swearing and shouting wanting no boundaries,i can't see a way forward

[thebestofit]

our dd is angry about staying out and having her own way without permission
when i picked her uplast night and said she had to come home not stay at friends house she went mad screaming and shouting at me in the street and car i was actually a bit scared.
I had been keeping the peace letting her do more or less as she pleased within reason but her dad said to be firmer so i grounded her for going out without permission but she won't stick to the grounding just stays out.When i went to get her she became totally out of contrl f*ing and blinding,calling me a fing b*ch and said she would run off.
I feel very worried and don't know whether to call parentline[if she is out] or actually wish i myself could just leave as her dad is inconsistent and not helping and i can't take any more.
she is 16 in the summer and if this carries on she'll have to move out i don't know if that involves a social worker or not.
Any genuine advice please but don't be too ott in what you say as this is becoming very worrying and fragile

yes but maybe i am too inflexible and disapproving
but thanks lulu

well i would be ok with it in about a year but i realise what you are saying

ok, the thing is what we want and hope for our children is not always what happens, so we do have to change our expectations and our mindsets

not to say that you have to throw her a ' i'm s o glad you are having underage sex' party !! but to say, look, i am disappointed, but i am still your mum , and i;m here for you and will support you.

I think there is pressure on children these days to grow up far faster than in years gone by. Problem is that they don't usually have the emotional maturity to cope with that.

You have to let your dd know that it is OK to say no and it is OK to decide to wait. Peer pressure is very hard to resist, but she should also realise that any friend who puts pressure on her to do something that she doesn't want to do is not really a friend. If she is hanging around with a new crowd, there is probably something about them that attracts her and makes her think that they are cool. You need to see if there is someway that you can counteract that.

"Rules;house
be polite and kind
tidy up after self
look after room"
All perfectly reasonable, I'd add a few more responsibilities in there too e.g babysitting - does she spend much time with him to enjoy him rather than see him as a nuisance?

"rules;her age 15
one stay out overnight per week;we know where.
locally not to hang out in dark outside so back at dark or have lift if at friends back 10.30 we know which friends
not to hang out with or go into houses of x or y.[local yobbos]
to come back for meals as much as possible."
Pretty reasonable, just careful how you word things e.g. come home for meals needn't be a "rule" just don't give money for food and tell her what time tea will be on the table - if not home by then it might well get eaten by everyone else!
Same with being out on school nights. Curfew needn't be said as curfew, just that during the week you and dh won't be able to pick her up if it's too late as you've got work etc, and since it's unsafe to come home alone in the dark she'll have to be home before then. Maybe you'd be happy for boyf to see her home but insist he comes in for a cuppa as a thank you when they get home!
Not allowing boyf in room when he comes for tea is a bit much. What are they really going to do when everyone is home and may pop into her room at any moment to put washing away etc? Alternatively what's she going to do if she can't go in her room, stay in the living room and play with little bro? Sit in kitchen to be interrogated by parents?

bedroom is up two floors
have other rooms with pc,music etc can go with boyf
was not going to call it curfew

at present one issue is she insists on walking quite long ways down lanes etc on own in dark ,refusing lifts back,i don'tlike this as it is sometimes a couple of miles at dead of night

Just remember though your rules and wishes are yours for a reason and she needs to respect and understand them. She may disagree and temporarily "hate" you, but you must be strong enough to put up with the hate if you believe what you're doing is in her best interest. No need to get into a fight with your dd, but don't let her make you feel bad about yourself. She will probably know exactly which buttons to press and will deliberately try to hurt you and make you question your rules.
I was evil to my Mum for about a year at 17, doing anything to hurt her feelings, luckily for me/her, she NEVER let me know that what I was doing was getting to her. I really regret what a little cow I was as I am an essentially nice person, so please don't let your daughter's meanness get you down about yourself.

Destroying a person's belongings to punish them and make them obey you is abusive. Temporarily confiscating things like mobile phone/ipod is one thing, but deliberately destroying them is a good way to irretrievably wreck your relationship with a teenager.

So what's her problem with him coming over?
Walking home alone in dark is NOT on and she must realise why surely? Would you be OK with boyf walking her back and then giving him a lift home? Be a chance to get to know him?

I think all this destroying phone, coming down like a ton of bricks etc is just going to make things worse IMO.

