here
here
Background (different user name - can't work out how to change back)
Another crisis last night with dd, and she has gone to my mum's. She agreed to go after we called another family member (SIL) to help us get her to agree to leave.
My mum is happy to have her living there. If needs be MIL is also happy to have her living with her.
I don't want to go into a long explanation of what precipitated this particular shit storm, suffice to say that at one point yesterday the two other dc's and I ended up sitting in the car in the dark waiting for DH to come home and help, unable to go back into the house with dd.
Her behaviour is beyond anything I can describe in a coherent way.
She is insistent that she can do anything she likes in the house, (no matter how inconsiderate) and outside it, and that nobody has the right or the authority to stop her. And she exercises that right every day as a point of principle. This makes her impossible to live with.
She has a daily need to demonstrate to me that I have no authority in my home. As a survival strategy we have adapted to this over the past few years by withdrawing demands and not challenging most of her unpleasant behaviour. She does no school work at home at all, and no chores. She pretty much stays up to whatever o'clock she wants, even on a school night. We used to have some rules (such as no phone in her room at night, in her room at 10pm on a school night) but these have all gone by the by as she made life intolerable (shouting and waking the other dc's up late at night for example) for us when we tried to enforce them. If you'd asked me what we thought was the right response to challenging behaviour from a teen a few years ago I would have said 'firm and clearly defined boundaries, trying to reach a consensus together, consistency with sanctions and rewards', but honestly - this has been impossible. She simply won't do anything she doesn't want to do, and sanctions and rewards make no difference. They are meaningless to her.
She wants me to put boundaries in place - she sees them as important, and holds up as 'good parents' those she knows who are strict, and she constantly tells me I'm a shit mother because I have no control over her behaviour - but any boundaries I do put in place she instantly destroys by refusing steadfastly to comply with them.
Recently her behaviour has taken a new turn. She draws the other dc's into the conflict by deliberately upsetting them in front of me or setting them at odds with me - I feel she does this in a fairly cold and deliberate way. She likes to show me that she has control over their behaviour, and she does - because they're frightened of her, and not frightened of me. Last night she phoned Childline in front of ds and ds2 , and told them that she felt I was unable to care properly for him and his brother. That I was a terrible mother. Then stood there laughing at them while they cried in fear at the thought that someone might come and take them away.
As for my parenting skills - well up until dd reached adolescence I think I was a bit smug about not having any significant problems with my children. Never had major problems with toddler tantrums, all the children were happy and well-behaved and achieving highly at school (with the exception of ds2 who has ASD, poor support at school and has struggled a bit, but even he's done well consideration the challenges he faces). But 4 years on, and after a bout of depression caused by health anxiety and a bout of physical illness which went on for several years (still not 100% well), 4 years of daily aggression, non-compliance with basic family rules, and regular bouts character assassination by dd, I feel inadequate and a failure as a parent, and I feel that this is impacting very negatively on the day to day happiness of my other dc's.
I know that there is a consensus on this board that it's important to understand that it's NOT personal when a teen is acting up - that mothers end up as punch bags and scapegoats because they are the family member who is most likely to get in the way of a teen wanting to exercise autonomy, but I've come to believe that this is actually not the full story when it comes to dd's behaviour towards me. I actually feel her behaviour towards me is emotionally sadistic, controlling and a bit... compulsive. :-(
I don't know why she's doing it. She doesn't know why she's doing it. But the fall-out is harming this family and my other dc's.
Anyway, sorry to ramble, I want to know whether social services could intervene in a situation like this, to provide us with some support, and maybe a sort of family mediation service. We don't need foster care for dd because we have family who are willing and able to take her, but we do need help to get her there if she's refusing to go (she does this. Only got her to agree to go last night be involving SIL, but I feel bad about dumping all this on SIL who has enough responsibilities of her own).
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Back again. Long. is there such a thing as a mediator who could help us?
121 replies
Minifingers · 25/02/2014 11:26
OP posts:
Paintyfingers ·
25/02/2014 17:19
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Message withdrawn at poster's request.
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