I need help to motivate my 18 year old daughter

[FlyGirl25]

Hello all, a bit of background - at the age of 14 in 2021 my youngest daughter went to live with her father in a different city for no other reason than she felt she had more friends there. To cut a long story short, it didn't work out with him and his wife. She stuck it out until January 2025 when she eventually came back to me because the situation at her dad's broke down very badly.

She was in the final year of her A levels and the school said if she moved city, she would no longer be on their register and would not be able to tutor her from home. They agreed to give her a pack of work to finish her A levels and self study but with no help available.

My daughter has always hated school and I knew she wouldn't do the work (which she hasn't). So basically she has failed her A levels.

Once she left that school and came back to me her girlfriend also left (she came out when she was 15) and has basically been here with me for weeks. They are inseparable. I am happy to have her girlfriend here as her homelife is atrocious and it's respite for her although I told my daughter that I can't feed her girlfriend permanently and if she wants to stay she will have to get a job to contribute to the household.

I have told my daughter that now that she is not finishing school she either has to get a job or look for an apprenticeship. She has absolutely no desire to do either and the girls spend 90% of their time in my daughter's room asleep mainly, eating or cooking.

It's driving me crazy. I understand that my daughter has gone through a lot these past few years and I'm allowing her time to adjust but it is driving me mad.

I have been giving her some money each week to buy her groceries and be more independent. She recently passed her driving test and has a little mini but no way to fund it. Her dad bought it for her but I don't think she's ready for the responsibility of a car.

It seems to me that she's not ready to grow up. She's hiding away from the responsibilities of becoming an adult (as she keeps telling me she is as she's just turned 18).

I have given her until the end of August to get a job and then I will be withdrawing the money I give to her for food. My friends say that's too long a time to give her.

I just want her to find her path and a full time job for so many reasons, her own dignity too.

The pair of them are just festering in her room.

What do I do in this situation?

Please help

It’s such a hard situation but I do agree with you. She needs to de doing something.

what washer response to the time frame? I also think that until August might be a bit much. Whilst she looks for a job she can be doing volunteering and picking up the chores at home.

She needs to get a job or a volunteering position bу April, not August, imo

She said that she would have a job by August I think I may have given her too much time tbh.

I think August is too long, I'd have said by Easter. She should be looking now as a lot of places take on seasonal staff to cover the summer season

I honestly think you are making it easy for them. I’d stop giving her an allowance & tell her to make an appointment with the job center. They will help her find work. She won’t have a job by August if she isn’t even looking. Where does the girlfriend get her money from?

The problem is she doesn't want to do anything apart from work with animals and I can't physically drag her. Everything I suggest its "no because...." I've suggested all kinds of jobs even joining the military. She did let me put a post on the local village Facebook group for her to do some pet setting. She had a few enquiries but the first one isn't until April and it won't be enough to sustain a person, will probably be here and there work. The girlfriend has no money and my daughter splits her allowance to buy her food. There is no proactiveness at all and I've told her things won't just fall in her lap but she just won't get out there. Everything revolves around the girlfriend which is unhealthy.

We had similar issues with DS when he left school without a direction so speak from experience - the sooner she gets a job the better. The longer she/they are lying around doing nothing the harder it will be to get and then start work. She needs to get a job sharpish. Any job. Even if it's one shift a week she needs purpose and reason to get up and out of the house. I would also suggest you start charging both of them rent before too long - give them a few months notice but if nothing else to cover their food costs and show you are serious about them getting work.

They might need help or guidance - maybe send them to the job centre?

Have you searched apprenticeships? Sometimes Pets at home offer dog grooming apprenticeships which might suit her?

I have said all of this to her. But I am just met with resistance. Every time I even mention a whisper of her getting any job at all she walks away from me or says "STOP". She says she will do it in her own time.

Believe me if she hadn't been through such a hard time at the hands of her stepmother and had been with me the whole time I would be coming down on her like a tonne of bricks but she has been through a lot so I don't want to be another parent that isn't nurturing I WILL be removing the food allowance at the end of August and I have already stopped her monthly pocket money once she turned 18.

The problem is she won't do anything until she is ready. Its like talking to a steel wall, never mind a brick wall. Even if I did find her a dog grooming apprenticeship she wouldn't do it because I found it. It's the downright refusal to do anything that is making me low. She's not open to any suggestions. Just wants to stay in her room with her girlfriend. I can't throw her out as her dad has just done that and I'm her mum. I was thrown out as a teenager and it was awful. I had no safety net and had to survive from then on. I can't do that to her. I vowed I wouldn't do what my mother did to me.

Thank you all for your messages/suggestions. I'm just going to have to hope there is some kind of miracle soon and she gets fed up with being stagnant.