It certainly isn't going to make you get on any better. Teens are notoriously defensive and nasty when challenged. Her behaviour is obviously for a reason and you need to sort out with her WHY she feels the need to be so vile and then start working out how to sort it out. Slanging matches do not work in the long run, just exacerbates the situation.

bags i think her behaviour she says is due to me being too strict when she was trying to make new friends~ i did not want to scupper new friendships but the new gang were dodgy in part and i was suddenly told several things at once about boyf being in trouble with police and into drugs and overreacted as i was totally gob smacked,also was told his parents were violent and she was smoking.
Otherwise she just gets really worked up with me that i'm not being as good as other peoples parents etc and she thinks i have not been a good mum,i think ~i think this is due to me being stressed when her bro was younger and her not feeling she had enough attention.
Whatever i say she says i'm being mean and i don't know if this is in comparison to other people or she wants to hurt me or what.I mean shes like this to me without provocation and takes great delight in telling me she has been telling everyone how rubbish i am.
I feel i'm not mean,shes being badly behaved~she has always been really cheeky and i have not been assertive enough with her maybe~ and i feel a bit betrayed but as she is the child and me the parent i know i can't expect anything back~its always the parent who is wrong so it must be my fault.

I need to treat her gently,this attempt at grounding has backfired horribly and thats not what i feel she needs,she needs to be well thought of etc not punished esp as shes always been a good girl till now

yes and her room is upstairs in the house opposite his!my ds1 we put a bit further away so he has more privacy
she has come home and is very calm and quiet,had her tea.
she has just gone to shop will be interested to see if is calm when comes back
has agreed to do rules together but will have to be when comes back

have caught up on recent posts. good luck tonight stay calm and talk together as calmly as possible.

Hope all goes well.

by destroying it the phone and make-up - and not making a sho of it - did say..was so that she couldn't go get it out of the bin.

seems to me that you have a rude disrespectful, shouty swearing, disruptive girl - that is smoking, hanging around with the wrong crowd, may be taking drugs and be sexually active at 15?

and your afraid of her.

that if you remove her things whether ermanantly or for a period of time - she will go into meltdown.

yet she still gets to speak to you like that and get a lift home
get busfare to her drama thing
get to go to her drama thing.

write the rules - its a good tip to make sure that communication between dh her and you is fluid and everyone knows what time kerfew is and who has what chores.

but woill there be positive and negative sanctions associated with these?

i rule my house. I am not afraid of my children ( who are all very much tallr and stronger and faster than i am)

i have no problem with cutting off wires to games systems and permanantly removing things from them

that doesn't describe all of me or all of my parenting. theres a ballance. i am not an evil bitch all the time. but i can be. i rule. and there is no mistake about this.

just thought that i would give you my technique to add to all the others

SGB - interesting with all the talk on sexual advice here that you could have input into, that you chose to only comment on my input. but then i find that you do that fairly regularly.

custardo thanks for your comments~if i thought she was just totally taking the p**s I would confiscate her things as you suggest~maybe i still will at some point but i feel shes been thru a lot of turmoil and is a bit fragile and basically clinging on to control what she can,that approach would make her much worse at the moment.
but i do know exactly what you mean about control in the house,i had to be very strong at one point with my ds1.

We have gone thru house rules like not shouting,being kind and listening etc;that went well
We had a talk about the past and all our takes on what happened and how communication can be improved.
Also about behaviour and safety.
We had a long talk about sex;she listened but said my views were old fashioned and whats the point in waiting a few months so i just said about maturity and pressure and stis etc;which was fine but she wants to be allowed to stay over at her boyfs [without us meeting him].I said to invite him over but shes not all that keen as we heard bad things about him~time ran out and we will have to talk again.
Slightly less good end to the chat as she said that was the only thing she really wanted and if we didn't agree why should she agree with all the other rules

we need to keep talking but overall really positive.

Thanks to everyone who helped me thru today its helped me enormously ~ its been very emotional but you have all been really kind and helpful

Custardo: I can't remember the last time I was on the same thread as you: I disagreed with your opinion on this one, which is not 'singling you out', it's disagreeing with the opinion you posted.

Have just come back to this - had a very busy day.

This boyfriend - you haven't met him, you have heard bad things about him: drugs, police etc...

How old is he?

2 things strike me:

If he is supplying her with drugs, he is committing a criminal offence.(sorry - but I think he probably is)

If he is having sex with her (she is 15)he is committing a criminal offence.

He doesn't want to meet you/come to your house - I don't think he is a "boyfriend" in the conventional sense of the word.

In your situation I would try to find out a bit more about him. Ask your local policeman??

IME aggressive confrontation and destruction of property do not work. You have probably gone beyond that, and you don't want to drive her into the arms of this man/boy and his friends/associates. Keeping your relationship/communication going with your dd is vital - she needs to know you are not the enemy.

