Teen daughter advice...Long

[i.love.lucy]

You were acting different; your parents where concerned.

 

The child in the OP has always preferred some privacy:

 

 

 

This family has been trying to change this child's preferred style of relating. There is no evidence that this child is at risk. :confused: This child has been *consistently* private from birth. This child has a range of challenging behaviors/patterns (who doesn't?).

 

This family is clearly invested in and caring, and diligent. I get that. But, honestly, I do see red flags or a clear trajectory to a problem.

 

The reference in a private diary to a desire to cut could very well show a useful, healthy, coping skill: Process emotion on paper rather than inappropriately.

 

I truly feel it's very possible that intervention on this child - as if her style of living is inherently flawed - will reinforce and suggest just what this family is trying to mitigate.

 

This child needs to be honored and worked with for who she is and has been. I strongly believe THE FAMILY needs counseling, and the child is a scapegoat. Sending this child for counseling as if she were the focus would be a serious mistake on top of the mistake of violating her privacy. Even counseling for the child with "check ins" from the parents or occassional family sessions would be a wrong move.

 

There may be nothing wrong with this child.

Does this opinion change if the child actually did try cutting?

 

OP, do you know for sure that she did not attempt it?

 

 

 

If you want to show love for a "consistently private" person, do you just respect their privacy at all times? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I feel like doing that will only cause the child to withdraw further. Like they are slipping away or something. When does extremely difficult/dramatic/argumentative/shut-you-out behavior truly become a problem?

[brandigirl]

Be happy you caught it my friend went down that road and let's just say 5 yrs later life still doesn't look that great. My mother used to buy me the most beautiful journals when I was younger and I never wrote on them. Why? Well I found writing down something to be just as in the open as saying it so I never wrote anything. One time I wrote down a lie out of curiosity my little sister read it and then repeated it at the dinner table. I never wrote anything of mention down again. If your daughter did have any sense of peace and comfort in this journal you have shattered it. So don't be to surprised if she is viscous and angry at you and stays that way for a long time. Don't expect her to be thankful for what you have done for her. The question she will ask you is what of you hadn't found anything in my journal ?

 

Ps I'm not attacking I'm just telling you as a teen and as a person with a friend who cuts what's going to be going through her head.

[Joanne]

Does this opinion change if the child actually did try cutting?

 

OP, do you know for sure that she did not attempt it?

 

 

 

If you want to show love for a "consistently private" person, do you just respect their privacy at all times? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but I feel like doing that will only cause the child to withdraw further. Like they are slipping away or something. When does extremely difficult/dramatic/argumentative/shut-you-out behavior truly become a problem?

 

If you add cutting to this situation, I would still stand behind the content on the family needing counseling, and to not single the child out as the reason.

 

I just don't agree that consistent from birth privacy is "withdraw". Certainly this child is a challenge, and it's clear that she is a challenge for this family. What's not clear is if this child is out of expected, normal bounds, if this child is at risk, or if there is, in fact, a problem.

 

If this family were my client, I'd be encouraging the parents to look in the history at the ways and times this child was close to and engaged with them (for example, she wouldn't stay with others as a young child.) I suspect that this child IS trying to engage with them in ways that are a match for her personality, but that the parents are missing it.

[Anne in CA]

I don't have advice, I just wanted to say that this thread went much better than many have when a parent says they have read their child's diary. I have never had to to it, but I have always warned my children that I worked for a private investigator for a year and know all the tricks if I need to know something and that if I am worried for them I will use every trick I know to find out what I need to know. None of my kids has ever given me worry that they were using drugs or thinking of committing suicide or cutting, but I would listen to their cell phone calls, read their diary or hack their laptop if I truly believed that might be the case.

[Joanne]

Be happy you caught it my friend went down that road and let's just say 5 yrs later life still doesn't look that great. My mother used to buy me the most beautiful journals when I was younger and I never wrote on them. Why? Well I found writing down something to be just as in the open as saying it so I never wrote anything. One time I wrote down a lie out of curiosity my little sister read it and then repeated it at the dinner table. I never wrote anything of mention down again. If your daughter did have any sense of peace and comfort in this journal you have shattered it. So don't be to surprised if she is viscous and angry at you and stays that way for a long time. Don't expect her to be thankful for what you have done for her. The question she will ask you is what of you hadn't found anything in my journal ?

 

Ps I'm not attacking I'm just telling you as a teen and as a person with a friend who cuts what's going to be going through her head.

 

Cutting is a later act; not a beginning of dysfunction.

