16 year old teenage girl

[Witts end]

My 16 year old daughter left home after I refused to let her go to a nightclub with an 18 year old girl and her mother.

She has been advised by a connexions adviser that they will find accommodation and get all her expenses paid. I do not even know where she is. Being worried sick I called the police and was informed that she was safe and well and that they did not have to inform me as to where she is!!

Apparently as a parent I have no rights whatsoever and it would appear that once a child reaches 16 they can more or less do what they like!

[Witts end]

Hi dmsjps. Many thanks for your response. I sincerely hope that your daughter does not go down the same route as my daughter. I would not wish this on my worst enemy.

I just do not know what will happen next and I dread to think. It would appear that alot of children today have no respect for anyone or anything. The government push for family values but how can this be when then are setting up agencies like Connexions who are tearing them apart.

The last response from shivvy felt sorry for my daughter but at the end of the day it was her CHOICE to leave and she has in my opinion made herself homeless and therefore she should be entitled to no benefits.

If an adult makes themselves homeless or leaves their employment they are entitled to nothing so why on earth should this be different for a teenager?

I hope your daughter can see sense. I had talked to my daughter and told her that she was going down a slippery slop and like you I had verbal abuse thrown at me.

All I know is at the moment I have got to try and pick myself up off the floor and remove the heel marks otherwise I will end up having a breakdown. No one deserves to be treated in the manner that some parents are being subjected to by children (who think they are adults!).

[sam82]

Hi Witts End,

I have been reading through the postings and in a sense I do agree with Shivvy there needs to be services out there for kids that need it, but I know so many teenagers that have abused it.

Sam sounds like the people I knew when I was her age, party first, party second and think never, who cares about anything as long as your having fun and no one on your case!

Yip she does sound like the spoilt brat that I once knew.

I imagined her into all the things you mentioned in a later posting, some groups of teenagers live in this world where as long as there happy and there with there mates there cool, and at the time they cant see how any of this is wrong.

May I suggest you write a letter, the 18year olds mum would know where your daughter is, explain you would like to know how she feels about things and what she wants out of life try get her to open up, just listen see what she says, see if you can meet in a neutral place and try come to a compromise.

i dread to become a parent no one teaches you how to do it, you just try and follow your own moral standings and sometimes we find our kids want to make there own.

[Witts end]

Shivvy you are so wrong in what you are saying. I have been more than a mother to my daughter (she just didnt want the friend bit). No I am not ranting or being aggressive. Do you have children? I was told I would never have them and I waited five years for my son and 6 for my daughter.

Of course I have looked at things from both sides and sought help from outside. You implied that I was the unreasonable one and the fault was at my door. Yes it is good that teenagers have people like you to talk to.

I assume rightly or wrongly that you are a textbook adviser? Yes I was looking for answers from PARENTS who have/are experiencing the same situation as I currently find myself in.

I also find it interesting to note that you did not say what you would do in this situation.

 

One thing you are right about this will be resolved one way or another. There is no way I will let a 16 year old run me into the ground. Like I said I love my daughter to bit and god knows the tears I have cried but at this precise moment I totally dislike the person she has become and I am ashamed to admit she is my daughter.

I have also accepted the fact that she will do what she wants to do and I have informed the police that I will accept no responsibility for any trouble she gets into now. She has made her bed now she must lie in it.

[Witts end]

Hi Sam82. Many thanks for your response. I have written to Sam on several occasions, even when she was living at home. She just rips the letters up and tells me to F*** off and it is none of my business what she is going to do. 

She will not even meet me on neutral ground to talk. Her last text to me was very hurtful and said that as far as she is concerned I don't exist.

Like I have told her she knows where I am (even though I haven't a clue where she is!)

[sam82]

oh god she is very unhappy sounding

all i can say is try and get on with things, you cant stop worrying but she will come back when she eventually grows up or makes some bad mistakes.... until then all u can do is let her know your there, maybe remind her every 4/5 weeks.... you have to look after your health, stress can cause allsorts. you ahve a son who needs you too..

i really do sympathise, and the government well i dont think 16 is old enough to be an adult your daughter needs help and you need backing from the government to help her,

hope things get better

[Hadenough]

I so feel for your situation.  We are suffering similar problems with our own daughter who, at 16, has been led to believe, for the past few years, that she is an adult; she has rights, and is apparently perfectly capable of living life without the support and love of her family.  The fact is that she is still a child, throws tantrums, is incapable of reason (or any form of intellectual discussion), and totally dependant in terms of managing finances, washing, cleaning, food, and so on.  I am of the same opinion as the rest of the kind people offering you support here, with the exception of one who we will come back to!

