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Rebellious Children: what to do
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Situation:
Parents are divorced. Custody of child has repeatedly been passed from father to mother, to both, and is now currently the sole reponsibility of the mother.
Father and mother hate each other. Relations between them are not positive.
13yr old daughter, obviously, does not respect the mother. She will not listen to the mother, abide rules/restrictions, and continues to leave the home without permission.
I would simply like to know what actions a person would take to deal with a rebellious child.
When I was young, my dad simply pulled me out of school one day, drove me to a maximum security juvenile facility and said, "I'm sending you here if you don't shape up."
Thanks.
Parents are divorced. Custody of child has repeatedly been passed from father to mother, to both, and is now currently the sole reponsibility of the mother.
Father and mother hate each other. Relations between them are not positive.
13yr old daughter, obviously, does not respect the mother. She will not listen to the mother, abide rules/restrictions, and continues to leave the home without permission.
I would simply like to know what actions a person would take to deal with a rebellious child.
When I was young, my dad simply pulled me out of school one day, drove me to a maximum security juvenile facility and said, "I'm sending you here if you don't shape up."
Thanks.
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My immediate, knee-jerk response is to rid myself of the problem, in this case, the daughter.
However, this is not a responsible or kind solution to the problem. I simply don't know what to do if you have a teenager that refuses to listen to a parent.
Obviously the devil is in the details, so we'd need more information about the girl and your relationship with her to know exactly what advice to give.
That said, developmental psychological literature suggests the most effective route here is essentially the common-sense route: have an authority figure set rational and reasonable rules, and then enforce them consistently through a mix of positive and negative reinforcing. The literature's also pretty clear on how encouraging self-efficacy through communication and stability is much more effective for encouraging medium- and long- term behavioral changes than one-off scare tactics like the one you mentioned.
That's the most empirically supported action for changing problematic behaviors. Again, details can help here for whether it's the most applicable advice for your situation.
She seems to think that 13yr olds have the freedom to do and say what they please, including going out partying on a Friday night.
Define "ran away." It she disobeying clearly enforced mandates and sneaking out? Is she ignoring threats of punishment and just giving her mother the finger and walking out? How exactly did she get away from her mother on two occasions in one night?
You can certainly find resources such as the ones mentioned above for the mother to use when disciplining the child, but unless the mother has specifically asked you to be involved in the raising and discipline of the child, you will probably be doing more harm than good by trying to discipline her yourself.
The best thing you can do is lay out the house rules, and expect everyone to follow them. Punishment for infraction by the kid should be the responsibility of the kid's mother.
It may help to sit her down and explain to her the "why" of the rules you put in place. And she'll argue, but that's natural at that age... if you have a well-reasoned justification for the rules, she's more likely to accept them. And... if she's not getting told that her mother loves her and wants to keep her safe, that should be rectified immediately. It really, really helps for kids in this situation to have this reassurance.
And you should do your best to keep your opinion of the kid's father to yourself. Nothing puts a kid against a step-parent quite as well as the step-parent saying negative things (even if they are true) about the kid's parent. If the mother is inclined to bad-mouth the father, you should probably encourage her to keep quiet about her opinion of him too, for the same reason. If this is already the case, then bravo to you and the kid's mother.
Kudos for being willing to keep the kid around, though. This kind of situation is not easy on anyone involved.
The first time, she went through the bathroom window. The second time, she ran off after the police drove away.
To clarify, this wouldn't happen if I was there. I'm currently out of state.
That could backfire in a bunch of different horrific ways (e.g., the girl doesn't comply and ends up with nowhere to go and your bluff is called, or you actually follow through and she ends up on the street, or she has somewhere even less stable to go and ends up there). It's an option, but we really don't know enough about the situation to say whether it's a viable one. It's possible to deal with problematic behaviors without simply kicking a kid on the street.
This sounds like there's pretty clear-cut need for counseling. I'm not familiar with the best tactics for actually getting a child to counseling, but I know there are programs specifically for youths that are as egregiously disobedient as you've described. Hopefully somebody here is knowledgeable enough to point you in the right direction. My understanding is that there is a type of family counseling that the mother and child would be able to go to together. That may be best if it's logistically possible, considering the mother might benefit from some advice herself given you've mentioned you'd have been able to control the situation had you been present.
So. My advice is leave off. Not a big fan of guys like you.
Next time, exercise restraint and don't chime in.
If it sounds like you can't guarantee any of those, don't do this. You will just make things worse.
The girl seems to have completely lost respect for her mother. You need to find out whether this is also the case for her father, and work out whether she is simply trying to play the mother off to get back to live with the father. If that is the case, this will be more difficult. Since she has lost respect for the mother, you both trying to present a united front of the adults in the house will simply taint you with the same brush, and she will ignore you too. What you can do is present a neutral party who just happens to have exactly the same ideas and rules as her mother.
