For various reasons, my 17 year old niece lives with me in the duplex I rent from my mother. She’s only ten years younger than me, so we don’t really have much of a parent-child relationship. She’s gotten her life together for the most part and things are a lot better than they’d been before she moved here, but there doesn’t seem to be any stopping her from smoking. Every time I turn around, someone has supplied her with cigarettes again. As upsetting as this is, though, it’s gotten worse in that now that it’s cold outside she’s smoking in her room.
I’m fairly allergic to cigarette smoke and react with asthma and eczema. Once when I was going to a friend’s house who smoked a lot, I ended up getting eczema on my face so badly I couldn’t open my mouth without making the corners of my mouth bleed. So, I have some very strong reasons for wanting her to stop doing this aside from her own, longterm health. Last night, I woke up unable to breathe because of the smoke and went to her room to tell her to stop. As she always does, she denied that she was smoking at all. I could catch her with a cigarette in her mouth and she’d still deny it. I told her if she continued doing it I’d go into her room, find every cigarette I could, and toss them into the snow. The smoke stopped after that, but I know the same thing will happen tonight.
Any Doper parents ever have to deal with such willful lying about smoking? Is there any hope? Making matters worse, she’s been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, so she reacts in an exaggerated fashion to criticism and punishment.
Do you have a garage? It sounds like she won’t stop, regardless of your health issues, so you really have just two choices. Make a comfortable spot for her to smoke that doesn’t interfere with your comfort or toss her out.
The landlord is my mother. My mother’s attempts to control her behavior are about as ineffectual as my own so far, it seems like. The only other place for her to go would be back with her mother, which could never happen. Her stay here isn’t court mandated, but going back would likely involve suicide threats, self-injury and violent episodes. As I said, she’s doing much better here.
The garage has been set up with chairs and a table, but it’s detached, which is what’s led to the smoking in her room as it’s gotten colder, I assume. Presumably, she’s doing this because she doesn’t want to have to walk downstairs and outside to the garage.
Unless she’s paying you rent, it is not *her *room. *All *the rooms are *your *rooms. Make it very clear to her that the next time you smell smoke, she’s going to have to leave. And stick to it.
It’s not just about the smoke. It’s about the fact that it’s your house, and she has to respect that.
A Priori Tea: She’s staying here rent free. This was essentially her last haven to fall back on after all of her previous problems.
I’m going to see if any sort of calm, rational discussion can happen today. It makes it extremely frustrating to try to give ultimatums on behavior when she denies the behavior exists at all.
As a parent, let me advise that you DO NOT let her get away with denying the behavior. As I’ve said to my daughter (also 17) on myriad occasions, “You do not do yourself any favors by treating me like I’m stupid. All you do is piss me off more. And since the more pissed off I get, the more your life sucks, you might want to cut the shit now.”
That’s an excellent point and I’ll keep that in mind, DianaG. It’s a bit overwhelming to have missed out on all of the early parts of having a kid and have just gotten the surly teen thrust upon me. I can only hope when I have my own kids, they’ll seem easier in comparison after dealing with this one.
There is no mistaking the smell of smoke in an otherwise smoke-free environment. I’m a smoker and I find it repulsive myself - it doesn’t take breathing or skin problems to tell there is smoke around. Tell her she’s not fooling anyone.
Unless you’ve got a kid who has already established a pattern of acting recklessly and irrationally: you can’t count on a kid like this not to say “fuck you then” and go move in with her meth dealer. And while it’s easy to say “that’s her choice”, that’s not clear cut when someone is mentally ill and young and stupid on top of it.
This. Its not like you are doing it out of annoyance from the smoke, which would be ok if you felt strongly about it. Its causing you serious health issues though, she simply has to stop or go away.
Well, we’ve discussed it today and she’s still denying that she was smoking. She claims that she had been outside just before I got up, and I was smelling the fresh smoke on her clothes. While my allergies may be a bit sensitive, I doubt they’re so sensitive I could be pulled from a dead sleep by somebody with smoke on her clothing. I told her that I’m not stupid and if she tells me things that clearly contradict reality, I’m just going to ignore what she says. She rolled her eyes, but said “fine” to not smoking in the house. We’ll see how long this lasts.
Unfortunately, kicking her out isn’t an option. She’s emotionally disturbed and one of her biggest “triggers” for suicidal behavior is abandonment, whether real or just imagined. There’s nowhere else for her to go.
As a Doper parent, I read the thread title as “Stopping a teen from (blah blah blah),” because it really doesn’t matter what you’re trying to stop a teenager from doing. The only way for it to work is if you make the teen want to stop.
Good suggestions from above:
Point out your allergic and you cannot have anybody smoking in the house.
Buy her some earmuffs and fingerless gloves so she can smoke outside.
Point out to her that people in the midwest smoke outside when it’s below zero, so if she’s uncomfortable, that’s too bad.
Don’t bother with the smoke detector; she’ll just disable it.
As you said, she’s mostly gotten her life together. She’s 17, and probably thinks of herself as adult and responsible. There are going to be very few things you can tell her that will make her change her mind, so you need to pick your fights carefully. She may have to move out, both so you can have a smoke-free house, and so she can have a smoke-filled one.
