You did a good thing in your communication with her.
What she needs to learn to do (and this should apply to ALL family members, including parents) is make sure someone knows where you can be contacted at all times. it's also important to let people know if you're going to be home for dinner, purely for catering purposes. Don't make people guess.
If you have house rules that apply to EVERYBODY (such as "always put the toilet seat down after use, no matter what gender you are") then nobody can complain they are being singled out. it's also good practice for living independently later on, whether with flatmates or alone. We may feel we don't need other people; but other people need us.
When she comes home, let her know you were worried about her, you had no way of knowing if she had met with an accident or worse. You have enough to worry about, any worries which can be eased are a bonus.
If she didn't tell you for fear you'd have insisted she come home, maybe you need to work out an agreement with her to allow her SOME freedoms, especially if it's with a friend you feel you can trust. If she's going to play up on you, going to have sex, she will do it even if you tell her not to. The best you can do is to make her take on board the sexual responsibility required also. For example, as soon as I realised each of my daughters was sexually active, I first got hr on the Pill and second, organised regular Pap smears. I also talked to them about sexual and emotional responsibility and how to not hurt a guy emotionally (and also how to not get hurt). easy child 2/difficult child 2 was an unconscious 'tease', she had no idea what a devastating effect she had on a guy, especially one as vulnerable as her first boyfriend. So when their relationship started going sour, it hit him the hardest even though he was the one to break up with her. Two years later she's engaged to someone else and he STILL isn't over her.
I also talked to my girls about the risks of UTIs and how to prevent them - having sex and thinking that's all there is to it, is an unrealistic fantasy. But the girl emptying her bladder within fifteen minutes of sex is one of the best preventives. If she DOES get a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) she needs to know the symptoms and to know what to do, fast. A Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) that goes up to the kidney because it got neglected for a few days can make you very sick and put you in hospital.
I also took them shopping to buy condoms. This was fun (for me) and embarrassing (for them). In Australia we can buy condoms in the supermarket, next to the toothpaste and deodorant, just above after-shave, one aisle along from jam and peanut butter. So here we were, in the supermarket where we usually go (and where the staff know us) and I was asking the kids, "Do you want coloured ones or ribbed? Avoid Brand Y, they're too thick and the guys can't feel a thing, he won't like them. What about flavoured? No, not banana. It's got amyl acetate as flavouring, it tastes awful."
It totally took the romance out of it and made them really think about whether they really want to do this, in the cold hard light of day. It also made it clear that they were NOT the result of Immaculate Conception, kids like to think they invented sex and being reminded that their parents (and grandparents!) must have done 'it' at some stage and probably still are, really puts them off.
I figure it bought me at least another six months...
Getting back to her not coming home - it seems to me the main problems was her failing to tell you and keep you 'in the loop'. I wouldn't class it as 'harbouring a runaway' if they don't know she's AWOL. Again, this could be a cultural difference here. Where we live, kids often drop in on friends after school and parents know this and say, "If I need to get in touch with you I will assume you're either at Jackie's place or Ben's. If you're not going to be home by 5 pm, let me know so I can work that into my plans."
You could set up an arrangement with her to give you a quick ring (or text message) if she changes her plans suddenly. It happens to all of us - we meet a friend who says, "Have you got a minute? I just have to show you a new dress/curtains/lounge suite I bought, it's to DIE for!" Then when a minute begins to turn into an hour, we should let people know where we are in case we're needed or people are getting worried.
This is adult responsibility. It's almost the opposite of child monitoring.
You say your husband has a short fuse - that isn't good. But we've been there a certain amount as well. What happens if you try to implement "The Explosive Child" methods and you're good at it but he isn't, is she will see YOU as an ally but him as a problem. He will suddenly find himself the intense focus of all her hostility.
The same thing will happen with anyone who isn't on the same page. But it WILL be working with you.
You can also use the same technique on easy child kids. Of course, you will have different baskets for them, but you don't have lists pasted up everywhere, only you (and maybe the child) know what you're working on with each one.
You don't need to be organised or tidy (crikey, we're not!) but you DO need to be consistent within yourself and with the child. If you're not, then explain, apologise, it is LIFE, really.
Example: today, difficult child 3 & I were shopping for his reward, Wii point cards. His usual reward is a large packet of Maltesers. He's not been cashing in his reward points but instead has been hoarding them. He had ten points hoarded (he gets on average two or three a week). I had tentatively agreed to buy him a 20,000 Wii points card (for $20, he told me) as toughly equivalent to four reward points. But when shopping today, the price was higher - one shop charged $35. Even difficult child 3 (to his credit) said, "No way."