Temporary confiscation together with communication, clear expectations and consistancy do work. Your husband has chosen to opt out of his role and responsibility as a parent. Somebody needs to be in control in this relationship - if you don't step up and do it, the boyfriend will control your dd. She is too young to take control herself.

Removing money, phone and transport will help to keep her safe until you work out a longterm strategy.

Every conversation I had with Ds1 even during the darkest times, contained the words "I love you, and I want the best for you". I tell all my children on a daily basis that I love them - it is really important.

You need to talk to someone - either via your GP, or talk to FRANK - (drugs advice) - you can google if you don't know about this.

Is there any way you could take your children away for a holiday, or send dd to stay with a trusted relative for a while?

I even considered boarding school (state - couldn't afford private) to get ds away from the company he was in.

I think your dd is at risk, and while education about safe sex etc is important, I have a bad feeling about the lying about her whereabouts, the source of the money for "tobacco", the boyfriend not wanting to meet you, her erratic/moody behaviour. It all sounds depressingly familiar.

Signs of cannabis use are easy to find out - google or ask FRANK.

Sounds like she isn't using it at home though.

Legally she is a child - she needs you to protect her.

GP to ask about counselling for you/her/family whatever might be an option. You need support to be strong, and clearly your (d)h isn't helping.

i would just like to add that if you are concerned about her fragile state at the moment you could speak to her school share concerns and ask if they will make a refferal to CAMHS (children and adolescents mental health services) or contact any local organisations which will offer family therapy or individual therpary which i mentioned right at the begining of the post.

If she refuses to go to any of these what about trying connexions sometimes young people find it easier to talk with someone outside of the family.

Also, and im not justifiying her actions at all as it is totally unacceptable but she may be going throughna rough time with her gsce's as many young people do feel more stressed at this time of year. But please do not think im using thisas an excuse for her as im not im just trying to see if theres anyway of picking the situation apart to break it down more.

IMO and IME 15/16 seems to be the hardest age with teenage girls, especially if there is a b/f involvd.

anyways it looks like a lovley day again outside and im wondering where to take my younger ones as my 2 older ones are ill in bed.

I have only one thing to add to the rest of the excellent advice here

Although, this sleeping at the boyfriend's seems to be the crux of the matter for her, I am afraid i would stand totally firm on this.

Until you have met him there is no way I would let a 15 yo girl do that. His refusal to meet you means one of 2 things

1. he is very immature
2. he has something to hide

Both of those things negate them being allowed to spend the whole night together.

Does he live with his parents? Could you get to know them first?

Is he refusing to meet you or is she refusing to let him? If she is refusing, then I suspect she knows that you won't approve, even if you set aside all that you have heard about him.

What about her older friends? You say she's hanging about with a new crowd. Can you speak to her former friends to see if they know anything about the new friends?

Not sure you want to go down this route, but I believe there are kits available which enable you to test your child for drugs - without them knowing. If she is denying taking any drugs, how will she react if you test her and she comes up positive?

her boyf is 15 and a pupil at same yr in school.I have spoken to school and altho he was said to be not the sort of boy they would expect for dd they said they didn't know of anything to do with drugs/the law~however i will be going back after easter as it is still going on.It is his parents who are odd,but i will try to find out more.
She has been fragile and a bit overwhelmed lately then instead of sorting it she was going out and telling friends.However we taked to her at length last night and she was ok,just trying to get her life back and feeling we were stopping that~ she didn't actually have any issues with me and did know she had been acting badly.We have some support but if this goes on i could ask for more specific psychological/family support.Also I'm going to be more proactive with the support we do have and explain more clearly what concerns i have and what to do about it rather than her just complaining about lack of freedom.This is a dialogue we have to keep up every day atm instead of her arranging to go out all the time becos then everything is magnified and not sorted out and we can't pin her down.
kentmumi think this is due to a combination of life events for her and change of crowd as well as some physical problems but a complex situaion has got worse thru intermittent communication with her being out and cross[as well as avoiding her gcse work]
rules/boundaries are not finished we need to talk again today about honesty and safety etc

Have you got the school on your side?

Ds was truanting, and it took me a while to realise because the school didn't communicate with me - in the end I got them to ring me every time he didn't show up.

Dh is a good man, but he didn't have a great relationship with ds1. He was all for throwing him out when things got bad, but I wasn't prepared to do that. In my view, my son was drowning - I wasn't about to let go of him, never mind push him further out to sea.

I had to keep my relationship with ds going - it was like walking a tightrope.

I did involve the police, and my GP, and FRANK. In the end though, it was my determination to get control over the situation that was essential.

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