What’s wrong with my kid?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ll try to keep it simple, although as her mother, I have a million thoughts about all this.

She is seventeen. She has never really had a boyfriend. She has a few female friends, but doesn’t spend any time with them outside of school. (This is the way it has always been, nothing new.)

She spends all her time in bed, in her room, with the door shut. Her activities there are: texting with a friend who lives in our same neighborhood, listening to her iPod, homework, sleeping, and reading. Last week the friend invited her to a movie, and she declined, saying there weren’t any movies out she wanted to see.

I forced her to get a job over the summer, as a cashier in a drug store. She coped, but claimed to hate it, and I allowed her to quit when school started.

In December, I got a different car, and gave her my old one. She literally cried because she didn’t want it. Of course, she doesn’t have a license. Despite her protests, I’ve been teaching her to drive for the past year, and Friday she has an appointment to take her test (an appointment set by me, of course). I’m also having her apply for jobs again. My plan is to have her pay for her gas and car insurance.

She is obedient, but reluctant. I’m pushing her every step of the way. My husband wonders if she might become agoraphobic, and thinks I should step up the “treatment”.

Thoughts, opinions, advice?

2

Well, my first thought is that if Mom keeps doing it for her…

Sorry, it sounds very similar to my husbands kid sisters. They don’t do shit unless absolutely forced. Needless to say, what is a pain in the ass at 15, is absolutely asinine at 30. Remember, every person that has to be bulldozered out of their house, had to have someone bringing stuff in for them.

Stop driving her. Stop giving her money. This is an eat what you kill world. Let her experience life (within reason) of the consequences of her actions. Does she pay her cell phone bill? Does she buy her songs? Does she buy her books?

3

Do you think she might have depression/anxiety issues?

4

Off the top of my head; low self confidence/esteem and/or very shy.

5

This was my thought. My 17YO is very social, and will gladly hang out with her friends, etc. But we really had to twist her arm to get her to take the test for her learner’s permit. She’s terrified of driving because she’s terrified of that much responsibility. She has Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Paxil (and therapy) have helped a great deal.

6

She sounds depressed. That’s exactly how I was at my lowest.

Best advice: talk to her pediatrition/doctor about it.

7

Sounds depressed to me, too. Generally I loved being with my friends and having a car at that age, but I would occasionally hit low points where I felt just like your daughter. Luckily my friends were ruthless bastards who would physically drag me out of my room and make me go do shit with them.

8

I don’t drive her anywhere because she doesn’t want to go anywhere. She buys music with the money she made from her summer job, and reads my books or stuff from the library. Her texting is free under our plan. But don’t be sorry about anything you have to say…if I’m doing something wrong, I have to fix it.

I will respond to the rest as soon as possible.

9

Some people are just anti-social. When they were kids they were anti-social. Usually there is at least one thing they like to do… like ride a horse or go to an amusment park. If she can think of nothing better to do than stay home in her room alone then I think it’s time to consult a professional. I would start with her pediatrician.

Have you talked to any of her teachers? Is she social at school? Does she have any friends that come over to spend time with her?

10

How does she feel, physically? Are her checkups okay? If she’s sleeping a lot, maybe there’s something physical going on that would explain her lack of energy.

Maybe there’s nothing “wrong”. Some of us just aren’t social beings, we’re content to be alone and we don’t engage as much as others.

Does she seem unhappy?

11

That’s what it sounds like, to me. She’s still getting majorly screwed by the Hormone Fairy, and that likely includes mood swings, cramps and anemia. I went through quite a few periods like that and came out okay. Girlfriends were merciless at times and I was basically alone, and I had no interest in guys as more than friends. Give her great books and DVDs and lots of hugs. Try to get her interested in something – yoga, cooking, painting – but don’t push it. Unless she starts harming herself or failing school, let her stay in bed 'til she’s done cocooning.

12

I was a lot like her when I was a teenager. I turned down every invitation to go out and spent all of my time alone in my room. My problem was social anxiety and depression. I hit bottom when I was 27 and suicidal. That was when I finally reached out for help.

13

Does she seem unhappy? Does she eat well? Exercise? Have you ever asked her teachers what she is like at school? How are her grades? Has she always been like this? What are her plans for after high school? What does she say when you talk to her about this? (You have, haven’t you?) How many other kids do you have? And what is her age compared to the others?

