don't understand DSD
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| Mon, 08-27-2007 - 3:50pm |
My DH has had a very volatile relationship w/ his 17 yo DD. In fact, this summer, after a couple of arguments, she has actually gone to a girlfriend's house twice by sneaking out of the house late at night. The first time, she was gone for a night. This was the night before the last day of school. She ended up skipping her last 2 exams and failing both courses and ended up having to take summer school. The 2nd time, she ended up staying at her friend's for almost a week. Of course, her father had basically threatened to ground her for the week at home w/ no car and nothing to do while we were at work, so this was a great way to avoid punishment by going to her friend's house where she could hang out and swim in her pool.
A lot of stuff has revolved around her cell phone use. A couple of months ago, I had to tell him that she went way over the text messages and it cost $80 extra. He said she had to pay this but I don't think she ever paid. I don't know why he doesn't follow up on these basic things, cause I think hitting her in the wallet would make a bigger impression. So when he looked at the bill, he discovered that she was making a lot of late night phone calls, even on school nights. So he told her that she had to leave the phone downstairs when she went to bed. Then he found out that she had been sneaking downstairs after we went to bed to get the phone and text messaging (you can't hear people talking when you TM, right?). The next bill, which I just paid, was an extra $56! So he cancelled TMs. But the thing is that when I looked at the current bill, I found out that she is back to making late night phone calls. Some of that was on the weekend where we went away and she stayed w/ her grandma, so GM is oblivious to what she is doing. But even last weekend, she was on the phone at 2:00 a.m. You could say what does it matter when school is out? But she has a babysitting job, so in order to borrow DH's car, she has to get up at 6:00 a.m. and go with him to work, then get the car. I don't really think I would want someone who has hardly any sleep driving the car. She does this on a Sat. too when he is working so she can use the car, then she will come home & go back to sleep. I know that for myself, in order to be alert enough to drive, I really have to wake up, then I really can't get back to sleep. I feel that if she can fall right back to sleep, she isn't totally awake.
But the thing is that I just don't understand this girl. She has just gotten back in her father's good graces and she is willing to blow it just so she can call a friend late at night? He had tried to explain to her that it's not about the phone per se, it's a matter of being able to trust her, that when he asks her to leave the phone downstairs, it's upsetting to him that she would sneak down later on because it's so deceitful, like obviously trying to pull the wool over his eyes, even though she knows he can look at the bill any time. He had been really restricting her from driving or going out, then when we went away and she stayed at her grandmother's and grandma said she was nice & helpful, he was so thankful that he went back to letting her borrow the car and go over friend's houses. So now that things are basically happy and everybody is getting along and it's pleasant, why does she want to blow this for something that's not even that great.
BTW, he hasn't let her go over the house of the friend she stayed at when she snuck out (T). However, both of us are kind of suspicious that even though she says she's at B's house, she might not be there and she's really at T's. The reason I think this is that she hardly saw B all summer, mostly because B would work at night while DSD works during the day, and T was her "best friend" and she was hanging w/ T every weekend. Now all of a sudden, she wants to go to B's all the time and even sleep over, which she has never done. DH couldn't bring himself to actually check up cause I think he really didn't want to know if DSD was lying.

She sounds like a normal kid to me. Its unfortunate that she's as old as she is b/c your dh doesn't have a lot of time left to get things under control. But she's simply pushing her limits. And more importantly, she's getting away with it more often than not. So she simply keeps doing it. Basically, she wants what she wants, like any kid (or human, for that matter) and the punishments just aren't that bad as far as she's concerned.
A lot of adults drive just a little too fast. The consequences aren't really so bad, just a little fine, *if* you get caught, and *if* the officer won't let it slide. If the result of driving 10mph over the speed limit were 6 months in jail and seizure of your vehicle, I think people would stop doing it (including me).
Your DSD is basically getting what she wants and figures its worth the trade-off *if* she gets punished. The punishments clearly are not that painful for her. She's not feeling deterred by them and so she doesn't stop.
