My daughter is 15, has depression/anxiety/self harms. She is also a very testing typical teenager when it comes to her behavior so it becomes difficult to punish her at times as I don’t want to trigger self harming, don’t get me wrong I do punish her and set boundaries.
So she struggles to sleep, I often check Instagram First thing in morning to see when she was last online to see when she went to bed. 7am this morning I saw that she was online active on Instagram so thought that must be a good sign that she got a good nights sleep, went in to check how she slept and she said she hadn’t been to sleep yet as couldn’t get to sleep. So I said well try and flight it today and you will get a good night sleep tonight, she was having non of it and went to sleep. I’m working from home so from 12pm I started to actively try and get her out of bed, bearing in mind if I let her sleep it will be a vicious circle. So I eventually (after nagging leading to shouting) got her out of bed at 3.30pm she goes downstairs, I follow her couple mins later and she comes from back garden smelling of smoke. I asked her and she said she had 1 left and she is stressed and has anxiety (Don’t get me started on that problem). I don’t believe her one minute and think she has a stash of them somewhere.
Since lockdown it has been a struggle to get her out of bed, gradually getting later. I’m supposed to be working and I’m constantly trying to get her out of bed, Brush teeth, get dressed when she does get up and dressed she stays in her room, curtains closed, does not want to socialize with the family. At this point I’m lucky if she is out of bed never mind doing school work. I am constantly nagging, I’m sick of my own voice so I’m sure she is. I’ve tried other ways of persuasion, some days I give myself a day off and think what’s the worst can happen if she doesn’t brush teeth for a day. Other than ranting, my question is, what can I do to motivate and get my teenager in a routine? I’ve bought her new stationary, writing pads, different kinds of paint, art supplies, lots of games. Nothing to works. I’m scared of what’s going to be left of my little girl when this is all over. X