I had a student who had to be removed from my classroom because she couldn’t deal with real rules. I was a “racist” because I required her to do more for extra credit than hit Print on a web page…
The mother had ceded control to the child of 14, because she threatened to run away. “What can I do?” She told the child in front of me that the child needed to take care of herself because of her pregnant sister or whatever it was. Poor, badly raised, broken families spawn this crap into the schools and society.
And there’s someone on this board who will try to burn me for this, but this illustrates the need for DAD. The man who doesn’t care so much for your opinion so long as the results meet requirements. Too often moms are concerned with the quality of the relationship, and let the child’s result’s slide. (Yes, I know it goes too far the other without mom, so let’s not have that.)
In a lot of states incorrigible is still a crime - meaning that disobeying your parents can land you a night in juvie. If I were the parents in question, well, enough is enough. Call the cops. Prove to her that not only are the cops not on her side, but they’re on the parents’ side, and she’s being stupid.
's just me, though. I’m not a parent but mine pulled that on my sister a few times when she was acting up - and it worked.
I don’t agree. I certainly think it’s harder to raise a kid solo, mom or dad. But I know way too many kids who were raised by a single parent and were courteous, polite, and respectful. From poor and broken families.
Having two parents helps reduce the workload but those two parents have to be on the same page. On the other end of the SES spectrum, I worked at a selective private university in the South where a lot of the students openly pitted their parents against each other. For example, one of the students I knew had a BMW Z3 - at the age of 20. Basically she told Mom she wanted a new car. Mom said no, get your grades up. She went to Dad and asked him - voila, new Beamer. Pretty cool kid but certainly saw a manipulative side to her after hearing this story. But I see the “if you won’t let me do X, I’ll ask the other parent” crap all the time. If that’s the way these people parent they might be better off doing it with only one!
No, I said it was harder, not that it demonstrates that in every instance, a dad (or mom) will make the childrearing better. In the case you cited, if dad is rubber stamping everything that mom does, or the kid is able to play the parents off each other, I don’t see how the situation is necessarily improved.
No a particularly violent person myself, and I’d doubt the effectiveness of physical interaction as anything other than an attention getter for a 14 year old. There’s a good chance she’d just start to hit back.
You should run this by the local PD before trying it.
Dial a non-emergency number for the local police, wait for them to pick up say “My daughter and I are having an argument and she’d like to speak with someone.”, and hand her the phone.
Sometimes, it’s better for your kid, 15 years from now, to look back on their teenage years and say “thanks for doing something right, mom.” than for them to like you right now.
As a mom of six I firmly believe that parenting is not a popularity contest and the sooner some parents realize this, the better their children will respond to them.
Four of our kids are grown and on their own, and we’re down to the last two living at home who are 14 and 15 years old. **They know that I love them enough to let them hate me **when I make parental decisions they don’t agree with. I also remind them that when they are adults/parents, they can make different choices if they’re so inclined.
Our son recently ran away from home. It was 23 degrees outside and he ran off in a fit of anger with no shoes or coat. When we filed a police report, the officer was quick to reassure us that he would be home in a few hours, and he was right. AdoptaSon returned home, only to bolt again the next morning - that time only for an hour.
At that point, AdoptaDad and I made it clear to AdoptaSon that the rules weren’t changing and that he had some choices he needed to make. He could live within our reasonable expectations OR he needed to make other arrangements, we’d leave that to him. We also made a point of giving him some survival tips if he decided to run again, like where and who to turn to if he changed his mind and decided to come home, and where the area homeless shelters were if he was hungry.
Frankly, after seeing that we weren’t budging he’s straightened up considerably and has made a pretty good turnaround. He’s a fine young man who was overloaded with feelings surrounding his first love relationship, stringent academic expectations in his chosen high school that he wasn’t meeting our of sheer laziness, and classic frustration at having grownup desires in a teenage world.
Just like I wouldn’t like to live in a world where I didn’t know what was expected from me at work or while driving in traffic, I think kids take a certain amount of comfort in knowing that there are clear boundaries even though they may disagree with them. I hope it’s not too late for your friends to instill those boundaries in their daughter.
This was my position on calling the cops. There is obviously way too much going on (with way too much history) for a few of us to spout out platitudes that will solve the situation. However, the OP started with the “fear of lawsuit” myth and I think that at a minimum, the parents of the kid in question need to break down that falsehood (for their own sake as well as that of the kid).
I think, as a rule*, these teens tend to be of two types:
A. Abusees, either sexual, physical or emotional of some kind [from somewhere external] or self-abusers (drugs is what I mean here). Counseling and mental health guidance, perhaps medications of some kind - are really the only things that can help. It is the parents responsibility to get this and do what the Counselors say - but it is not their responsibility to make therapy work.
B. What I think of as “Baby Lion cubs” -who were so cute as kittens and funny when they nipped your hand and chewed your jeans and tackled you when you cam in with the food and ignored your commands … are now semi-full grown Lions and their teeth and claws are much more dangerous and life threatening. IOW They weren’t trained and socialized right as younger kids* - and I blame the parents. I doubt that a 16 y.o. started acting selfish, rowdy and rude - what I bet usually happens is that “NO Mommy!!” frowny face foot stomp that is cute at 9 and easy to give into for peaces sake, is a much more serious “I can date Bikerdude and stay out until 3” as a 16 yo (and the parents - again - throw up their hands).
