Problems with daughter (17 yr old) (girls, appropriate, activity, playing)
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Never said you needed to agree with everything anyone said. You have argued to varying degrees with everyone you've responded to. I can see why you struggle with your step daughter so much. It must be exasperating to be her.
It is a general theme in many if these threads that people accuse the OP of not listening or ignoring advise. If someone doesn't say, you are right about everything and I'll do what you have advised, it doesn't mean that the OP hasn't considered their advise.
My wife and I have read all of the responses. I am not arguing with anyone but I am having a discussion. I didn't come here because I had no clue and needed everyone here to point me in the right direction. Believe it or not, she is a good kid BECAUSE we are good parents who love her and want the best for her. I wanted opinions and I got that. Yes I have listened. No I don't agree with all of the opinions.
To answer another question, yes there have been people in this thread who have agreed with me but that really isn't the point.
It is funny how some people like to think that if I don't follow their advise to the letter, our daughter is going to never talk to us again. She'll be fine, we'll be fine. We will navigate this.
Another thing someone tried to insinuate about... If our daughter wants to go live with her bio dad, we won't resist that and we wouldn't see it as a bad thing. We do think she doesn't really want that but since she was an early teen, we have talked about that as an option. Not because of any issues, just because we know she misses that side of the family sometimes and we wanted to leave that on the table.
Obviously, her dad would have his own thoughts, but we'd figure that out too.
Thanks everyone.
I respectfully side with your parental methods and challenge brought upon by a teen.
Sorry that some here are relentless. Usually having supportive guidance in rendering alternative measures is the goal.
I'm.sorry some have fallen short on that .
I myself really haven't found the truth stick to bop my kids into being forthcoming. So when I do , I'd share it . Til then, remain consistent in your expectations and level of rules.
It's so easy for us to disagree with OP because we are observers. I applaud him for being responsible SF.
Teenagers don't have it easy at these times but parents aren't in better position either.
Thanks God no one of them battles Covid and it looks like girl isn't pregnant, which is a plus in all of this.
Is she going to get pregnant, no magic vision I posses to see foreseeable future, but chances are most likely.
This stepfather is trying to prevent that from happening,
because he most likely expects the bio father would argue they didn't take good care of his daughter.
From my point the worst position in this family are stepdaughter and stepfather in.
My positive vibes to them both.
Bio mom and bio father should be responsible for whatever their child is going through.
This all "mess" is leaving a toll on t/his marriage,
and blames might be flying back and for without being jotted about in this thread.
In my case, both of ours are considered adults now, and boy did we as their parents, make many mistakes raising them? Yes we did. Were we both bad teenagers to our parents, yes we were. We are paying our price for disobeying our parents from back in time, and it pains me both ways: looking back and realising and feeling ashamed toward my parents (father died mother on her deathbed) how much I lied and so did my husband. I would not want my 26 and 30 (neither yet has stable relationship let alone married) to make those mistakes, because it cost me college and so did my husband.
It would be advisable for you OP and your wife to create a plan(s) B in case her (your SD) attitude worsens, because it will. She tasted the water from the forbidden well, and she will not stop there. That boyfriend is giving her fun and that's all she is interested in now. Their hormones are guiding their lives, nothing to be surprised about. The more you trying to prevent, the further they will practice it. You got to be a way ahead, all four of you (assuming bio dad is remarried) with creating a constructive plans how to help her if she trips over her head. After all, you have your own child and your SD is giving you free parenting lessons to use it pretty soon.
I've read these forums for years but have never felt a need to post until now... I'll try to convey as much information that I think is relevant without making this too long (I failed miserably...)
Some background:
My wife and I have been married for 12 years. We have twin daughters who are 10 and a 17 yr old -almost 18 - daughter (my step daughter and the subject if this post). My SD has a good relationship with her biological father. We don't have any drama there and never really have. While my wife and him are not "friends", they talk to each other and communicate to parent SD.
We live about 5 hours drive away from bio Dad right now, although we were about 18 hours away for several years. SD has always spent certain holidays and the summer with her bio Dad and he has come to visit her where we were over the years. I have a very "fatherly" relationship with her. I treat her like my own and she treats me like her Dad. She has never treated me like "You're not my real Dad..." She gets along well with her younger sisters and for the most part, we have only minor issues with her from time to time. I love her and want to see her succeed in life. She's intelligent, thoughtful and a good kid most of the time.
