need advice dealing with teenage daughter (very long but please read!)?

Question

We have a good family. We are all close and we spend much time with our kids. We support them in sports and school activities. We encourage friendships and get to know their friends. Their are no drinking problem and no abuse. However, I need some advice. Our teenage daughter, 16, has been threatening for weeks to move to her friends house. She does not like our rules and is disrespectful to her mother and I. She yells at us and tells us to shut up and worse. We can not do enough for her. If we take her out she always ends the night by saying we don't listen to her enough or spend enough time with her or have to many rules. We have her on birth control which we talked to her about when we found out...well you know. She works and has good grades but her attitude is disrespectful. We do pay for her phone and extras. The money she earns is hers to spend any way she wants. Last weekend we had plans to take her and her older sister out (who is married and goes to college). We were all looking forward to it and it was a whole weekend thing. She went out friday night, and we know she got drunk. She was to sick to go out with us. Sunday morning came along and she was in a terrible mood. Her mother asked her if she was coming with us and she got snotty. At that point she had a screaming match with her older sister (home from college) and stormed out the door and said she was moving in with her best friends family. Her mother said that she cannot come home until she agrees to live by our rules and be respectful. I am not so sure what to do. Her mother takes the brunt of our daughters verbal outbursts and has had enough. I know where she is and she is safe but is my wife right or should I go get her and drag her home? Help I am confused and hurt and missing my daughter!

Update:

the plans for last weekend were her idea and the tickets cost $100 a piece! She usually goes out with her friends on the weekends and we have found out she has been lieing to us about where she is going and has been going to parties where people are drinking.

Update 2:

Last night we called the police to find out what to do. They came to our home and directed us to go get our daughter and remove her from her friends home using physical force if needed. they also stated that if the other parent interfered they would arrest her for interfering with with a child custody issue. They gave us the tools we needed to start a tough love approach to parenting. Other parents in this situation need to realize the law is on our side! And if we love our children we need to step up to the plate. Our daughter got out of control because we allowed her to but it is not to late!

Jill P · Accepted Answer

I was a bad teenager myself, and now I'm a mom, so I speak from my own experience.  My advice would be to drag her home and strip her life down to the bare bones.  You give her a roof over her head and food -- that's it.  Everything else is taken away (phone, computer, TV, car if she has one, etc).  Those are priveleges and need to be earned.  Give her chores to do around the house to contribute to the household, and a strict curfew (if you let her go out at all).  You can decide what is required of her to earn back her priveleges -- maybe it's a week of good behavior, or a month of no back-talking, or whatever seems fair to you, and then hold her to it.  I can almost guarantee that she'll be willing to do whatever she has to do to keep her priveleges once she has a taste of life without them.  I was a stubborn teen -- I spent a full year of high school grounded with no phone (we didn't have cell phones and laptops back then) because I kept relapsing and losing my priveleges again -- it was a miserable year and I hated my parents then, but I love them now for doing what they had to do to raise me right and keep me safe.  Good luck!

Cynical_Student · Answer

Don't worry - chances are her friend's parents will send her home anyway.

If she can't abide by the rules of the house, you have to punish her. If you pay for her phone and extras take them from her. 

Withhold her allowance to pay for her room and board. 

If she wants to do whatever she wants, she gets treated like a lodger. Don't do her laundry, don't clean her room and if she's not around at dinner time, don't save any for her. Don't let her use the phone (unless its important) etc etc.

helene · Answer

If you don't back up your wife on this, you may not only have a daughter out of control, you may be looking at a divorce, too. You SUPPORT your wife's decision, that's what you do. Don't undermine your wife's authority once she's given your daughter an ultimatum. 

Stop paying for her phone, change the locks on your house, and WAIT. "Her best friend's family" will get sick of her before long, and she will either have to eat the crap sandwich and apologize, or sleep on the streets. Either way, it's your daughter who is in the wrong, not your wife. You stay on the side of what is right.

Horsense · Answer

Listen to what you hae been doing while she has been showing you ongoing disrespect: 

"...We do pay for her phone and extras. The money she earns is hers to spend any way she wants... She does not like our rules and is disrespectful to her mother and I. She yells at us and tells us to shut up and worse.... We can not do enough for her..."

