OhNo!

My stepdaughter is just now becoming a rebellious teen and is neglecting to do her weekly chores. We can't ground her because my husband and I both work so that we’re not home to prevent her from leaving the house during the day. She doesn’t drive or collect an allowance. Really we've really never had a reason to punish her in the past. Any suggestions?

My husband has had custody of his daughter since she was 7. At 16 she went to live with her mother. At 17 she decided to come back and finish her last year of high school with us. When we asked “why” she said she didn’t connect well with her mother’s community. When she came back we tried family counseling to communicate better but the sessions went no where and I feel the counselor just didn’t dig deep enough. Now she either spends all of her time in her room or at a friend’s house. She refuses to eat meals with us, only speaks when spoken to, stopped doing her chores, just no participation in our family at all. I’ve tried doing things with her such as hair appointments and shopping but she pouts the entire time like this is a chore. It’s getting to the point that both my husband and I dread coming home from work because the tension in our house is so thick. My husband wants to suggest she go back to her mother’s but I know this will only make things worse. What would you do?

My husband has had custody of his daughter since she was 7. At the age of 16 she announced she wanted to live with her mother. We were not too thrilled about the decision but understood her need to want to bond with her mom. At 17 she decided to come back and finish her last year of high school with us. When we asked “why” she said she “didn’t connect well with the community” where her mother lives. We’ve been talking a lot about college these days and agreed we can afford to pay 50% and she should get the other 50% from her mom (who make the same amount of money we do). Well she came back from visiting her mom over the holidays and now she wants to go to college in the same town her mother lives and her mom can’t afford to pay anything for college so she will have to get the money from us or a student loan.

I'm sure this has been asked a thousand times but just curious how people feel today?