 

We are not even sure that this situation = going to cut or at risk to cut. The very act of writing it in a journal could be a coping skill that prevents self harm.

[brandigirl]

The only reason I put that is because I have had friends just like the OP daughter that toy with these ideas and it's not good. Should the OP have read her daughters PRIVATE diary and shattered any idea that her daughter my have had to trust her? No! But she did and she now needs to work from here.

[labst60]

Clearly we have all had different experiences that have given us a different perspective on this issue.

 

I am probably just as wrong in saying that OPs DD will evenutally appreciate her getting involved as those posters who say that if she ever found out they read her diary they will hate her forver.

 

None of us, except the OP, knows this girl. While even OP doesn't know how she will react, all she has to go on is her "mommy instinct".

 

OP- If your mommy instinct has you worried - there is probably a reason. I think part of the question that you need to ask yourself is - why did DH look at/for the diary - was it because he was genuinely concerned about her or just out of curiousity. Is there anything else "off". Either way I would personally be addressing it - it would just depend how. If you *as her parents* have concerns outside the diary, then I would say deal with her anger, tell her what you read, and take her to counseling. Maybe she will never forgive you - but that's better than you never forgiving yourself heaven forbid the unspeakable happen.

 

If the diary entry seems like a "one off", I would really try to take a good, long hard look at my relationship with the DD and figure out how I can relate to her ON HER TERMS/LEVEL. I have 1 DD who is basically my "mini me", she is still young, but she is an open book to me - without even speaking, I know what she is thinking, her motivations in a situation, when she is lying etc because she is just like me. DD2, whom I love dearly, is a constant mystery to me. I often wonder what goes on in her mind. I don't mean that negatively, more that she and I have very very different personaliteis and it is much more work to relate to her on her level - and she is only 5 - I can't imagine when she is 14! She is quiet and reserved and it will be much tougher to get her to open up. And she is my middle child too - so she skirts her way out of so much that would have never flown with her big sis!

 

I think if you want to / feel you need to improve communication with your daughter - you aren't just going to get her to "sit down and talk to you". It doesn't seem like that is in her nature. it sounds like she would benefit from some regular one-on-one time with you - maybe where you shared stories from your childhood without the expectation of her opening up. Over time, I think she will.

[labst60]

FWIW, I never really thought about it I agree with the PP about what she has told her childrne. I think I will outright tell my children that they can TRUST that I am their mother and I will always do whatever I need to do to help them as long as they are my children living in my house. If that means read their emails, diary, go through their room, etc - they will know up front that I will do it.

 

There will be no presumed privacy, so that "trust" won't be able to be broken.

 

I do not look forward to the teenage years and really feel for the moms going through it now. :grouphug:

[AmyontheFarm]

Ok, so counseling. I am thinking that we should play it like we want help with our communication with her. She will hate it...but hopefully she will get over it?

 

I am a mother of a cutter. It is an emotionally hard road to walk, my dd had already acted on cutting before she wrote about it. The cuts weren't deep, more like scratches, she actually told us that our cat had scratched her and I had believed her.

 

Counseling for just her, is not good enough. You as a family need to seek help. If it helps, start off saying you need counseling to encourage positive communication, then as everyone is feeling "safe" the counselor can bring up questions about self-harm. It was through counseling I realized that I also self-harmed as a teen. People didn't call it self-harm or cutting back then. There are many ways to self-harm, cutting is just one of them.

 

I would suggest Your Story: The Wounding Embrace by Brett Ullman

 

We were blessed by his message when a local church brought him in to speak at the local high school.

 

Any Parent of a child who self-harms, Please feel free to contact me privately at anytime, I would love to give you a place to talk to another Mom, because it isn't easy to talk about this within your circle of friends and still respect your child's privacy. Blessings, Amy

[Plucky]

Take her to counseling is a good idea. I have a difficult 12dd so I really feel for you. Oh, our counselor has no problem with parents looking in a kids room or reading diaries. I do look at some things of my kids because that is one way I can make sure they are okay and staying safe. I don't care if others disagree with it. Good luck.

[butterflymommy]

I was a depressed, cutting, suicidal (though cutting and being suicidal don't always go hand in hand) troubled teen, so here are my 2 cents.

 

I would give up trying to get her to talk to you. If she doesn't want to talk to you there's no point forcing it. Try not to take it personally, but do expect her to be respectful toward you, to do her fair share of chores etc.. Don't be her slave.

