Hi all. I am new to this but need guidance and support in the worst way. My 16 year old (17 in October) is increasingly out-of-control and defiant. She was always a strong-willed child and suffered some depression in her early teen years, but now she is thinks she knows it all and can do whatever she wants and defies her father and I constantly.We are divorced but luckily get along great, and are trying to navigate this together. She used to live with me primarily, but after 2 1/2 years of lying, stealing, sneaking out, taking my prescription medications and alcohol, disrupting school, and lastly, having a party while I was out-of-town and letting kids come who robbed me, she is living primarily with her dad (who lives 10 minutes away). He is seeing what I have been living with and we are both at the end of our rope. This has affected me emotionally and physically (chronic pain) and put a huge strain on my new marriage. We have taken our daughter to therapy in the past when she was depressed, but now that she is defiant, she thinks there is nothing wrong with her and so won't go back to therapy. Her dad and I met with a child psychologist almost two weeks ago who recommended we come up with a list of options if this gets worse...she is going on an organzied trip out of the country for a month this summer and the therapist hopes that may give her some direction; otherwise, she said we need to look into in-patient treatment programs or sending her away to a school for these kinds of kids. Not what I want to do and I am sure incredibly expensive.
So my bottom line question is: how do you survive this until they hopefully mature out of some of this, and how do we keep her safe in the interim? You can't chain her to her room but every time we let her do something, we are never sure where she is actually going, who she is with or what she is doing. The latest: she came home with her tongue pierced! At 16, she found someone to do this. She won't even let me look at it to see if it might be infected because she says she doesn't need my help!! I need help. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated.
BonBon
So my bottom line question is: how do you survive this until they hopefully mature out of some of this, and how do we keep her safe in the interim? You can't chain her to her room but every time we let her do something, we are never sure where she is actually going, who she is with or what she is doing. The latest: she came home with her tongue pierced! At 16, she found someone to do this. She won't even let me look at it to see if it might be infected because she says she doesn't need my help!! I need help. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated.
BonBon