The current issue:
We bought her a used car about a year ago (well, we made it clear, the car was ours and she can drive it as long as we allowed her to drive it). Since then, we've had a couple of issues where she has gone somewhere and lied about where she was. We took her keys for a few weeks those times and she had to ride the bus/walk to from school. She is not always immediately remorseful but usually she'll come to understand our position and apologize and we talk about what we expect.
She worked for a while before Covid and drove to/from work and not having the car impacted her ability to work for those times where we took the car away.
A couple of days ago, my wife was feeling weird about SD taking all of the money (less than $100) out of her bank account so she asked SD more questions about where the money was. SD first said that she wanted to be able to better save the money (makes no sense... but we didn't press it then). Throughout the next 24 hours my wife and I talked to her and she told us a story bit by bit that her friend needed a Plan B and she bought it for her. My wife was concerned that her friend was her and asked her but she denied it and we moved on trying to get the rest of the story. We talked to her for about 30 minutes about the situation trying to make her understand why we wanted to know this information and why she needed to understand that she was not grown and could just do as she pleases yet without our approval.
So after all of that, I felt like we needed to tell the girl who she bought the Plan B for. It was supposedly a girl in our housing development. She finally says, "It is me. The girl is me." She says it with the attitude that we really didn't need to know and now that we do, will we leave her alone about it... So at that point, we were mad mostly about the lying. We asked her why she didn't tell us and she said we always get mad.
I feel like this is getting too long so I'm gonna try to sum up where we are now even though I know there is more that will come out in questions and answers. (City Data should have some kind of limit or pop-up warning that this is getting too long and no one is gonna read your novel...)
She has shown a remarkable amount of self-righteousness around this and that along with the constant lying has us the most disappointed, hurt, and just sad. After the "revelation", she basically said she can't talk to us without us getting upset. Which is not true. I asked her when has she came to us and talked and we got upset? She shrugged. It hasn't happened. Sure on the occasions where she told us she'd done something she wasn't supposed to do, she was punished, but we didn't get too upset, more disappointed...
Now though, we are upset... The constant lying and deceit without remorse or acknowledging her part is just upsetting. Here's what we are planning to do and this is what I feel like I wanted some unbiased opinions on. My wife and I are pretty firm in what we are going to do, but not knowing how she's going to react makes us worried about her next year before she goes to college (presumably...)
Our plan:
My wife wants to sell her car now. I kind of want to park it somewhere else so she thinks it is gone and she if she turns this around in the next few months.
She was supposed to participate in sports this year (she hasn't in high school yet but wanted to this year and we wanted her to also) Now, we don't want to allow her. They have started practicing informally at school and she asked about us taking her to the next practice since she doesn't have the car anymore. My wife told her that she was done with that (volleyball) and SD said, "Thanks" sarcastically. That is really all she has said to us in the last 24 hours. I would be open to waiting to see if she turned things around if volleyball was later in the year, but I don't think sh has time to show us and we don't want to go out of our way to help her get to practice and games with her current attitude and behavior.
Because of Covid, she is already basically home bound (schooling will be virtual). She won't be seeing her boyfriend anytime soon. He is a whole other issue... He's not horrible, but My wife doesn't like him, I don't like him particularly either but not as much as my wife... He lies constantly (honestly, it is kind of pathological...) and SD doesn't seem to care enough to not date him. We haven't really expressed that we think should break up with him to this point. We just ask her why she accepts behavior like this from him. Mostly shrugs from her as answers. I'm really sad about this being her last year of HS and while we don't want to make it a horrible year for her, we can't let her think this has been OK in any way.
I'm also contemplating doing something with her phone/TV/PC access. She's going to need the laptop for school but other than that, We are just mulling what we should do.
There's a LOT of details that I could add but at this point, I'll just leave it and ask for opinions. I'll answer questions... I'm still not sure we have all of the truth from her either.
I'm sure others have been in our shoes and while we are fairly secure in what we believe needs to be done, we are open to hearing opinions and seeing if something else makes sense to us. We don't think it is the end of the world, and we know that whatever she has done t this point will not define her but we are concerned that she hasn't seemed to accept her role in how this all has gone down.
I went through a stage with my highly responsible daughter when she wasn't truthful about things going on in her life and she reacted similarly. Looking at it from her viewpoint, this is an age where privacy is highly valued and at her age, she probably viewed it as a violation of her privacy that you viewed her savings account and was forced to disclose her actions. Also, fitting in with peers takes on an importance that overrides being truthful to parents.