The important part is that, as a neutral party, you can only practically demand things of the kid if it requires some element of dependence on you.
For example: Kid is screaming at mother for $10. Mother refuses. Kid can then either come to you, or you can offer to her, $10 on the condition that a) she is politer and stops screaming, b) mother agrees in defused situation.
Since flat denying the kid stuff (i.e. stay in the house) simply isn't working because she has realised she can get away with disobeying it (i.e. isn't really dependent on that particular rule), you need to build her back up to the point where she is dependent on a lot of stuff - money to go out, rules about going out, etc. Pretty much your only weapon to do this is that it is easier for her to get stuff from her mother or you than it is to scrounge it for herself. This will mean some uncomfortable compromises - you will have to, for a while, accept her going out more than you clearly would like, because you are working her back up a scale - but the key bit is that every time you have to route her back into better behaviour to get the reward.
She will also then try to play you off against each other. You have to agree with the mother beforehand, keep aware, and instantly stamp on any attempt to do this. Your greatest asset is indifference. Present yourself as an adult to the kid, and tell her you are going to treat her the same way. That means that any kind of manipulation, tantrum throwing, or breaking of the rules you impose for anything you do for her (ie $10), will be met with her simply not getting anything she wants from you.
The aim is to present a neutral authority figure who demonstrates what is missing in the relationship with the mother, and provides a bridge in providing that missing piece for a short time, while reinforcing the mother and weaning the child back to being dependent on getting that piece from her. The key parts are:
1. You have to be openly a neutral party.
2. All your actions have to nonetheless reinforce the principles and rules her mother wants.
3. You have to stop the inevitable attempts to play you off against each other.
4. Every time the kid agrees to do something for you, you have to use it to route her back to her mother.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional psych / childcare person, and this isn't a system designed for kids. It's designed for adults who are essentially in a child-adult relationship with the subject (you). There will be a lot of wildcards in each case which means it may not be applicable. Finally, it will be far from easy and it requires you to be the kind of upstanding saint that, to be honest, most people are not. Most of all, it requires you to have an inital position of authority, however slim - if you are some bum that has moved in and is mooching off her mother, you will fail automatically. If you are a relatively decent bloke who the mother has moved in with, you might have a chance.
She's going to fuck up and maybe do some really stupid things, at this point any effort to keep away from her "friends" is going to be seen as you* trying to control her. I would do your best to minimize the permanent damage any mistakes could do.
Really all you can do is sit down and try and have a conversation with her once in a while about how she's doing and offer advice if she asks. It's not too late to change her attitude, but she's at the point where it will have to be at least partially because she wants to. Find out what she's interested in and maybe you can find something better for her to do with her time?
*You collectively being both of you and her father if he feels like getting involved.
Edit: Unless you adopt her you can't discipline her. Sorry man, that's how it works. You may have better luck trying to reason with her anyway, as it doesn't sound like she's at a point where threat of discipline will ever do any good.
Still dropped out of High School though (before going off to college) and I have no idea if there's something similar for girls so YMMV.
Fuzzy: Sometimes it's not like that. My mom had a pretty severe mental breakdown when I was young, in addition to pre-existing debilitating health problems and I had pick up the slack from an early age out of necessity, that was in addition to being very bright and showing a lot of promise and being treated as "gifted" from a young age. I got a little older and my siblings were able to take care of themselves and I started rebelling in a big way.
This. Fucking the mom doesn't mean you have any responsibility or authority over the kid.
That's the bottom line. As the mom's boyfriend, the only place you have in this situation is to force the mom to either get help for her daughter or for both of them to move out until the situation is rectified.
Your involvement begins and ends with suggesting counseling.
By the way, coming from me as a father, your "knee-jerk response" to "rid yourself" of the kid is pretty disgusting--I'm hoping you just weren't clear and aren't actually trying to come up with a way to have a relationship with the mom and somehow ditch the kid somewhere. She's been through a lot, at a time in her life when stability is most important. You can't assign adult levels of responsibility for her actions to her.
Why? He's right. You have barely any say in this matter, and the attitude you've demonstrated in this thread shows you know nothing of what this girl is/has gone through and, in all likelihood, your involvement will make this situation significantly worse.
My older sister has a different father than myself. My father and our mother are still married (she was 11 when they got married) and my father never took on a parenting role with my sister. He was a neutral adult that treated her with respect and refused to get between her and our mother. If she came to him, he would listen to her problem and calmly and rationally explain our mother's decision and support it no matter what he thought.
And any child psychologist will tell you the same thing. It's not your place, at all, as boyfriend. And the more you try to have a say in the life of a child that has almost nothing to do with you the more she will resent you and her mother for bringing you into her life.