I don’t have any great ideas. Truth, a lot of what you write reminds me of my youngest. I think it is important that you insist she have a job - at least if she is not overly occupied elsewhere, but probably in any case. If nothing else, she needs to develop the skills to get along later in life.

Very frustrating as a parent to think your child (for lack of specifity) is not happy. Or not social. There is a difference, of course, between preferring solitude to being lonely. But you hope your kid’s social situation results from their choice, rather than something they can work on.

On a couple of occasions when we’ve had questions about our kids, we’ve scheduled appointments with our family doctor (whom we really like/respect). One of us accompanies the kid to the appointment and asks point blank. Really seemed to make sense to our kids to hear it from a source other than mom and dad.

Good luck.

14

She doesn’t sound atypical to me. Some kids that age or dropping acid at raves every other weekend, others prefer a quiet life at home. Humanity encompasses a large continuum of “normal” personalities.

15

Maybe she’s an introvert who enjoys listening to music and reading. And maybe she has no interest in driving.

If this was me and my mother kept pushing me to be more “normal” I’d resent it.

16

If you please, it’s asocial. Antisocial is someting sigificantly worse than what the OP is describing.

And I agree that asocial is probably what she is. People are way too quick to drop the D-bomb. Some people would just prefer to be left alone; forcing them to socialize is just wrong. They don’t need to be treated, they don’t need help. Just let them be as long as they seem reasonably happy otherwise.

17

I also have generalized anxiety, and was terrified of learning to drive. I didn’t have that feeling of “nothing bad can happen to me” that a lot of teenagers seem to. It also didn’t help that I’m absolutely lousy at any kind of spatial problem, so learning to drive was difficult for me for that reason, too.

This could have to do with fear of driving, too. I stayed in a lot as an older teenager because I figured, if my mom didn’t have to drive me everywhere, she might lay off on pressuring me to get my driver’s license.

Are you playing up the driver’s license as a rite of passage to her? I didn’t deal at all well with that added pressure. The last thing on Earth that I needed at that point was something to make me more nervous about driving. I wasn’t able to get my license until I was 23, and could get my parents to not make a big rite of passage out of it (they were probably ashamed that I hadn’t gotten it yet, so they didn’t make a big public to-do about any of it).

Not everybody enjoys rites of passage or being the center of attention. Some of us with anxiety can only think “I’m going to screw this up and humiliate myself” when we’re the center of attention and asked to perform somehow. I avoided a lot of the other normal late-teenage activities, too, for fear of my mom making a huge deal to me and others out of how “her little girl is growing up”.

18

She’s an engineer, she just hasn’t realized it yet.

I mean, except for the texting and for having different Parental Units, that OP could have been describing me. A job as a cashier would have been hell for me: give me jobs where I don’t have to talk with people or worry about their feelings, much less smile, and I’m happy as a clam!

19

I’d say it’s possible there’s nothing wrong with your kid (like Hrududu, hobscrk777, etc. are saying) *or *that there’s something mildly wrong you don’t necessarily need to worry about yet (like **Cat Fight **etc. are saying) *or *that there’s something seriously wrong that needs to be addressed (like Gus Gusterson implied). Can you give us a less simple version with more details?

Does she seem happy at least some of the time? Do the books she reads indicate any particular interest? Does she talk to you about herself at all? (I know she’s a teenager, but it does happen…) Does she cry a lot, or just when faced with gifts of cars? Has she always been a low-activity kid, or is this new? (You say she’s always been a low-social-activity kid, but how about other areas?) How are her grades? What is her school like? Does she seem young for her age? Does she have an active imagination or inner life you get any hints of?

Seriously, it could be anything: nothing, a phase, a brief depression, a potentially lifelong depression problem, agoraphobia, some other phobia, social anxiety, hormones, crappy teachers, a broken heart, boy trouble, girl trouble, friend trouble, not having found herself yet, feeling out of place for any of a million reasons, whatever.

FWIW, I hated driving at her age and resisted getting my license until my mom insisted when I turned 18. I’m glad she made me, as it was all about vague fears that went away when I learned the skills. My life seemed miserable at the time, though, and I cried at Mom over it all.

Good luck to both of you.

20

She has friends and a social outlet but likes a lot of “me” time. Unless there is something else going on it doesn’t sound like there is anything wrong with her. She sounds a lot like me now. I see people at work and that is about all I need of being around other people. Social interaction is just draining for some of us and we require more alone time than others to stay balanced.