Thanks for posting. Hearing stories from other parents who have survived teenagers gives me hope although our situation is not typical since my children are both adopted. Try being a teenage girl and hearing from your birth mother (open adoption) that you were almost aborted along with other self-esteem crushing information about the circumstances of your birth. My daughter is 17 now so we are still in the thick of teenage drama. She has been crying over drama/feeling bullied at school for years and has been in professional counseling since the age of 11. This year she begged to change schools so she transferred to a private catholic school. Right after starting her new school it was time for our yearly visit with birth mother which was so tragic it has resulted in a PTSD diagnosis, meds, and blocking contact with her birth mother altogether all while trying to fit in at a new school.
I teach second grade. A classroom of 20 seven year olds is easier for me to deal with than one 17 year old girl.
Her junior prom is tonight. Fingers crossed for safety, peace, joy, and no attempts to test boundaries!!
I hear what youāre saying and agree itās not really helpful. Itās just unavoidable when you see exactly the same destructive and inherent personality traits and youāre figuring out how to manage the chaos while still showing love and affection.
When my wife and her ex went through marriage counseling years ago (he was actively having affairs at the time, and continued after, gaslighting the counselor), the counselor asked her point blank if this is the life she wanted for herself, because he wonāt change and the best she could help her with is to learn how to survive it. Iām sure itās difficult for my wife to see his daughter repeating the same behavior patterns and not feeling like itās a continuation of the past. Weāll survive it and hope that the positive behavior modeling and accountability structure weāre raising her in helps put her on a different trajectory.
Of course not every day is like this, just more often than not. Sheās lovely when sheās content.
My daughter is ASD. Her behaviour is directly proportional to her distress. Shes not a princess, she is well behaved at school but triggers lead to issues.
There are no consequences that bother her in terms of punishment. None but she behaves when shes not distressed, not because shes spoilt but basic things like if food is delayed, routines change she gets worked up
This is tough. Itās clearly not typical teenager stuff. Iām not sure if some sort of counseling is in the cards, but for you and your wife, it must feel like you struggled to extricate yourself from one horrific situation only to realize youāre just at the beginning of another one that isnāt going anywhere anytime soon. As hard as it is to cut ties with an ex, itās much harder to come to the point where you would do that with a child. You may need to mentally prepare yourself for helping your wife deal with the possibility of having to make that kind of decision at some point in the future.
So two weeks ago the 12yo again broke the rules, nuked her room, stole her momās jewelry and clothing and ruined some of it, and again broke the rule about not taking food to the bedroom. She lost all screens for a week. On the day we let her earn them back, we sat her down and told her the rules remain: donāt go in our room and take things without asking, and do not under any circumstance whatsoever take food into your room, any kind, any amount, at all, ever. The consequence for doing so would be a month of no screens of any kind, at a minimum. She repeated it back verbatim, said she understands, went upstairs and cried for a half hour.
Today her mom and I got back from work while her grandmother stayed with them here at the house overnight. I went up into her room, absolutely trashed, empty fruit snack cups with syrup on her bedside table and floor, and five individual snack size cookie wrappers stuffed in her bedside table drawer. So tonight I have to tell her sheās triggered the monthlong screen ban.
I honestly wonder if this I is the wrong approach for a kid like this. I told her if sheās hungry she can eat what she wants so long as itās in the kitchen, so itās not about food shame or anything like that. She just does what she wants regardless of the consequence. This will be the first time weāve gone nuclear and Iām not backing off. I think we owe it to her to teach her accountability and consequence and how much easier her life can be if she just respects basic rules, but so far nothingās worked.
Itās emotionally draining to be around her and pretend I enjoy her company, and itās even worse feeling that way about a child.
I think youāre right for standing your ground; do you think there would be any benefit in a reward component too? Small reward for going 2 weeks without food in the room, or something like that? Maybe tweaking the motivation from avoiding punishment to something she can earn might get a different response? That may have been suggested further up thread, or you may have already tried, Iām not sure.
I donāt know what else to suggest. It sounds like this kid will continue down this path and one day have to learn a tough adult lesson. Maybe being evicted from a dorm room for not following house rules or something similar might finally drive the point home. In the meantime you still have to live and deal with it, and spend the emotional energy of being āthe bad guyā who enforces the rules, and that takes its toll.
We havenāt specifically tried reward for compliance, mostly because the reward for compliance is she gets to use the tablets etc we provided for her if she does follow the rules. But kids brains being what they are, it may need to be a more obvious and āotherā carrot.
The behavior pattern is deeply rooted at this point and sheās been this way since well before I knew her. Iām torn between thinking she just hasnāt felt enough pain yet vs Iām dealing with an impulse problem than you canāt consequence your way out of.
I doubt she views that as a reward so much as the basic expectation. It seems like kids tend to view these sorts of things as the baseline. Granting access isnāt a reward, but taking them away is definitely a punishment.
Iām assuming you have discussed with her why you are asking her to do these simple things? If not, that would be my first step. The next would be, what she would expect to happen if people stole her stuff. To be a pain, there is a good chance she just says she doesnāt care but then let her know why you care.
Make it a choice, she follows the rules, she gets to use what has been provided, she doesnāt follow, she doesnāt get to use them. Thereās a great chance she wonāt see what is happening are due to her actions, but forming them as a choice may help. It has with me when my daughter was youngerā¦in some cases.
Yeah, I guess that should seem pretty obvious. Like I said, kid brain.
But itās still hard for me to imagine a fleeting reward for good behavior outweighing the drudgery of losing the thing you want most in your free time, in terms of producing desirable behavior.
If Iāve learned anything from dealing with people who do not respect boundaries and do not change their behavior itās that you have to have clear boundaries and enforce them absolutely. So whether this is the answer or not I feel like following through on this consequence is a must.
My MIL told me their adopted daughter was so different in every way from her children that she had no idea how to parent her and deal with her antisocial and disruptive behavior. She said she had to completely recalibrate her approach to situations because normal parenting technique seemed to only trigger more bad behavior, and once she figured it out it was much easier, but it required setting aside your beliefs about how to handle issues that seem self evident.
Iām wondering if thatās the situation here. Or, if the FO part of FAFO just hasnāt been dialed up to the right level yet.
Living under the same roof as that drama is still much better than not being able to live under the same roof as that drama. The good far outweighs the bad. Iām envious of your nightmares.
I would have to assume its not about the actual thing with her at this point. Not about the jewelry, the food, the room mess. Shes fighting you or lashing out about something and those are the symptoms.
I cant remember if you said shes in therapy, but that would be my next step if not, to try to get to the root of it.
Donāt do this. Constant escalation will lead to constant escalation and all out hate, ESPECIALLY in a step family environment. Step parents are already a nightmare scenario, Iād leave the discipline aspect to her mother and just stay well clear.
We tried the reward method with BLeP Jr 2.0. The problem is, itās still a punishment system. If they donāt earn the reward then you punish them by not giving them the reward. Itās no different.
So we take away tech and when heās really horrible he loses a soccer game. Thatās only happened twice. He really hates that.