I would suggest finding out what her "currency" is. What in her life would she really miss if you took it away, and use that as a punishment. And then BE CONSISTENT. And for goodness sake, if your gut tells you she is not being safe, like not being where she says she is on an overnight and she requires some "checking up on", please check up on her. Rather than have her leave her phone downstairs at night, have her give it to you or dad, or take it away altogether if she can't be responsible. Rather than restrict her outings for a week, ground her completely and give her housework to do. If you want to know if she's at B's house, call B's mother and find out.
She will become inspired to earn your trust when she realizes its the *only* way to have the *privilege* of a phone or the ability to go out with friends.
But to keep it in perspective, at least for the time being, if this is your worst problem with your DSD, you're doing pretty great! Hang in there...
I agree with pp, you need to find out what her "currency" is and be consistent.
Oh this isn't the only problem--DSD has skipped school, failed classes, stolen things and money from me & DH, etc. The main problem is that DSD and DH have a totally dysfunctional relationship. He is very heavy handed. When she does something wrong, he will go way overboard on punishments--you can't go out, I will take the computer out of your room, anything you can think of. He took the cell phone away from her for months, threatened not to let her drive the car. A lot of times, then he has to back down because what he threatens is so much that he can't carry through w/ it. For ex, she did something and he told her she couldn't drive the car, even to summer school. Well, I pointed out to him, how is she going to get to school then? There's no school bus and the public bus doesn't run in that direction. He thought about actually driving her to & from, which meant he would have to take time out of work every day, not a very practical idea. He gets very angry and she is probably afraid to speak to him honestly, so she has just gotten into this habit of being sneaky and going behind his back.
For ex, DH has decided that her friend Tammy is the bad influence because when DSD wanted to run away, Tammy drove to our house at midnight to pick her up. So now he doesn't want her going to T's house. Well, realistically since they are going to school together, DSD isn't going to stop being friends w/ T. So DSd probably says that she is going to the house of a friend that he likes and is really going to T's house. I don't know how he can prevent that when he gives DSD the car for the whole day on Sat. when he is at work and she can go anywhere she wants.
This is a very difficult and complicated situation, but I still think that given your DH's behavior of inconsistent and "heavyhanded" punishments that perhaps (?) don't always fit the crime, your DSD is behaving like any normal person in her situation would. She sounds very unhappy. A teenager is supposed to test her limits, push for independence, and grow away from her parents, in order to learn to successfully live on her own as an adult. If she is consistently messing up (ie. skipping school, stealing, etc.) then she will be in trouble often and experiencing setbacks (getting grounded, no car, no phone) that she should be getting as consequences. But the important factor here is that she be given a way to fix her mistakes. *Months* without a phone seems excessive. Losing her computer in her room does not seem excessive, nor does getting grounded for a week, but not being able to drive to summer school does. It seems your DH is punishing her out of anger and not in an attempt to correct her and teach her responsibility or to give her the ability to earn trust back. That is the key here. She needs the chance to earn trust back so that she can get back on the right path. Otherwise, she will do what anyone backed into a corner would do and just give up, taking, sneaking or stealing whatever little privileges she thinks she might be able to get away with.
It is your DH that needs to get straightened out here. He needs to figure out how to fairly and consistently discipline this child. She's not listening to him b/c he's both angry and irrational. You say that the two of them have a "dysfunctional relationship". Just remember that despite her looking like an adult, she is still the child, and the burden of maintaining a healthy relationship falls on your DH, not your DSD.
If the big conflict is over the phone and the cost of the phone there are so many ways to fix this. Get her a pre-paid phone. Require her to get a job. Give her chores around the house to earn the money to pay the difference in the phone. Increase the text message plan on her phone. As I mentionned before, keep the phone in your room at night, *not* downstairs where she can easily access it. These are just a few ideas.
IMHO, the late night phone calls are an example of something your DH could compromise with her about. At 17, she should be given a little more freedom in deciding when she will be sleeping or calling someone on the phone. Skipping school is the type of thing that should be non-negotiable. Also, I think that for to simply get a job, even if its babysitting, would relieve a lot of the stress. She needs to learn some self-reliance and responsibility like paying for her own gas, car insurance, and phone. There will be nothing to fight about in terms of minutes and text messages if she's paying for it herself. Then DH can focus solely on bigger issues like stealing, etc.
