it, no matter how many times I explain!

I know he needs to earn it back but at the same time I don't know how he'll do it. He did cut down on all the things I've asked him to, not going places where the weed smoking was happening, going out less, hasn't been to a party since it all happened.

But as I cannot keep him locked I have these thoughts going through my mind every time he is not at school or home wondering what he is up to really.

And I stupidly wish he'd get a nice girlfriend hoping she'll keep him away from all the temptations.

How old is your dd, ticktacktock?
I know what you mean about explaining over and over about lying, trust etc. Ds says "yes, you have said so before, ok" but doesn't change.
Is there any hope that they will grow out of it or do they go on to be lying, deceitful partners in later life?

She's 16 Jinksy, how old is your ds?

She never seems embarrassed either, or remorseful. She just carries on after the event as if nothing happened.

She's just got a job actually, after months of threatening to make her work for nothing if she didn't. Dh thinks we should steal her first wage and deny it for a couple of days!

He's 17. The lying only started 6 months ago, or maybe he just didn't get caught out before that!

Mine was first caught at 13, but like you she maybe was at it before. I took her house key off her then, and put a lock on my bedroom door. I am really pissed off i had to do that. She has asked for her key back but don't trust her!

Is your ds stealing Jinksy?