Having custody bounce so much hasn't been good for the poor girl either and if her parents are bad talking each other in her presence then she has just had an awful fucking time of it. She needs counseling, her parents to grow the fuck up and act like adults and for you to stay out of it. I feel so bad for her because her life has been repeatedly turned upside and now her mom's new boyfriend thinks he gets a say too. She's probably miserable at home and the running away makes a lot of sense, she doesn't see any other way to deal. A good counselor can help her work through her feelings and deal with her crazy living situations.
Something else to keep in mind, when my friend went though this at the same age it was because she had a shit relationship with her mom and did not want to live with her at all. Her mom was overbearing, mean, condescending and an all around crappy mother. She eventually refused to return home after a weekend visit with her dad and since she was finally a teen the courts let her decide who she wanted to stay with. I don't know how the girl's relationship with her dad is but it may be a case where she's not with the parent she wants to be with, which is harder to get over and not all kids do.
"She" meaning the daughter or the mother? If it's the mother, my suggestion is to stop dating her.
Why is her running away something that "wouldn't happen" if you were there, but that does happen when her mother is there? Is it because the kid respects you? Fears you? (Not a good thing, that will just screw the girl up more.) Because as a non-relative you represent someone "outside" the usual situation, or because she perceives you as being more neutral? These are things you should ask yourself.
Also, describe how the mother currently reacts to / discliplines her daughter when she runs away or is disrespectful. That will give us a clearer view of the situation.
The kid and parents need counseling.
Edit: The posters saying you have no authority over this girl are right. Don't try to be Strong He-Man muscling in to fix this. You can't fix this, because it's not about you.
Jokes aside she's 13... right at the age of rebellion... Remember when you are 13 and what kinda mischief you've gotten into?
Also undergoing a divorce is pretty stressful for the child...
I would say at this point... the parent's attitude have to change somewhat from guardian and caretaker to being a friend. The mom especially have to earn the respect of the teen, and that's pretty hard considering the parent are divorced and maybe the girl thinks the parents are at fault...
It's going to be a pretty tough assignment.. but in order for this to work.. They have to put their petty difference aside and realized that the girl is their own flesh and blood and they need to do what's best for her.
It's actually very simple, but probably not the response you want to hear, or what you'll actually do.
I mean, if this is actually connected to help/advice columns you've posted about in the past, this is fairly dysfunctional.
This is coming from someone who was the 13 year old in that situation - not that I was rebellious, but I was doing things that my mother saw as me being a "problem child", and did indeed threaten to send me to adoption centres and the military.
Whenever my step-father said ANYTHING about any situation, I hated him even more. And, also from experience, if the step-father (or man-in-waiting in your case) said anything in a negative way towards me, my mother would, from time to time, attack him, despite being much worse herself.
[strike]If SkyGheNe's link is correct, about two months.[/strike]
Edit, wait, no reading more of the thread, it seems he realized she was crazy.
... so less than a month?
Hokay. Yeah, don't do anything. Don't talk about getting rid of her. Don't even think about it. It sounds pretty awful, honestly, and it doesn't sound like you're really in a good place to be in a relationship with someone who has a child... especially a child with a hard past. At the very least, you should be staying out of it.
To be perfectly honest, most of the single parents I know would sooner stay single than date someone who fails to realize that their relationship with their child absolutely comes first, as does repairing it if it breaks. They want people who will support their actions and be there for them when it's hard, not people who would try to interfere with the relationship while at the same time knowing absolutely nothing about kids.
I asked what to do with a rebellious, disobedient child and instead got a bunch of unrelated opinions.
The only good advice I saw was to get her into counseling.
Again, lock this, please.
don't ask them to go to group counselling. it will be a shitshow.
you can be her counselor, but she has to have some measure of respect for you to have that kind of relationship. if you can be cool to her, and get her to open up, you might be able to convince her that regardless of how stupidly her parents are acting, she should look out for herself and that means long-term thinking about how she conducts herself on a friday night to friday night basis
unasked for advice: her mother is probably not worth the trouble if she's still using her child to fight her ex husband.
No, you asked what to do with a rebellious, disobedient child who will never, ever be your responsibility to discipline or raise and got a bunch of awesome advice that you will promptly ignore
you more than likely are making it worse for her by interfering
There's no reason why you have to be involved.
Jesus dude. He isn't asking for an opinion on his relationship. He is asking for practical advice as to how to deal with the situation he is in, where, like it or not, he feels he has a duty to this girl due to the fact he is involved with her mother. Don't be a dick about it.
So far as advice goes, the counselling idea is sound, but since you are not able to be about day to day, being out of state I do not see that there is much you can do. This kind of situation would seem to demand some pretty close supervision, which would work better with two responsible adult parental figures than one.