Dd 13 has shut down and won’t talk to us

[Justonecat]

Dd is so unhappy. She has no friends, she is at a school which is (mostly) demographically different from us, and she hasn’t made any real friendships.

Her academic performance has really deteriorated to the point where she is below average in every single subject (used to be in top sets in primary and had CATs of 133 just as a reference).

Up until recently she was involved in a sport which took up nearly all her spare time since about seven years, she was successful but we couldn’t really tell if she enjoyed it or if she resented spending so much time on it.

We have had something like 12 discussions with her, trying to understand why she is having these academic/social/motivational struggles, but she can’t really explain. She doesn’t say anything. We offered her to change schools, even home school, to keep her sport, to do more of the sport, or to quit, but she did not express a preference one way or another, so we were at a loss.

Something was clearly making her feel pressured and it was clear that her situation wasn’t working for her. She swears she isn’t being bullied, or harassed online or in person, or anything like that. There is some low level unfriendly behaviour towards her in school such as people not wanting to sit next to her in class and such, but nothing more than that.

We recently made the difficult decision to take her out of her sport. We hope this will give her more time to catch up on her studies without the time pressure, and to hopefully connect more with people at school. We have encouraged her to join a few after school clubs so she has something to do, and we are also hoping she will make friends this way. It’s hard, as this sport was a huge part of her life for so long, but school has to come first, so we didn’t feel we had any other options.

Did we make the right decision? What can we do to make her talk to us?

sorry, this probably doesn’t make much sense, but it just felt good to write it all down.

@SallyWD I have thought about this. I know children typically don’t share these types of things with their parents but I hope I have made dd feel that she can talk to me, and that we won’t think she is a failure just because these things have happened to her. Obviously hard when my husband is of the opposite opinion and has told her that she hasn’t made enough of an effort with the other girls. I do feel for her and I worry that spending the next five years in such an environment would have a detrimental effect on her. But she says it’s not all that bad. Like I wrote in a previous post, the school hasn’t picked up in anything either

i’m having to let go of a lot of control as girls from her school have been caught shoplifting after school on three separate occasions, there’s lots of vaping going on, and so forth. We are having to trust dd to make the right choices
I had a feeling that you were concerned about the potential friends. These are risky but not entirely untypical behaviour for some teens. But, I wouldn't be happy for my DD to be doing this either. 13 is a tricky age, not little any more but not very streetwise yet either.
I would lay down some firm rules, trust is earned and freedom is not a right. Give some autonomy but she needs to accept that she has responsibility to look after herself too. Be mindful of the influences in her life, keep an eye on internet use and make sure that you can still access her phone if necessary. Good luck..

Only recently quit. I think she needs a break before she returns to it. But there are ways for her to do her sport at a more relaxed level, she could train twice per week just for fun. Or she might pick up something totally different, she is not bad at athletics and running and I hope she will try out for some school squads now that she has the time

Seems as if lots of people are telling her there's nothing wrong. Hmm.

The school 'don't have any concerns' and seem to have more serious/ pressing things to focus on (but her achievement has been plummeting);
Peers 'don't sit next to her' often, but no more than that (?!! See past posts telling you how that actually affects you);
There isn't the chance for 1:1 time because you have a big busy schedule, but 12 deep parental 'toughen up' conversations' haven't made much headway.
She gave many years to a sport that she's now been stopped doing, (partly) because of her difficulties with learning and friendships, which don't bring any joy.

If I was 13 and swimming against all those currents, I'm sorry to say I would feel absolutely let down and would be going off the rails before long. I know of one daughter in a larger family who said, as a reason for running away, "There's never any time for me".

It is worth a try to see how more social freedom could help, but please make it clear - your DH and you, this is - that it's her wellbeing and comfort levels you care about, and not her marks. If it doesn't look to be working soon, you need to make bigger changes and get some backup, from school and others too.

@Ormally very sobering read. I’m really worried about all of what you said. I will say that we have told her exactly what you suggested: that we care about her happiness, not her grades, we just want her to do her best and not let her future self down. I don’t think she is naturally academic, or headed towards higher education, but you never know where life takes you

Just check how she feels about that.

If the child is competitive they may not be happy returning at a recreational/ more relaxed level.

I say that from experience.

It all seems a bit confused to me. I know you are finding it hard to communicate with your daughter but you seem to be making decisions without knowing what she wants.

It is hard if a child is practicing regularly to have time with their friends, but most sports are not every night and weekend so there can always be time to be found. Hasn't she made friends in her sport? If not I'm guessing it's an individual sport rather than a team one?

One more thing to say is that I think teens are perceptive and know when you mean it. So you really do need to be sincere about caring about her happiness, believing in her, and having a hand there to help her along to feel better with her own 'handling' of life. It's not a quick fix but it needs less brushing off from all directions. The sport question is tricky - I can see why it might just be a good thing to step off the treadmill for a bit and to turn gently around from the distraction or immersion it has given.

...and I apologise for worrying you, my viewpoint was pretty blunt. I have a child of this age myself. The girl I was thinking of is back safe and sound and ok, but it did take some rebalancing (of work, school etc) from parents and immediate family, and resulted in a long time of not speaking to 1 parent after that, which wasn't that easy a ride.

Stop asking her what's wrong, she clearly can't recognise or vocalise what the issue is. It's a time of massive shifting hormones and this can trigger as anxiety, self consciousness or depression in teens. I would say that stopping all sport is a terrible idea, unless you are very active as a family. Being active does wonders for mental health.

Things you can do. Ask her to rank how stressful she finds things like the list below to try and identify what might be hard for her. 1 being not very, 3 stressful but she can cope and 5 very stressful.