From that & several other things you have said, it is quite apparent that --rather than disciplining your daughter-- you have actually (albeit unwittingly) been *rewarding* her insolence.  What she needs is *parents* --not wishy-washy parents-- but STRICT Parents.  The job of parents is to raise & discipline the child for their GOOD, not to please their immature desires.  Some kids even go against their parents wishes in order to --hopefully-- elicit some responsible-parental behavior from their folks, because they feel secure --and sometimes even unloved-- without it.  (That was me, BTW.)  

Two others ahead of me have given you good advice already.  I wish to add to that, links to articles to help you 'see the error of your ways'... What works with one child does NOT necessarily work with another, so parents need to *tailor* their disciplinary tactics according to each individual child...

"How Well Do You Know Your Children...?"
 
"What Happened to My Child?":
 - “What Happened to My Child?"
 - Raising Adolescents—The Role of Understanding
 - Raising Adolescents—The Role of Wisdom   
http://www.watchtower.org/e/200806/article_01.htm

"Keys to Family Happiness---Communicating With Adolescents"
 - Identifying the Roadblocks
 - Keys to Success---Breaking Down Barriers
 - Tips From Parents   
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20080801a/article_01.htm

"Reliable Advice for Raising Children"
 - Spend Time With Them
 - Teach Them Proper Values
 - Be reasonable
 - Benefit From Reliable Advice
 - Be WARY of 'Expert' Opinion that Conflicts what the Bible says!
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20061101/article_02.htm

"Helping Teens in Trouble" :
 - Youths in Crisis
 - The Pressures Facing Youths
 - Help for Todays Youths    
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20050408/article_01.htm 

"Drug Abuse in the Family---What Can You Do?" :
 - Young People and Drugs
 - How to Protect Your Children
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20030408/article_01.htm

"Meeting the Needs of Today's Youth" :
 - Youths Online!
 - Helping Youths Meet the Challenge
 - Help Youths Meet Their Needs   
http://www.watchtower.org/e/200703/article_01.htm

"Teen Pregnancy..." :
 - Mothers Too Soon
 - A Global Tragedy
 - Facing the Challenges of Teen Motherhood
 - Help and Protection for Young Ones  
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20041008/article_01.htm


Your younger daughter may not be amenable to one, but I *highly recommend* that you seriously consider *making time* for a regular family Bible study, using the Scripturally supported study aids:

"The Secret of Family Happiness", &,
"Questions Young People Ask—Answers That Work"
http://www.watchtower.org/e/publications/index.htm

When requesting copies of the books, one can arrange to have someone discuss the information they contain with you & your family, and show how the book is used in a study format.  The latter book is based on an ongoing series of articles, some of which are posted online, with a list of their links here:  http://www.watchtower.org/e/archives/index.htm#young_people



Some people actually have a *hidden / invisable* disability, which keeps them immature in their reasoning faculties, while often allowing for normal intelligence & communication skills.  Such disabilities have various causes, but all share 'chronic immaturity', which is often mis-identified as stubbornness; rebelliousness; laziness; and a number of other negative attributes.  Once such a one is past 12, if their problem has not been properly identified & they have not received special help to avoid it, they will develop secondary behavioral symptoms (including behavior like you've describe in your daughter).  These individuals do not do well with the 'tough love' approach.  Here is an introductory article about this type of situation:

"Understanding FAS and ARND"
http://www.fascets.org/info_frameset.html
(Remember, a person can have similar problems while having different diagnoses, 
when all cause 'minimal brain disfunction'.)
.

? · Answer

sounds like your kid needs to learn respect. stop paying for her phone and extras, give her the billing info and say to her "you can pay for ur own stuff or follow our rules" . that normally gets kids begging to come home. the only way kids learn is if u punish them and keep that punishment going until they submit to the rule they broke .

Anonymous · Answer

The best thing do to is give her space. She's a teenager and doesn't want to be with her family every waking hour. Yes, It's nice to spend time together but not everyweek. Maybe you could set a specific time every month or so, to have quality time. It sounds like you need to bond. You may also want to think over some of your rules, to see If they're unreasonable or not.

Try and remember how you felt at her age.

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need advice dealing with teenage daughter (very long but please read!)?

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