Stop her allowance?

If she isn't working, what else does she need? To be frank, a relationship isn't one. She needs to start paving her future and getting discipline.

Sometimes that means cutting the allowance and internet.

Assuming you're providing the basics: food/clean clothes/ roof over her head
Surely that is enough?

By 18 I was paying £300 rent then increased this to £800 per month by the time I was 23.

Apologies you said you have stopped it.

Well your house your rules.
Perhaps she can meet the girlfirend outside instead of in your house.

As a relationship is what will keep her stagnant.

She can get a job, then start a dog walking business 😄

She has not failed her a levels as she has not taken them. She has dropped out with your blessing. You could insist she takes the exams anyway since she has completed 75% of the course? Tho maybe too late now

You are encouraging teenagers into a full blown living together relationship when as you say they or at least one is directionless.

Time to lay out the ground rules
If they stay then
They both get up in the mornings and seek work jobs any work.

They could apply for seasonal work with accommodation for the summer

Or abroad wwoof.net/

And your moral obligation is to your daughter. Not to house her girlfriend too. Way too young .

At least tell me your house is spotless and you aren’t also tidying up after them and doing their laundry. I wouldn’t be handing over any money at all unless that was the case. I also wouldn’t be handing anything over without her having a plan of what she plans to do over the next 3 months. Even if that isn’t what she’s going to do as a job and instead how she’s going to figure that out.

How much money are we talking here. Are you providing the wrong motivations?

I wouldn’t have put a timeframe on it, I’d have put measurable goals. It’s no good you providing them with another 5 months to be lay about slobs. You are facilitating this behaviour.

You need to see a conscious effort from her to put a plan in place. From 13 I had a part time job. At 15, I emailed over 100 employers for some volunteer work so I could be sure I knew what I wanted to do. There should be no excuses at 18. Burying her head in the sand and waiting for something to fall into her lap is simply not good enough. Bad experiences are part and parcel of life, and you either choose to wallow in them or you choose to use them as the drive to succeed.

I sound harsh. I don’t mean to be but this is a critical stage in her life and she has to learn that life is what you make of it!

I wouldn't have the gf living with you, they're too young imo.

My dd did a diploma in animal management, do any local colleges offer that?

You're enabling both of them to be lazy 🤷‍♀️ and you're crazy to give them money. They should be giving you money!

I absolutely agree it's easier said than done when they flat out refused to engage with anything you suggest. However funding the lazy life isn't the answer and letting the girlfriend do the same isn't working. Stop the money and she will need to get a job eventually if not to pay her mobile & hobbies/social life! Honestly, it's the only way I got my son off his backside. At least reduce the timescale - August is so far off I bet they won't do anything proactive until July by which time you'll be testing your hair out.

What about going travelling? It's hard when they don't know what to do with their life so why not suggest a job purely to save for an adventure whilst they figure out longer term plans. Sympathies as disengaged teens are so tough.

She will have to sign up to universal credit in order to enter a job centre and will have to sign a work committment and stick to it.

Your daughter won't get a job in August. This is when students do their summer jobs.

If her stepmother was that evil she would have come to live with you a long time ago.

If you don't want to act like your mum you still don't need to provide beyond a roof over her head and basic food.

Stop the money allowance, stop cleaning up her mess, stop her mobile phone payments. Stock up on tinned food and pasta. Then go on holiday with the savings to avoid the whining. Stand your ground upon your return. She needs to register with the job centre and find a job ASAP. That would be my advice. I have 2 teenager boys

I'd be throwing the girlfriend out in her arse, giving your DD until April to get a job or tell her to leave as well, they are royally taking the piss out of you and your kindness.

I'd also be taking the car payments, insurance and fuel away? Who's paying for that?

If she gets a job she gets her car back and runs it herself.

She doesn't get the choose where she works really, my DS started in pot wash, worked up to some retail jobs etc. it's just what those kind of jobs are? Both my DS do this while doing a levels and uni.

Also what about her doing her a. A-levels, has she just dropped out?

Did her step mother kick her out for refusing to go to school and moving her free loading girlfriend in?

I would remove the gf issue totally. 2 nights a week max. She can’t live with you. She’s not your responsibility and she’s an adult. Welcome 2 nights a week as a guest. You won’t be able to deal with your dd properly if you also have a non paying guest living with you.

You know that education is free until 19 in UK? They don’t spell it out to you but everyone gets a free second chance at a levels!

Get her enrolled with local college for Sept to redo second year pronto. Then she needs to sign on and get a job until Sept.

Girlfriend has to go. She's a bad influence. Money has to stop. Turn the router off.