(Getting ready for school, walking to school, tutor time, lessons, lesson changeover, break and lunch, walking home, after school clubs, tea time, family outings etc).

For now if socialising isn't happening naturally for her just do lots of nice things as a family and create some nice family social gatherings. E.g lunches with extended family, days out at cinema / museum/ attractions. Let her help chose the things to do together. Encourage her to join something like a drama group to build confidence.

I find it very odd that your response to your DD’s shut down is to make high-handed decisions for her without her input. Surely that is simply going to make her withdraw more.

There is no question that a decision to withdraw from the sport should have been made by anyone but her. She’s 13 not 6.

I don’t really see the point of her stopping something she’s relatively good at in the naive idea that she will then spend time on stuff she’s not currently engaged with. Most likely she will just spend more time watching TV.

In your situation I think I would have made the opposite decision: continue the sport (until and unless she wants to stop) but change schools and see if a fresh cohort is more user friendly.

It all seems a bit confused to me. I know you are finding it hard to communicate with your daughter but you seem to be making decisions without knowing what she wants.

Yep.

can you pay for one? Not sure of the demographic difference but there is a network for POC therapists - www.baatn.org.uk
as well as lgbt - pinktherapy.com

We felt pushed into making a decision. Dd seems unhappy, this recent and marked change in her academics was definitely a sign to us that not all was well, so we knew that things could not stay as they were. But as dd would not express an opinion about which changes she wanted, we had to decide for her. We tried to make the best possible choice but I really am feeling unsure.

I know what you mean about not wanting to return to a sport you once did at an elite level. I never went back to my sport, and still hate doing it when we sometimes do it together as a family. We will leave it to dd to see what she wants to do. Super tricky, she was really good at what she did and it’s been painful to say goodbye to it, but it just wasn’t working anymore

There is SO much evidence that sports is good for teenage girls - yet lots drop out for social pressure reasons. And that is exactly what you did. You didn't even give her a choice. Did she not have friends through the sport? So she's now suddenly lost all those friends?

Poor, poor girl. Your husband is wrong, and unhelpful. No wonder she doesn't know how to talk about how she feels - he'll just shut her down.

One bad report doesn't warrant such drastic action.

She has time to pick herself up and carry on. If she wants to continue the sport I would not stop her - but rather ask her to buck up the study work a little.

Maybe timetable in sessions for study and see how it goes for a few terms.

The bit I can't see in any of your posts is what she wants. At 13 I would expect any direction changes would be driven by her choices.

It was all just coming to a real crunch: it was not sustainable to keep things as they were. I have hated making this decision for her, I wish she would have taken an active part in making it. But she was looking so unhappy, like a shadow of her former self. We just couldn’t maintain the status quo much longer. The one thing she has said is that she is feeling lonely and that she would like more friends, so that guided our decision to some extent

@Justonecat Didn't you say your daughter had been doing really well in primary school? What makes you think she's not going to go to uni? It sounds like a lot of people have given up on her. I feel sorry for her.
The school also said there was nothing wrong with my DD, until we put our foot down. She ended up with an EHCP and is on meds for ADHD even though when the questionnaire went out to her teachers, they thought the SENCO got the wrong child. I'm sorry to say, schools really don't know a whole lot about ND girls and as long as they're not throwing chairs in the class, they're doing well.
Even if she isn't ND, she obviously needs help. Taking a sport away I'm afraid will probably make things a lot worse for you in the near future. She now has no place to get the dopamine her brain needs and you have paved yourself a really uncomfortable path.

I am not clear why having issues at school meant that the sport had to go.

I think it's a shame to take away the thing she was good at to 'improve' the thing she is struggling with.

Make positive changes at school and allow her to continue to thrive with her sport.

If you've just taken her out tell her you think it was a mistake and put her back in.

For my youngest child who is autistic her sport IS her identity.
She has her struggles educationally, in fact so much so that she isn't educated in school. I wouldn't dream of taking her sport off her just in case it made her want to engage more in education. It doesn't work like that.

My daughter is also 13.

That’s exactly the problem: she has not voiced an opinion at all, she won’t tell us what she prefers, she has seemed almost indifferent to the entire discussion

We are not panicking over one bad report, all of her secondary school reports have been poor, this one was just much worse

But the door is always open to going back to her sport! Just not the same way going forward. We would go from intense elite level training to recreational, low intensity

That might not be enough for her. She might resent you for taking away the opportunities.

You said yourself that recreational wouldn't have been enough for you.

Not everyone has to be amazingly academic.

Taking the sport away could well do the opposite of improving her grades, if she resents you for it.

You need to get her back into exercise, at whatever level, esp if she's struggling in school and has ADHD. Is she on meds? She isn't getting any dopamine and this won't end well OP. My DD ended up having a mental health crisis until we pulled our socks up and got her on meds and into swimming again (she had quit as a child). You made a huge mistake taking her out of sport, sorry.

She won't talk because she's confused, she's young , she won't know herself, she will be scared of what you might think

I have to say if you don't want her doing things because someone at her school vapes, someone shoplifted ... you sound naive . She needs to learn to navigate that stuff not run away like you appear to be

That will make it hard for her - her daily world is so far removed from your ideas

we felt that she wasn’t enjoying her sport anymore. If she would have been passionate about it, and if she would have asked to keep it, we would have considered it, but she didn't want to engage with the decision making process.

We just felt very strongly that things could not go on like that any longer, and that something had to change as a matter of urgency. She was looking so unhappy and tired, we really felt that something has to give