When we found cards at $27.80, I said to him, "It costs more. You can wait until we can buy them for $20 each, or we can buy these ones but you will have to pay more points for them, it's really too much."
So he looked in the shop to find out how much Maltesers cost ($4.70) and I roughly calculated (while a bit distracted) and said, "that's at least five credit points per card, then."
"That's OK, I have ten credit points."
But when we got to the shop and the girl rang up the price, I realised I was being too generous. I was able to say to him, "I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I should have said these two cards together are eleven points."
He could have thrown a tantrum, but instead he said, "Then can I have one card now, and you keep the other one until I earn another point? That will be fair."
Two years ago, that wouldn't have happened. He would have insisted on getting absolutely everything he had pushed me to promise.
And why did difficult child 3 amass so many points? Because husband was unwilling at first to allow Wii points to be used as reward. It's mainly between me and husband, it's very much husband's caution and it was beginning to cause some friction with difficult child 3. But husband has learned in the past two years and so has difficult child 3. Both are now more patient with each other. There are still fairly frequent blow-ups butt increasingly, husband is keeping his temper, staying calm and talking difficult child 3 through it.
I do understand your trepidation about going away for a short while. I've felt the same concerns, many times. It's not just husband (who is handling things well now) it's also very much easy child 2/difficult child 2 and sometimes even easy child. Sometimes all it takes is a tone in the voice and difficult child 3 digs his heels in and gets angry. Then it's screaming match and slamming doors.
In our household, I'm the only one to have read "The Explosive Child". husband tried but couldn't stay awake. He had a lot of trouble sticking with it, even though he was highly motivated. As for the adult kids - no interest, no time.
What did I do? I summarised it. I wrote a review (available if you want - PM me) and also explained it to them, over and over. And in doing that, it helped ME get a good understanding of it as well.
You can't walk around the house with a book in your hand. You need to have the information and ideas in your head. Writing it down, explaining it to someone else and even discussing how it works with someone else can be the best way to help you take in on board and make it second nature.
I know a lot of difficult child 3's triggers are anxiety and frustration. He's worse when his medications aren't on board. The next two are almost as bad. Even husband at times...
difficult child 3 & I were at his school today for a study day (he's normally working at home, a correspondence student). The teachers at the school seem to work the same way I now do, although I don't think they've read the book. They were amazingly patient with difficult child 3 today, even though he wasn't on task. I was in the room with him, helping out where I could, soothing him down as he got anxious and helping settle the other kids who were beginning to feel frustrated with him. Due to the nature of the school, they get a lot of Aspie & autistic kids, but it's a big mix - other kids there today are performers, dancers & singers who attend a combined performer training/correspondence school. So the curriculum is mainstream. Very different way of doing things,
But I digress - you're getting help, which is good. You need more, which takes time and energy. We're here. You could benefit from getting your husband to come here too. It helped mine enormously, he lurks and reads everything I post and if he doesn't agree with me, he talks to me about it. Often I will post something here and he hasn't been told about it yet, or I might think of something and post here and we might never have talked about it, because it has always seemed so minor. Also, we're both often so busy at home that we don't get to talk as much as we should. We can lock ourselves in the bedroom to talk, but keep getting interrupted by kids pounding on the door or dinner burning. By the time we have time, we could be falling asleep!
husband now posts in his own right ("Marg's Man") because it was confusing to me when the site would tell me if I'd read any updates or not, and maybe I hadn't, but HE had!
The sexuality thing is probably bugging him even more than it bugs you. Fathers especially don't like to think of strange males pawing at their daughter (or even thinking about her as anything other than small, pink and frilly). But girls will be girls. I would have loved it if my girls had 'waited until marriage' but society has moved on these days and despite their upbringing, they made their own choices. We had to accept that or lose them. To stand firm and insist they remain virgins while under our roof - they would have just lied to us and gone sneaking around, which would have been VERY unsafe. At least now they can come and talk to us about any problems they may have. Now both girls will come and ask me questions about their sexual health; or if they feel too shy, they will now take themselves to the doctor to ask. easy child now lives in another city so she goes to the doctor by herself, but most of the time easy child 2/difficult child 2 will ask me to stay with her, even for a Pap smear. I've had the doctor send me out of the room so he can ask my daughter if she needs to say anything to him without me knowing about it - she usually laughs and calls me back in. The doctors have been a bit surprised by this but I'm glad it's working this way.
It wasn't easy to begin with. husband & I got very sore backs from sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom door! Then we woke up to ourselves, gave up and got her protection.
Marg