 

As far as the diary and counseling. Yes you could try counseling but again I wouldn't force it. So far she's only thought about cutting, but hasn't done it. She might try it and find it's not something that she wants to do again. From what you're telling us she has no suicidal ideation. I would only force therapy if she is actively suicidal. Of course, she could go to therapy and find it helpful-- that would be great. But it's important to remember that therapy is not always helpful for or wanted by troubled individuals. She should have some degree of her own volition there.

 

Also it will be hard for her to cut herself without your knowing. You'll find blood or evidence eventually even if she does it on a part of her body she can hide. Feel free to PM me.

[Haiku]

My dd18 battled medication-induced depression for several years before we figured out what was going on. She is very similar to how your describe your dd. Depression medication and counseling helped us.

 

Tara

[WagsWife]

Thank you to everyone! I have not had a chance to get back on until now. I wanted to make sure that I could take my time without taking a chance of her coming in. We are taking everything said here seriously, and are praying about what the best course is from here. I got something out of every post, but I am going to reply to some that really stuck out at me. I am going to have to break this into two posts, since the post limit is evidently 10,000 characters. My responses are in red.

 

My sister went through major depression as a teen. Three pieces of advice:

 

If she's been on any sort of hormonal medication, take her off of it. Both my sister and I were put on the pill at a young age to regulate constant and extremely painful periods that were causing anemia. It was fine for me, but for my sister it triggered her depression. To this day she gets depression if she goes on any sort of hormonal treatment. The only time in my life I've been depressed was in the weeks after my father died. My sister pointed out I'd changed the brand of the pill I'd been on the week before he passed and asked me to go off of it. I did, and within 3 days I was okay again. I was still grieving, but I was again in control of my emotions and able to get out of bed and function normally.

 

This is very good to know. She started her cycle over a year ago, and it seems that she only having a few days of the month "off." I was considering taking her to the doctor to try to get it regulated, but with *this child, I was not sure that putting her on BCPs at 13 would be a good idea. This gives me another reason to pause and wait to see if it gets any better.

 

I would make sure she gets in to see a cognitive therapist. The reason I say that is that many kinds of therapy are not about getting better, they're about sitting around and endlessly discussing your problems. Cognitive therapy is about identifying where your thinking is wrong and changing the way you think. My sister said she got more help out of the first month of cognitive therapy than she did out of years of other therapy, where it almost seemed like the therapist was creating problems.

 

Again, great information. Her personality is definitely the type to fixate on how her life is not fair.

 

Encourage her to pursue a passion. Anything to make her get outside of her head and focus on anything else. Maybe it's a charity, maybe it's training for a race, maybe it's an artistic goal.

 

This is where we have been struggling with her. She does not want to put extra effort into *anything. The closest thing to a passion she has is sports...and even then, it is not really a passion, but something she does, and happens to be good at. She plays for a club soccer team. She could easily be best player on her team...in fact her coach regularly talks about her being one of the best players on the team because of her natural talent. He tells us that she is the only one who picks up on the footwork and drills right away, so he sends her out on her own to work with the other girls. She does not care. Outside of practice, she does not touch a soccer ball. My husband offers to take her out and help her work on the areas that she could improve on, and she is not interested. Sometimes he will coax her out, but she makes it very clear that it is a bother to her.

 

We try to expose her to things we think she would be interested in her response is always "ehhh." We try to encourage her to set a goal, she wants no part of it.

 

I would bring her to counseling, but make sure to let her know it is just to help open the lines of communication. My parents put me in counseling and I absolutely felt like they were trying to outsource fixing me, which felt terrible. If you come at it from the angle that you are looking for a mediator so you can keep a healthy relationship, it could possibly help it not be hurtful.

 

Best wishes! This is really a tough age for parenting! :grouphug: :grouphug:

 

Thank you! This is what I have always been worried about. It is hard to know if she needs someone to talk to, or if it is just her personality. If it is just her personality, I don't want her to think she needs to be "fixed."

 

I agree with counseling and following up on depression.

 

Also, if you have not done so, I would take her in for a full physical (not gyn type) with blood work, etc. Sometimes hormonal issues, thyroid, anemia, blood sugar issues, etc. can play a big role in behavior and those would need to be addressed first.

 

Fish oils can be very helpful for mood stuff and just overall health. We use the Country Life Omega 3 mood and they are quite reasonable.

 

I plan to make her an appt. this week! Great advice!

 

[WagsWife]

.

You were acting different; your parents where concerned.

 

The child in the OP has always preferred some privacy:

 

This family has been trying to change this child's preferred style of relating.

 

I would not say that we have tried to change her style of relating (not since she was pretty little and we realized that she was not going to change...so we needed to as much as possible) it is more that we can't figure out what her preferred way is. We have tried everything we can think of. The only thing we have not tried is to totally leave her alone...and I am just not willing to do that with a 13 year old.