It is much, much (much) harder to reign something like this in, rather than not let it start in the first place but that is what the parents need to do - great strategies for starting are listed in this thread.
Really when the OP has kids, set expectations at a young age and make the kids meet them. There is not* really* a mystery* as to why this happens to parents of “wild” teens.
*Not claiming there aren’t true bad seeds or mentally ill kids showing up out of nowhere - it happens. That can’t be controlled and I would bet that it is less than 5% of the kids seen as “bad teens”
Not much advice for your friends, but as others have said, wanted to assure the OP that in order to get such a fucked up teenager, your friends consistently dropped the ball many years back.
Threads like this freak me right the hell out. My S.O’s daughter is 9 and is without a doubt, destined to be just like the 14 year old in the OP when she hits that age. The past few times we’ve gotten her from her mother she’s smelled. When you tell her it’s time to take a bath, she’ll stomp her feet and yell “NO!” run upstairs and slam the door. Fortunately, the smell gets to be too much for Dad The Pushover to take and he makes her do it. He called Mommy Dearest the day before we were to get her this time and asked if she was going to take a bath. Mommy Dearest’s reaction? “She won’t let me give her one.” Nice parenting! Better to have your kid freaking stink then make her take a bath if she doesn’t feel like it! If Mommy is this much of a wuss at 9, I shudder to think what things will be like at 16.
This weekend she was refusing to eat a peanut butter sandwich because it was made with Jiff instead of Skippy. I almost had to physically restrain Dad from running to the store and buying Skippy. Instead, I made him tell her she wouldn’t eat then. Suprise suprise, the little Angel came downstairs a few hours later and ate the damn sandwich. I don’t much care if she hates me, so long as someone is laying down some boundries when she’s at our house.
Unfortunately, that small battle isn’t going to mean a damn thing in the War to come. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to watch this child now, know I’m going to have to deal with her in a few years and not be able to do a damn thing to stop it.
In the case of people I know, the dad would say no, the mom would say yes, the dad would say “hold on there” - and then the mom would harangue him endlessly until he caved in, paint him as a mean person to anyone who’d listen, etc. After years of getting beat down like that, he started just rolling over a lot faster, and now he’s got the rep among her relatives of being both mean and unconcerned about his kids.
One of their kids was so uncaring about parental reaction that not only did she, as a teenager, throw an underage drinking party in the basement apartment of their home after midnight (parents sleep upstairs), but after it was discovered and the kids were thrown out, she did it again a couple hours later! The other managed to wreck a nice-ish car (Volvo, I think) by reckless driving, and her reward was not a beater, but another nice car.
Now the two “kids” are in their early 20s, their parents still pay for their apartments and just about everything else, and are taking care of the dog the older one begged and wheedled for from her dad, because she just doesn’t have time to take care of it - as he told her would happen. One or the other will regularly scream at a parent without any real consequences.
I remember seeing my 2 year-old brother stomp his little foot and look my mom in the eye yelling, “No!” I was already headed out to a friend’s house, and I distinctly remember thinking, “I don’t want to be a part of the storm that’s going to come out of that expression on Mom’s face.” And there was a storm, and that kind of thing was pretty much cut off with all of us.
No, they can’t be “assured”. It’s likely, but perfect parent hood will not insure you don’t end up with a kid like this. My mom is one of twelve. Eleven of those 12 kids were good, solid kids who more or less behaved, got good grades, did what they were suppossed to do. Eleven have college degrees and six of those have advanced degrees. Eleven are professionals of one sort or another. And then there’s Uncle Billy. Who barely graduated high school, who broke the law steadily from the time he was 14 on, who has spent time in jail and I think time in prison. Who has manipulated and taken advantage of everyone in the family time and time again. Raising children well minimizes the risk, but when you see a really screwed up kid, don’t get too self-rightous–think “there but for the grace of God go I”.
I read this and thought, "If my child did that, I’d take her out into the yard and hose her down. 'If you won’t take a bath like a regular person. Then you’ll be bathed like a dog.’ " I don’t have kids right now, so I’ll probably go to hell for this thought.
This has been said further up thread, but I think it needs to be repeated: Together or apart, the parents need to back each other up when it comes to discipline. Kids are smart, and they learn to play the strenghts and weaknesses of their environment.
(Of course, the parents have to care. I often joke that I didn’t go through any teenage rebellion because there was no one to rebell against.)
In my harsher moments i think that this should be grounds for divorce with the children being given to the “No” parent and no support offered to the other.
In the house I was raised, one learned very early that asking for a “second opinion” was a good way to get thoroughly busted. As soon as either parent discovered that the other had said “No,” the answer became “No,” even if the “Yes” parent thought it was a good idea. Deb and I raised our kids the same way. No matter how innocuous the request, if an earlier verdict had been rendered “No,” the request was denied (and if it had already been honored, then something similar was taken away as a result). If the kid really thought that it was something they were desperate to have, they were permitted to ask the “No” parent if it would be OK to discuss the situation with the (potential) “Yes” parent–child and both parents talking together–but we parents never overruled each other and going behind our backs for a “better” answer was immediate grounds for the removal of all current privileges.
I don’t have kids yet, but I am firmly resolved that I will never, ever lay a violent hand on my children, threat of cops or not.
They are financially dependent on you as parents, for God’s sake, you have plenty of other things you can hold over them despite your basic obligation to feed and shelter them.
My 2.011946 cents (due to fluctuating value of the dollar against the Hobbit-money used where OP resides)