would you offer to take in a teenage relative?

[tatt]

advice please - have just learnt that my husband's 15 year old niece has left home accusing her father of hitting her. We only see them a couple of times a year, sometimes without the father, and therefore don't know him well enough to have a view on whether its true or invented to encourage another family to take her in. She is living with her boyfriend's parents.

She was a lovely child at one time but her parents always favoured her brother. Desperate for attention she became naughty and we weren't surprised when she became a difficult teen, fighting at school. Lately she's found an interest that seemed to stabilise her a bit.

Our initial inclination is to offer her a home with us if she needs it, despite being terrified at the possible disruption to our lives and a bad influence on our children. There would be considerable practical difficulties e.g (we live several hours travel from her home), don't have masses amount of space and she'd have to go to a different school. I'm not even sure if its feasible - presumably social services will have to be involved? The financial implications also worry me as we'd have to treat all the children the same and her parents wouldn't support her.

Has anyone done anything like this and have any advice to offfer?

It would probably be a good things for her to change schools and make a clean start.

If you do this, your reward will be in heaven.

By which I mean: this sounds very altruistic. Probably a good thing for her, possibly difficult for you. But if it works out you may be very glad you did it.

taking on someone else's teenager would scare the beeejesus out of mine.

brave of you to do it.

hope it works out well

15 year old girls can be bloody hard work and it's possible you would be taking on an awful lot. Would she even be prepared to move away from the boyfriend?

If it works, though, it could be the best thing anyone will ever do for her, and it could be great for all of you - a tough one.

she won't thank you for taking her away fro her BF, which means you will have a rocky start = hard to pull back from.

i think if the choice was quite clearly yor house or a care home - then i would applaud you

Ah dont so it, nice of you to think of it and all that but for your own sanity, for the health of your family, dont do it.
My experience was of taking in my 16 year old cousin and it was a huge mistake.
Same thing, absolutely delightful child, quiet, polite, loved the bones of her, but the responsibility is huge.

Not least her discovering alcohol, getting arrested for drunk and disorderly evry weekend, staying out for days on end, getting sacked from her job, getting in with a very bad group of people.
To daft things like, leaving hair straightners plugged in when she went on a night out, forgetting to lock the front door, having friends round smoking and drinking, phone going every 2 mins.
She argued BIG time with her mum, my aunt so then we were stuck slap bang in the middle and we had to then deal with the benders that she went on after huge fallings out with her mum.

her room was a total shit tip, and i did her washing for her which was mountainous (didnt trust her to not break the washer)
She left the bathroom flooded with wet towels all over the palce.
twas a complete living hell for me and my dh.
Eventually she met a lad and moved out and in with him, but i regretted it bitterly but was comletely stuck with her.
Nowadays we get on well, she has settled down and is again a lovely young woman.
Unfortunately i got the brunt of her difficult teenage years, undeservedly too.
no reward in heaven would be big enough to compensate!

pretty sure she's already discovered alcohol - in excess. The rest of the family have largely written her off already.

I'm not sure if she would come as it would mean leaving the boyfriend, but if that relationship breaks down or the boyfriends parents get fed up I'd hate her to feel there was nowhere to go except a care home. She's always got on well with our daughter, although as they are very different I'm not sure they'd get on well if together all the time. She's Ok with our son.

Like I said the idea terrifies us but don't see what else we can do, she is family.

You can leave it be and see what pans out.
Dont offer, just keep quiet, its likely that she may well choose to go back home.

Its pure torture the guilt that you are feeling i know, and you just think, "what if she were my daughter, id hope that some one nice would take her under their wing if she were in that predicament"

its up to you, but having been there, it literally made me ill.
At the time, i had no one else except me and dh to consider, you have got children and so it will impact on them hugely too.

If you can bear to do it, jsut step back and wait to see what happens, the parents may have a plan of action.

have to admit the children are not keen on having their life disrupted but we have been using the "what if you were in that position" argument. As we have teenagers we are already used to dealing with mounds of washing and teenage tanrums. We also live in a smaller community with less bad company - and poor transport links to meet people outside school. We're friends with the local police so we'd know what she was up to. We can give her more attention and maybe it would do our kids good to have a little less attention.

So far we've just sent her a message asking if she's Ok and to get in touch. We're not dashing into anything, there are going to be several family discussions and a lot of thought/advice seeking over this! Haven't tried to contact the family she is with, decided to sleep on it before seeing if we can get their phone number. Wondering if I should try and speak to someone at her school next week?

After accusing her father of hitting her I'm not sure going back home is an option. If it is we'll offer to have her here part of the summer holidays and give them all a break.

that sounds like a good solution actually, much less permanent.
To have her for a few weeks over the summer to give every one a break and allow the dust to settle.
Sounds like you are going into it with your eyes wide open with you already having teenagers. It is different having some one elses teenager tho isnt it.
Sounds also liek you have a very good support network with lots of concerned eyes over seeing her welfare to help you.
My advice is probably not good for you as my experience started with such good intentions but went horribly wrong, but still dont know if i would have turned my cousin away knowing what i know now. I still think that like you, i could not have said no, she is family and needed help and support which we defo gave her.
We were there through a difficult period for her, and without fail we gave her love and support. I think that we did her good.
It was all ok in the end.
hth
x

well at the moment I can't contact her. Her parents took her mobile away for bad behaviour and she hasn't yet replied to e-mail/MSN. We haven't used MSN for ages and don't know if the name we have is still valid. Her mother doesn't seem to want to give me any contact details and I don't want to antagonise her as I won't get them that way.

Her parents did consult the local police who said there was nothing they could do. SThe child is supposed to be doing work experience so I can't ask her school to pass a messsage on.

I'm really stuck at the moment to know what to do, maybe phone their police myself or the local social services.

contact established by e-mail - although she just said maybe I'll phone you in the holidays. Anyway the offer has been made so she knows someone cares, she has our phone number if she needs it and she's also been offered the opportunity just to get together for the day when we're staying a lot closer to her.

Stil wondering if I should speak to the local police though.