Was taking my 18-year-old daughter’s phone after abusive outbursts unreasonable?

[Islandbopping]

My DD18 has been struggling recently. We are doing lots to help her, therapy, changing schools (to fee paying if relevant) and lots of time, love and kindness.

She is neurodiverse and that adds to the challenges and for that reason she is given quite a bit of leeway and we try and ignore moods etc where possible.

The last few days have been horrendous, and resulted in huge emotional outbursts and then name calling - pr*ks, c*ts etc - spurred on by me insisting she puts away some washing. I know there is an upset teen in there but this behaviour is too much , the house is a war zone.

I’ve taken the phone as it’s the only real leverage that I have. If young adult DC act out what do others do. Was I unreasonable to do this ?

I would say you were. They are an adult unless they are emotionally a lower age. I would have thought there was bigger hills to die on. I would have just left the washing where it was. They would have had to take it eventually.

@Iloveeverycat What else can I do in this situation. She might be an adult but she is not acting like one and the phone is something we pay for.

Reasoning with her isn’t working. She feels that she can say what she wants with no repercussions.

I should add that the washing was after days of quite awful behaviour. It was the straw …. And she would never have taken it. The room is like a bomb hit it and that’s fine but there comes a point when clean clothes need to be put away and not just left

As she is an adult, I don't think you can physically remove her phone. But you can certainly stop paying for it - just let her know that most adults pay for their own phones.

OP, I have a similar 20yo. It's hard - I get called similar when he's angry. When things have been really bad, I've said he can't play a certain game on the Xbox which triggers him the most. I have also got him a life coach who is helping with some of the underlying reasons for the behavior (anxiety and low self esteem). He's much better but it's taken about 8 months of the therapy. (He initially refused therapy but she called herself a coach and we made it very tentative, try a couple of sessions, see how it goes etc).

Well if she's at school, or would be hard for her to pay for it. But you can offer her the choice - to give it up for a time or she pays for it.

Yeah, I don’t think you should be disciplining a legal adult. Fine to stop paying if you don’t want to fund it but taking something away is something you do to children.

Thanks. She’s in her final year of school, paying isn’t an option.

Out of interest, if your DC behaved like this, what would you do? How would you try and make them understand and feel that their actions aren’t ok?
Reasoning isn’t working

I have a dd who is AuDHD

punishment doesn’t work. It may make you feel better but it doesn’t do anything to stop the outbursts and may make them worse as she feels resentment.

my dd is in her early twenties. You will find (as I have) that there is not in fact a point where clothes need to be put away.

mine went away to uni and her room was a bombsute throughout. She does now have a method of doing washing (wear everything you own and then grouchily spend a day washing everything you own).

your dd almost certainly is not going to learn household chores and routines from you. It’s up to you whether you consider the rows worth it.

I don’t want to make you feel bad about taking away your DDs phone, but I really don’t think it’s the best course of action. It will, however, send a firm
message that you are the one in control. This could be a good thing for the coming school year, and give her some boundaries and let her know you're parenting her, but it could also cause short term anger and resentment and make her behaviour worse. (Do you see I really don’t have the answer!!!)

Personally I would pick my battles, and put the clothes away for her or just leave them. In the big scheme of things it’s not that important. You wouldn’t believe how many times my DD has put clean, ironed clothes back in the wash basket, rather than in her wardrobe, in the name of tidying up.
When she’s calm talk to her about her behaviour and the impact it’s having on you. Even though she’s probably not as mature as others her age, I don’t think you can spend the next year taking her phone off her. I have more than one friend who has taken their teens phone and the teens response has been to disappear off to a friends for a few days and be totally uncontactable.

Who owns the phone? If this young person bought it or pays you can’t take it away. If you pay for it, of course you can take it away. If she was 48 and you pay you can take it away. If she wants the phone back she needs to earn it, that’s how life works.
Take the heat out, this is not a punishment this is life. You work, you get paid. You are absolutely treating her like an adult, in adult life if you want something you work for it. She wants her phone, money etc then she has to give something in return.
If she doesn’t like it she can get a job.
Give her adult choices, she can not complain you don’t treat her like an adult - a frequent complaint of young people - when you absolutely treat her like an adult.
You need to follow this through and mean it.

Just before people start, I am ND as are both my children, who are now adults. Remove the emotion, this is about the logical consequences of actions. Rinse and repeat.

I also have a young adult DD who has AuDHD (with PDA) and echo a previous poster. In my case punishment doesn't work and only makes things worse. Far worse generally. The critical thing for my DD is control. If putting away washing causes those outbursts, and she is an adult, is it worth it? If you are handing your daughter washing and asking her to put it away, what happens if she doesn't? Does it stay in a pile where she will gradually use stuff? Does it get flung all over the room or mixed with dirty stuff? If it's in her room, does she have a system, even if that is different piles on the floor? Does it actually matter if the clothes aren't making it into her wardrobe?

My DD deals with all her own laundry. She has a basket in her room and reliably does her own washing but clothes rarely make it into the wardrobe. She has a dirty stuff in her linen bin, a huge pile on the floor of 'can be worn again' and a big overflowing washing basket with clean clothes. She hardly ever opens her wardrobe/drawers. But she's an adult and it's her room. I sometimes offer to help her tidy it up - very occasionally she will even say yes and we will sort it together. Mostly she is happy the way it is, and so I leave her to it. It is really not worth the stress, aggravation and conflict it would cause to do anything differently.