Our daughter has been brought up in a comfortable, loving home and as part of an extensive and very close family.  Grandparents, Uncles, Aunties and cousins � all are close and all are loving, warm, supportive and fun to be around.  The devastation that is affecting the WHOLE family through her behaviour is unbearable.  This system that we now have, with plonkers like shivvy offering an oasis for kids that can�t get their own way, is ridiculous.  What experience of actual parenting do these people have?  Would they be happy with their own kids seeking advice from people who are essentially undermining family values?

Like you and others, I agree that there should be support for kids who have genuine issues � violence, poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc., but these so called �experts� should also have the ability to recognise a little brat taking advantage of the �powers� that this government has allowed �children� to have.

As a kid and during my teens, if I screwed up I expected the consequences (if I got caught!!), but at no time did I refer to the resultant discipline as �abuse�.

continued)

[Hadenough]

...

How on earth can we pass on our experience of good and bad if your child can say �F*** off, I can do what the f***ing hell I like� and you are absolutely powerless to do anything about it?  Where is the respect that we all (or most of us) once had for our elders, for authority and for teachers?

At 16 a �child� is still unaware of the challenges that lay ahead, but the likes of shivvy will make them believe that all is OK and that the system will support them because they essentially don�t need their family.  At 16, �kids� are led to believe that they are adults, yet they still can�t legally drink, get married (without parental consent), drive a car, and if they did something wrong, they could not be named and would be tried in a Juvenile Court.  Please �system� � are they adults or children???

Our daughter has turned her back on her entire family.  As parents we have provided her with all the love, guidance and support that any decent family could offer; only to have this hurled back in our faces!  She has NEVER been spoilt.  Our mistake has been to give her too much rope which she has hung herself with.  Her peers, as it turns out, are undesirables, but how are we to know who their friends are these days when all communications are carried out in secret over mobile phones and the internet.  As the �system� now seemingly permits underage drinking, she found herself socialising with drinkers of a legal age, and is now hooked up with a 30 year old, unemployed, drugged up loser, who spends his life in bars.  What can we do about it?  Nothing!

She ignores her family, her mother�s birthday, and two of her Great Grandparents, whom she knew were unwell, have passed away in the last week.  Does she care?  Has she called to see how her family is?  Any attempt to contact her is ignored.

(continued still!)

[Hadenough]

...

You are not alone, Witts End.  If you can take any comfort from this posting, understand that this problem is far wider spread than it ever has been and that shoulders to cry on are numerous.  I believe that you have done nothing different to any other reasonable and loving parent, and that what has been delivered as love, care and concern for your child�s well being, security, safety and future life, has been received as interfering, oppressive and controlling.  It doesn�t help having these so called �support groups�.  Quite the opposite!  Given the opportunity, no doubt our �expert� shivvy would explain to our daughters what awful people we are, that life is a bed of roses, and that the system will provide them with all the support they need.

I wish you the best of luck, along with anyone else going through the same challenges currently.  I have been assured, as I am sure you have, that they will come to their senses eventually.  Sam 82 seems to have come through OK, which is encouraging.  Our only hope is that  they return unharmed, ready to face the rest of their lives without too many scars (or children of their own) and to embrace family values.

[sam82]

can i just say your daughters are very lucky to have you.

[hadenoughtoo]

Dear wittsend I know exactly what you're going through  Does this shivvy live on the same planet as the rest of us ? What on earth is going on out there ? I thought that connexions was about finding a job or college after school. Nobody told me they would find you somewhere to live and then fund it too, or break up families and help kids (yes, kids) to make ridiculous decisions in the face of common sense.

I'm married to 'hadenough', parent of said 16 year old who believes she has the right to do anything she wants and therefore has done so. At least we know where she is, albeit living in squalor.  To be told by the 'authorities' that they can't tell you where your daughter is is utterly deplorable and believe me, despite the misery and despair that we are feeling, I can only too well imagine what your going through.

If there is any consolation for you it's that you'er not alone.  We've learned of many teenage girls doing the very same thing either in the recent past or at this moment and they don't come from tragic backgrounds, they come from lovely, safe, secure, loving families.  So what does this tell you ?  We aren't talking the odd isolated case here (are you still listening shivvy ?) Who is impressing them, encouraging them, enabling them ?There's a disturbing picture emerging and we, the parents, can only stand back and watch, helpless.

So we wait don't we, well we can't do anything else. We've told her, as you have yours, the door is always open and  I'm sure she'll regret having done this when she's older and wish she hadn't (dare I say, when she's grown up !) and in the meantime it will be down to us, the families, who will pick up the pieces and sort out the mess and god only knows what that is left in the aftermath - not people like shivvy I hasten to add.