With all that said, the punishment should fit the crime. As you have done in the past continue to use forfeiting of car privileges as a consequence. Rather than sell the car or hide it, why not just state she will need to earn your trust to restore car privileges. Come up with a plan and initialy she can use the car under highly restricted purposes and time frames. Spot check for verification. If she does not restore your trust, the car will be sold.
I would not use anything that will cut her off from her peer group (unless they are a bad influence). In fact, the volleyball team may be a good influence.
I don't think a punitive approach is the end all. Your daughter has to see value in confiding in you and your wife especially as she heads to college. Even if you don't get upset, are you helpful to her? I agree that counseling is a step in the right direction.
So she decides to be honest with you and your reaction is to sell her car, take her phone, etc. etc. Sheesh, no wonder she doesn't feel comfortable opening up to you, look what happens.
So she decides to be honest with you and your reaction is to sell her car, take her phone, etc. etc. Sheesh, no wonder she doesn't feel comfortable opening up to you, look what happens.
What happens is she is accountable for her poor choice in concealment. Stop turning this into her justification. The daughter is deliberately choosing to be dishonest. The stepdad is seeking to readjust her to a more direct and truthfilled life. It's called character and integrity.
I think you've received from good advice here (and some not so good). I disagree with one part of your parenting solution: not letting her play volleyball. I watched the impact sports had on my own kids. It made them more disciplined and better planners. They had to be better organized to keep up their grades. Perhaps volleyball, and a new group of people that come with it, will help her see that the boyfriend may not be the best choice. It will also keep her busy enough that she'll have less time for him. Given those two things he may disappear from the picture.
Thanks for your response Birdie. I agree with much of what you say. Obviously, a pregnancy would change our lives but if she talked to us about it, we would deal with it regardless of how difficult it was.
I keep reiterating it, but the attitude from her that we are wrong to have asked and expected the truth is what we are having an issue getting past.
What lesson is she learning if we basically say she can continue to do what she's been doing? How do we go about changing that?
I should also mention that my wife had already recently (before all of this) set up an appointment with a therapist because wife was concerned about SD's anxiety. She's still planning on doing that, but I wonder if we should consider family counseling...
Ultimately, I just want this dynamic to change between SD and us. Ignoring it and saying well, kids will be kids seems wrong to me. The job and volleyball have been the opportunities that she's used to say she was one place while being at another. Or not coming home for a couple of hours after getting off of work at midnight. And telling us she was just driving around...
I'm actually willing to let her work more than play volleyball. I guess because it is work, not play... But she wasn't working anyway at this point so it isn't something we've "taken away".
But when she does talk to you about things, even though you say you just want her to be honest, she gets punished for that honesty. That's not real honest on your part. What lesson is she learning from that?
She's almost eighteen - she's entitled to some privacy. You should not be snooping in her meager bank account nor having her account to you for every minute of every day; she needs to learn how to handle some freedom. Why do you feel the need to micromanage her life?
She should have been encouraged to play sports in the past and you definitely should not be considering curtailing that now. Organized athletics teach things that you may have missed - things like responsibility to others and dedication and sacrifice as it relates to going to every practice, game and team activity. Schedules are easily available and there is no need for you to not know where she will be regarding volleyball. When volleyball season is over either she finds another sport to play or goes back to work.
You have also mentioned that you have talked to her regarding safe sex. Talk is cheap and won't buy what you're looking for. She is not going to stop being sexually active so she needs to have an appropriate medical consultation and decide with the assistance of the doctor how she will deal with her reproductive health and avoid pregnancy. At her age you, your wife and the girl's father have no place in this discussion.
For the record, I raised two daughters - not without problems, nothing very major. If we had it to do over we'd all do things differently but both have turned out well, are happy and are constructive, responsible adult members of society.
Last edited by kokonutty; 08-31-2020 at 03:38 PM..
What happens is she is accountable for her poor choice in concealment. Stop turning this into her justification. The daughter is deliberately choosing to be dishonest. The stepdad is seeking to readjust her to a more direct and truthfilled life. It's called character and integrity.
She is never going to be truthful with her parents if this is their reaction. They're just teaching her to be even less honest with them.
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. Til then, remain consistent in your expectations and level of rules.
