New Here, Question regarding teen girls

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
New Here, Question regarding teen girls
5
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 6:07pm
Hi, new here and have a question for moms of teen girls. My dh and I have a 17 yr old dd. Actually, she is my sd. I have never seen anyone so absent minded, ever. Her younger sister who is also my sd is 14 yrs old. The 14 yr old seems to have her head on straight. The 17 yr old girl has always been "airheaded" (excuse me for saying it that way, but it is true).
She seems to operate without thinking about anything, such as cause and effect. She for example today, is getting ready for work and my dh and I leave to run some errands. We leave the front door open while she is still home. She's all alone in the house and walks out and left leaving the front door wide open. She thought that someone was still home. How could that be. We live in a ranch size home and she couldn't figure out that noone was home. I had to call her at work and ask her why she left the door open.
Earlier this morning she and her sister left to do a car wash with their church youth group. It was about a half hour away from home. It was kind of foggy out, just a little, so she turns on her lights and then gets there and forgets to turn them off. Her battery is dead and we have to run out and help her. When we get home, (we followed her home but was a few minutes behind her)we find her walking from the side of the house to the front. We asked her what she was doing. She says trying to get in. So, what does she do, she tries the side door first, 2ndly she leaves the house this morning and doesn't bring her house keys with her.She then proceeds to try the front door, which is right next to where she parked her car. I asked her before she got to the door if she tried the front door to begin with, and she says noooooo. My dh then asks her, did you even try to push the garage door opener that was located in his car that was at home and sitting in the driveway. Nooooo!
You just have to see all the hundreds of things she does with out putting any thought into it. She is unable to consentrate on anything. She can be standing right in front of you when you talk to her and she will even repeat what you say to her , but then she does exactly what you told her not to do. She has this stupid look on her face like, duhhhhh! I don't remember you saying that to me. WAKE THE HE$$ UP ALREADY!
We have come to believe she has no common sense at all, anywhere in that brain of hers. My dh and I also have other children in the house other than her and her sister. I have a 9 yr old ds and my dh and I have a 20 month old and a 6 month old. There is no way I would ever ever ever put her in charge of the two little ones. She can hardly take care of herself.
There is not a mental slowness here or anything like that.
My question is this:
This can't be tipical for teen girls, is it?
The 14 yr old can reason things out, why not her.
Input needed please.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-14-2000
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 7:28pm
Hi and welcome to the board!
Pam
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 7:55pm

I've been through forgotten keys, dead batteries, and unlocked doors with my boys and I seem to think of it as 'normal'.

Of course I lean that way myself. If I am preoccupied with work, I will turn left(towards the highway for work) instead of right when Im supposed to be taking my 14 year old to school. "MOMMMMM"

I make lots of Uturns ;)

I will say my boys have only done most of these things once-then they remember not to do it again. I think thats the key here. Is she learning from the specific experience or not?

I dont mean in a general sort of way. She might leave the headlights on one day and run out of gas the next and, to me, that's normal, but I would be more worried if she left the headlights on over and over

The one thing my kids have done repeatedly is forget to lock the door so I stuck a sign on it so if they left after us in the morning, they would remember to lock it. I did that several weeks and then it wasnt needed. Yes, it worked

Visual is the key to helping people remember(particularly people who seem a tad ADD)

Leaving a kids toothbrush on the bathroom counter before you go to bed is going to work ten times faster and better at reminding him to brush in the AM than 38 lectures(trust me, I KNOW)

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 9:51pm
Thanks for your opinions. This was another thing that she did today. When she called to tell me about her car, (she doesn't have a cell phone)I had no idea where she was calling me from. All the message said that she left on the answering machine was"Loretta, it's courtney, my car won't start. We are stuck out here, it's important, call me back right away". Then she hung up. Where the heck was she calling me from, and how am I suppose to know where she is. Duh! It's a good thing she called back again. Does she learn from her mistakes? Well, she laughs about them, and seems to laugh them off instead of taking them seriously. The scarry thing about this is that her mother is exactly like her. She never thinks about the consequences of her actions until it happens. And somehow she manages to get someone else to pay the price for her. It scares me that she is going to be the same way.
If anything takes effort, then she'd rather not do it. I guess I'm just venting about her, because it builds up after a while and I worry about who in this family is going to have to pay for her careless mistakes.
Thanks for listening.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-19-2003
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 11:17pm

I don't think its a teenage girl thing -- I think its a personality thing. We are all born with our own set of personal foibles. My own dd is quite a responsible child but she is maddeningly indecisive and unassertive. My son on the other hand is one of those kids who seems to live in his own little universe at times. He is also melodramatic and stubborn. They both do things that drive me crazy and there are times I seriously worry about them.

But you know, I'm sure my mom and dad worried about me in the same way when I was growing up. They learned to trust me in the areas where I was strong and to compensate for my weak areas. And I think that's important to focus on with your stepdaughter. So she's a bit spacey and unorganized. But what are her good points? Where are the strengths that can be built upon?

Nobody is perfect but at 17 while there's still alot of room for growth, there are alot of personality traits which are frankly going to be there for the rest of her life. And you and your dh will have to learn how to work with her strengths to help compensate for her weaknesses.

Avatar for mily12
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Sun, 04-23-2006 - 1:15pm

My DS (17) used to be a bit on the ditzy side also. He seems to be outgrowing it. He, like your SD, left the front door wide open once or twice, despite the fact that he was the last one out. His explanation (which made perfect sense to me) was that his mind was on other matters. Perhaps your SD has her mind on other matters which, in her mind, are more important. Perhaps it's something more and she needs to be tested. For example, Pam mentioned ADD. Perhaps that's the problem with your DD. No way does it mean she's dumb. She's just having an attention problem. There's nothing to be ashamed about that.

By the way it may help you to know that, while growing up, I knew to very intelligent individuals who were true "airheads." These two guys always had their head in the clouds. Today, one of them is a successful doctor. The other, unfortunately, passed away years ago. However, before that, he was extremely intelligent and attended two very prestious schools. So, you see, today's "ditzy, airheas" teens can grow up to be responsible, sucessful adults. After all, studies have shown that certain areas of their brains don't fully mature until they reach their early 20's.

Mily