[Hadenough]

Sam82 - your brief response brought a lump to our throats!!  I'm sure Witts End will appreciate that too.  (Feel like I've hijacked her question now)  :o)

Thanks

[Witts end]

Hi Hadenough I am so sorry to hear that you are experiencing similar. I couldn't have put things better myself. Oh and Sam82 I could have cried when I read your message. You came round in the end and obviously matured. I wish you all the very best in whatever you do. I just hope that my daughter will see sense one day and realise what she is doing.

I am sure Shivvy will have something to say!!!!!!!!

Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs in the world. There isn't a day goes by when I don't think about my daughter, wondering if she is okay, wondering if she is eating, hoping she isn't in any danger. Most of all I desperately want her back in my life, I want to hold her and tell her that everything will be okay.

We all have one life and it is no dress rehearsal so we have to make the most of it. All I can say right now is that there must be hundreds of happy teenagers out there and thousands of unhappy parents!

[sam82]

Witts end & had enough I am doing really well, I work as a quantity surveyor and have been going to uni on a day release through my work, but had not told my parents as I wanted to complete it first so if I didn�t they wouldn�t be disappointed in me again. Well I have completed it and have now joined the institute of civil engineering surveyors (a professional body) Im planning on framing my certificate and have saved up enough money with the help of my brother and a huge discount from a friend to send them to Mexico for there 25th wedding anniversary�. Just to show them how much they mean to us.

I hope your daughters will see the error of there ways and come home to the people who will never let you down.

[Witts end]

Hi Sam82. Congratulations! You are a credit to your parents.I am sure your parents are very proud of you. I am and I am not your mother!!!!

I am praying that my daughter will turn the same corner as yourself. You will be the pride and joy of both your parents and I am sure with your rewarding career you will get what you want out of life. Enjoy it now to the full and don't look back. Forget what happened in the past and look forward.

[hadenough2]

Sam82 � well done!!!!  We�re so pleased to hear your story.  Hadenough and I congratulate you.  Wittsend � our thoughts are with you, our situations are painfully similar, let�s hope that our daughters come to see sense soon too.

Nothing could have prepared us for this, the despair, the worry, the excruciating frustration is unbearable.  I fear for my daughter�s safety and wellbeing every minute of the day, and nothing the likes of �shivvy� can say will make that any better. 

Encouraging children to make these decisions by themselves, enforcing the �you are 16, you can do what you want, we�ll help you and we wont tell your parents� ethic cuts out the real support these kids have and leaves them on their own.  It makes no logical sense at all.
Like we�ve all said ALL of us would want a child in a desperate situation to have a place of refuge, someone to �save� them, that is without question but we have heard of many families around us either in the recent past or at this moment in time that have experienced this same thing.  The alarming news is that this is now not a rare thing.  Can shivvy and the �authorities� not see a trend when it�s happening?  These children are not in a desperate situation.  They are taking advantage of you and us because they can. They want to do too much too soon.  They are no longer taught to wait. Instead, they hear if you don�t like it � run away and we�ll help you to.

We live on a knife-edge at the moment and we daren�t fall off.  Remember, blood is thicker water.

[Witts end]

Hi Hadenough. Well now is the worst time of all - the weekend! I hate weekends at the moment. Luckily I am on night duty for one of the days! At least I have to concentrate when I am at work. The minute I leave though my thoughts go back to my daughter.

I cannot believe that there is nothing we can do!!! I have heard that my daughter has not been to work for the last two weekends - I assume the state is now giving her money to fund the drinking and the smoking!!!

I still have no idea where she is and I am still waiting for the phone call from the police to let me know she is ok (That was after the incident on monday when she turned up drunk). No surprise about the system there then!!!

The system will learn the hard way (not unlike many teenagers). I have now shut my daughters bedroom door and cannot go in there without bursting into tears. I feel as though I have been bereaved in some way. I keep apologising to my son, who has been an absolute brick throughout. I know it wont stop hurting until she comes back, whether that be weeks, months or years.

Thanks to the state, why should she come back - they are going to provide her with everything she needs!!!!!!!

[hadenough2]

Witts end - I know!  I can't bear to go in my daughter's room either!  It's just horrendous.  Just like yours, our daughter was not turning up for work either!  She's since managed to get another job and guess what? We've just heard she's been caught skiving off from that one! What are they thinking?

Hang in there - hadenough1 and 2

[Eurox]

Hi Wittsend. Im sorry to have heard about your situation. I am a 17 year old teenage boy who couldnt walk out on my mum even if i got accomodation and benefits. All I can say is why don't you let her go to the nightclub? What I mean is that wouldnt you rather her be home and out then out on her own and doing it anyway, at keast if she was home you could help her when she came home drunk. Because in a few years theres absolutely nothing that can stop her. I go to nighclubs myself and its not as bad as it makes out. I dont get why you didnt let her out in the first place. Yes ok shes 16 and underage but she was with literally 2 adults. Wouldnt you rather her go out and know where she is than out on her own? Thats all I can say.