I wait till my teen is calm and I ask them if they can help me, rather than issue a demand. When her room gets bad I offer to help, she gets ratty about it, it takes a few days but she eventually starts clearing up. She’s just not very good with being told what to do and when. I just put the idea in her head and she does it on her own steam. Or else the shutters come down (executive dysfunction?) and she literally can’t move forward.

in between the battles I’ve found it important to build and adult to adult relationship with her. We talk about her life, friends and college. I show an interest. We spend time just the two of us. I put some trust in her which she really appreciates. I don’t go off my nut if she messes up, she’s still learning.

teens are hard work. ASD teens are complicated. You’ll get through the other side

I’ve taken the phone as it’s the only real leverage that I have. If young adult DC act out what do others do. Was I unreasonable to do this ?

I think they key factor is - how did she take having her phone removed?

● If this escalated the situation and has made the delicate act of negotiation-parenting with a young adult harder - then it wasn't a good idea.
● If she has accepted the phone being removed, will be willing to discuss the situation with maturity the following day when she gets the phone back - then it was a good idea for now but you will need to start thinking about different ways to parent as she gets older.

My personal experience with DS (now 20, but when he was 17) was that removing his phone at that age escalated and was not helpful in us wanting mature two-way conversations about the issue.

So the discussion afterwards was that we will never take his phone off him again, but we will also not pay for his phone anymore. He was OK with that, felt paying for his phone was a good deal to remove the possibility of ever being put in that situation again.

We've never needed to consider that with DD (Now 22), or DS (Currently 16) because they have very different personalities to their brother. We have had to think carefully about different ways to get them all (they all still live at home) to be respectful and follow rules though. That starts with treating the young adults like adults (with a security net) tho. So paying for your own phone, expecting mature and respectful behaviour at home. If you are still treating your 18yo like a child, that will be harder to develop.

Mine is the same. I encourage her having friends over as much as possible as I find that spurs her into tidying up much more than I am able to.

She may legally be an adult but she's also a schoolgirl who is entirely dependent on her parents and clearly not mature enough in her behaviour to take on the adult responsibilities that go hand in hand with adult rights and liberties. As long as she expects her parents to provide her with everything, she needs to behave courteously in return. If she believes she has the adult right to hurl abuse at her minion providers, she needs to learn that they have the adult right to stop doling out an endless supply of whatever she wants.

OP, having lived with ND people all my life - DH, DC, my own parents, most of my close friends, I have to say that it is never helpful to ND teens to allow them to treat others like shit because of their diversity. I always pick up my own DC and my DH on this. As a result, they don't. I witness friends being more lenient and thier situations escalate. I think you did well to remove the phone. She can easily have it back when she apologises and agreees to behave in a respectful, loving and adult manner.

Taking away her phone is treating her as if she is not an adult. Very corrosive of her self-esteem, and also a flat-out contradiction of your attempts to get her to take responsibility for tasks. As infuriating and unjust as if she were to take away your phone

Stop paying for it if you feel that might help - and do that as part of a strategy of moving away from infantilising 'management' of her life. As others have said, punishments are quite likely to be ineffective, and the loss of a parent-funded phone should not be about punishment. It should be about responding to her adulthood

But if they call you a pr*k or a b*ch, do you just let it go

Context is important but if you have taken her phone because of her name calling that’s just about exerting some control and being mean to her because she was mean to you. Another poster touched on the fact it treats her like a child whilst you are actually trying to promote more independent behaviour. Going back to the washing, how important was it to be done when you said? Was there any sort of discussion? How was she feeling at the start of this? A lot of lashing out can be avoided by working with rather than against. I’m not blaming you and obviously can only go on the very limited information you have given but control isn’t necessary, there will be another resolution

Why are you actually doing her washing ?

You can take anything back that belongs to you - eg - that you pay for!

Mu Dani’s also autistic so o get that emotions are extreme at times. But I’ve helped him to develop coping strategies. If he refuses to engage in those then yes - I’ll stop supplying the thing I feel is contributing to the stress.

So if it’s stopping a game to go housework then not being able to access the game is supporting them to
manage.

I’ve been known to take the router to work numerous times!

Becsue every member of a household doing separate washing only exists on Mumsnet. In the real world family washing goes in the machine together.

Consider - how would you deal with her if she did that (while living at home, when you don't want to throw her out) at aged 20, 23, 26? You can't always take her phone away. You may not want to go nuclear at a young adult having an anger response, so what would you do to deal with it adult-to-adult?

To answer your question: No.

In the moment my response would be something like Don't speak to me like that, I'm your Mum

After the event, when everyone has calmed down, I'd have a longer conversation about respect, that I treat her with respect [giving examples]. Then I'd be asking her to justify why she called me those names, and how she felt about it now.

Then, since the name calling is the secondary issue, I'd deal with the primary issue.

That depends on family circumstances doesn't it? My house has 6 people in it - two grown ups, 2 young adult children, a teen and a tween. You may not realise now much washing that is - but its a lot. Far to much to bung it all in the wash at the same time.

We have a rolling laundry routine where the kids 'claim' the washing machine because theirs needs doing. So yes, each individual is done separately. There is no other realistic way.

That isn't a Mumsnet thing. Its a big family thing.

(And my eldest two will do their own laundry when me and DH are at work, or in bed. Just makes total logical sense when we do 10-14 loads a week)

@Islandbopping your starting point is always to remember that "She is neurodiverse"

Her language is rude and unacceptable to you ofc, which requires a "mind your language/that's unacceptable" from you/husband, punishment not required.

Please read @Octavia64's post @ 09.15. eta and @theturtleswims later

It sounds as if you were asking to put away laundry as a punishment? never gonna happen.

For peace of mind and for the household@Islandbopping, as I'm sure you well know, having a child who is neurodivergent requires a completely different set of parenting skills and understanding. 🌸