 

There is no evidence that this child is at risk. :confused: This child has been *consistently* private from birth. This child has a range of challenging behaviors/patterns (who doesn't?).

 

This family is clearly invested in and caring, and diligent. I get that. But, honestly, I do not see red flags or a clear trajectory to a problem.

 

The reference in a private diary to a desire to cut could very well show a useful, healthy, coping skill: Process emotion on paper rather than inappropriately.

 

I truly feel it's very possible that intervention on this child - as if her style of living is inherently flawed - will reinforce and suggest just what this family is trying to mitigate.

 

Thank you, this is very helpful.

 

This child needs to be honored and worked with for who she is and has been. I strongly believe THE FAMILY needs counseling, and the child is a scapegoat. Sending this child for counseling as if she were the focus would be a serious mistake on top of the mistake of violating her privacy. Even counseling for the child with "check ins" from the parents or occassional family sessions would be a wrong move.

 

There may be nothing wrong with this child.

 

I am not opposed to family counseling if needed, but I will say that as a whole, we as a family get along well. We have fun together, we relate to the other girls well, there is not normally a lot of drama. Of course it is not perfect, nothing is. We have the normal "Dad does not approve of the length of older DD's shorts/skirt" battles, the normal teenage "tone" issues, the normal marital ebbs and flows...but over all we are a pretty easy going family. It is our relationship with *this child that we are missing something with.

 

If you add cutting to this situation, I would still stand behind the content on the family needing counseling, and to not single the child out as the reason.

 

I just don't agree that consistent from birth privacy is "withdraw". Certainly this child is a challenge, and it's clear that she is a challenge for this family. What's not clear is if this child is out of expected, normal bounds, if this child is at risk, or if there is, in fact, a problem.

 

If this family were my client, I'd be encouraging the parents to look in the history at the ways and times this child was close to and engaged with them (for example, she wouldn't stay with others as a young child.) I suspect that this child IS trying to engage with them in ways that are a match for her personality, but that the parents are missing it.

 

I would agree with this...the bolded especially.

 

 

 

 

Finally - I will just share this one piece of advice (and my children are younger, so this is more coming from my memory/perspective of BEING a child). In retrospect, I kept a lot from my parents.... and had they been more involved, they could have helped me prevent a lot of mistakes - some I still regret to this day. I'm not blaming them - but the fear of "disappointing" them was overwhelming. In addition - though I "could" talk to my mom - there really wasn't any real time/opoortunity for me to open up, kwim? I was the oldest of 4 and though my mom stayed home, she was always busy (doing mom things :)). It really takes time and bond for a teenager to feel comfortable opening up and talking. So - it might be one full month of 2 hour one-on-one ice cream dates before you get her to say anything - but don't give up just because she doesn't share all those feelings inside during the first one!

 

Thank you! My DH and I have been talking a lot about how the thing we are the shortest on (time) is the thing all the girls really need. We are extremely busy-- homeschooling, co-op classes, sports practices, normal teen schedules, all while working around the schedule of our 14 month foster daughter. While we have been talking about it for months, I think this has been a wake up call to just DO it.

 

I was a depressed, cutting, suicidal (though cutting and being suicidal don't always go hand in hand) troubled teen, so here are my 2 cents.

 

I would give up trying to get her to talk to you. If she doesn't want to talk to you there's no point forcing it. Try not to take it personally, but do expect her to be respectful toward you, to do her fair share of chores etc.. Don't be her slave.

 

As far as the diary and counseling. Yes you could try counseling but again I wouldn't force it. So far she's only thought about cutting, but hasn't done it. She might try it and find it's not something that she wants to do again. From what you're telling us she has no suicidal ideation. I would only force therapy if she is actively suicidal. Of course, she could go to therapy and find it helpful-- that would be great. But it's important to remember that therapy is not always helpful for or wanted by troubled individuals. She should have some degree of her own volition there.

 

Also it will be hard for her to cut herself without your knowing. You'll find blood or evidence eventually even if she does it on a part of her body she can hide. Feel free to PM me.

 

Thank you! I think I will be PMing you. I am fairly positive that she has not done it yet (someone asked if I was sure she had not, but I could not find it to quote.) She regularly wears tank tops, so I would notice something there. She also wears shorts quite a bit (and much to her dad's aggravation, we have noticed that those have been progressively getting shorter, so she would have to do it on her stomach for us to not notice. She also shares a room with her little sister, although she has always been extremely private about her body.