Six years ago, when S, our foster/adopted son came to us, he was a poster child for troubled teens.
I so agree w/ everything you have said.
DSD actually did have a job this summer babysitting her cousins. In order to get there, she had to borrow DH's car and drive him to work & pick him up. I thought she got this job because it paid a lot of money, but in fact the pay was probably min. wage, plus there was all the extra gas money. She could have earned more working close to home, but it's a job. So she was supposed to pay for her own gas. Don't you think that when DH left his ATM card in the car, she kept using it to fill it up? When I was balancing the check book, I asked him why he kept putting only $10 at a time in the gas tank. I guess she thought that wasn't stealing.
Then again, he told her that she had to pay for the $80 that she used in text messages. When we got both girls phones back in 9th grade, we said that if they ever overcharged (and it was more than a few$$) they would have to pay. I don't believe she has ever paid this money. Now to me that makes sense, it's not done out of anger, it's just a natural consequence. If you charge up the bill, why should I have to pay for it? And to me it would make sense to get both girls unlimited text messaging, since it's only $5 a month more and they (and we) wouldn't have to worry about extra bills. Instead, my DD is always worried that she's going to go over the 200 TMs allowed and there is no way to check it because he won't give away the secret password to the online account.
The same thing w/ the late night phone calls. After about 10th grade, I stopped trying to control when my DD (who's now 18 and off to college tomorrow) went to bed. Before that, if she missed the bus, I had to drive her and since the high school was way across town, it was very inconvenient. But when she was a junior, she got a friend to drive her, so if she was late, it was his problem, not mine. I figured if she stayed up til midnight, she was the one who was going to be tired. But then again, she was always an A student. I dont' know what I would do if she was failing. I'm sure it's not good for DSD to be getting only a few hours of sleep on a school night. It probably does affect her school work. But he will also tell her when to go to bed on a weekend. So in one way he treats her like a child, but he expects her to act like an adult. When she's in college next year (if she goes), is he going to call up and ask her if she's in bed or monitor her homework? She does not have the maturity to take care of herself because she doesn't know how to take responsibility for her own actions.
"Then she will be gone and he will be saying "why doesn't she call me?" I wonder."
We tend to reap what we sow.
Poor kiddo. She sounds like I said, unhappy, and certainly not well-equipped for the adult world. Its's a *great* sign, however that she has goals in her life, post high school and someone like you who cares about the difficulties she's having. You can see, from your more objective point of view (rather than her dad who seems a little confused about how to parent her) that she is somewhat trapped in her situation right now, and her failure to live up her potential is not entirely her fault. Perhaps you can be her best support between now and when she moves out. Kids, and people in general, tend to accept the advice of those who they love, respect, and trust within a relationship. If you can work on nurturing a loving and trusting relationship with her (which seems to be so lacking with dad) maybe you can start inspiring her to see the best in herself and to want better things in her life b/c it is in *her* best interest and not b/c it is being imposed upon her by authority figures.
If you can sustain a close and trusting relationship with her that will last after she leaves, you may become her best bet when it comes to a support system when she's on her own. And she's going to need some parental input when she's out in the adult world.
I think there's hope for this young woman. It says a lot about her that she was willing to jump through hoops to get to a summer job that didn't even pay that much. And people that want to be teachers are often very compassionate and loving. She only ran away b/c, IMHO she was feeling "tortured" by dad, not so she could do drugs or live with a bf. What you consider stealing, she probably thought of as reasonable borrowing or even dad's responsibility (since it was his car). She could have filled the car completely, but she was only using a small amount and of course, she knew you guys would know. I doubt *she* saw it as stealing. I think that most of her troubles right now are simply trying to live in peace with her dad, not knowing *how* to be responsible having never properly been taught, not feeling she *can* live up to his expectations, and simply just trying to get by til she can get out. Otherwise, overall, she still seems like a pretty good kid. Maybe with a little inspiration and encouragement from another loving adult, like yourself, she can pull herself together. I, for one, think its admirable that you care so much about her and she's lucky for that.