Behavior Problems With My Seventeen-Year-Old Daughter

[rvnstamper]

No i was not talking about your.i deleted his post. He was very rude to me .i just didnt need that,especially since i am on here and trying to actually do things to help my daughter,but also prepare fore worse case scenario. I am not one of these parents who just dont care what their kids do. I am trying to be proactive.

[LawResearcherMissy]

This is not at all what I thought it was going to be.

You know, we're awfully clear in the disclaimer at the bottom of every page.

I was trying to look up and find out exactly what the laws are in my state concerning a 17 year old,(or minor) child,so when she decides she wants to leave again,I know what i can and cannot do,or what my options are.

There is no state in the Union that explicitly spells out what you can and cannot do, with the exception of abusing your child. You can take everything away. You can - and SHOULD - exercise the option of NO.

But mainly was looking for some facts

We GAVE you facts:

The only thing being 17 in the state of Missouri grants you is that you will be tried as an adult when you commit crimes, and that the police are not required to bring you home if you're reported as a runaway. Nothing prevents you from going to where she is and fetching her back yourself, and nothing prevents you from having anyone who harbors her prosecuted.

Those are the facts. Until she reaches the age of majority - 18 - she is under your care and control, and you are legally responsible for anything she does. That means that you actually need to exert control. This:

But i was trying to negotiate

Needs to STOP. When your daughter is acting the way she is acting, "Because I SAID SO!" is the only negotiation that should be happening if you want to keep your sanity.

[aardvarc]

A plan that has been known to work by a couple of parents I've worked with over the years: (The key element that they all shared was that the teen in question was disregarding rules because they wanted to party/hang with friends....NOT that there was a romantic interest...that sort of thing requires an altogether different approach.)

Get yourself a small storage unit. Make sure you have the only key and that you keep the location secret (dont leave the rental contract lay around the house). Get three of the ugliest neon yellow sweatpants you can find. And three of the hottest pink sweatshirts. With Sponge Bob or something similarly "un-cool". The more juvenile, the better. Put ALL of her clothes (other than socks, underwear, bras) and all but one pair of shoes in that storage unit. In their place, put the sweats. Then force her to earn her clothes back with desired behavior. If she behaves for the week, you let her list 8 specific items that she wants back, and you will pick 4 of those to be returned to her. (That way she doesn't get back all the "best stuff" too quickly, allowing her to resume her bad behaviors at whatever point she's willing to sacrifice what's left.)

The first mom I knew of who tried this had several family members waiting in the back yard and when her teen came home and got in the shower, they cleaned ALL of her clothes out in about 4 minutes....including the clothes she had been wearing, piled on the bathroom sink. The key is that you have to find your child's "currency". Find something that is SO important to her, that she is willing to modify her behavior to have access to it. Wanna guess how many times she'll be willing to be seen by her friends in bad clothes? Not only at school, but anywhere else. For girls hell bent on hanging with friends, it doesn't get much more important than clothing. And make up. And if she attempts to go out and steal clothes/make up, then you let her take the fall if caught. Let it be as miserable as possible. If she doesn't learn to control her behavior while she's young enough for a juvenile record (which goes away), then an adult criminal record may well loom in her future. That WONT go away. And, when she complains to the judge that she "had to" steal clothes or make up because her mean old mother took them away from her, you will score major brownie points with the judge and the judge will understand just HOW defiant your daughter is and will be more likely to sentence her accordingly (ie harsher, since low level punishments apparantly haven't worked). If the court allows your input, do NOT plead for mercy. Be honest and tell the judge that you're at the end of your rope; you're trying, you're reaching out for help and suggestions; but that no punishment tried so far seems to have made a difference. Hope that she gets a creative judge who will know exactly what type of misery might prevail, and that the sentence is substantial enough to make her think twice the next time she wants to skirt the rules.

She needs to know that she cannot win. Right now she's playing you like a violin, and you've GOT to put a stop to it. Don't talk to her about this plan ahead of time, don't threaten to do it - strangely, a lot of her stuff will simply "vanish" if she has advance notice. Simply IMPLEMENT it. Fast. With no warning, no discussion. She needs to come home and see that it's already HAPPENED; that her stuff is already GONE. Until you give her an "oh shit" or "check mate" moment, she'll continue to be in control. YOU need to take back that control in a way that leaves no room for doubt or negotiation.

Also, when she shows up with phones, you call police and turn the phone over to them as "found property" since you have no idea where it came from (it may be stolen, may have been obtained fraudulently, etc.). Let them track down wherever she's sourcing these phones. It's common with teens to tell parents their own phone was lost or stolen so they'll get a replacement, then they simply give their old phone to a friend, like your daughter. Once police show up at the home of one of these friends and the friend's parents learn of the scam, that'll put an end to phones appearing by magic. The more other parents of your child's "clique" you can engage, the better.

[Mercy&Grace]

How will you feel if she is killed while she is out drinking ? You are far too concerned with what she thinks. She isn't suppose to like you, she is a teenager.

[tonynewman]

if you want to push her away and make her resent you even more some of the play it hard advice you got here will work great, on the other hand I would suggest a more liberal approach due to her age, become her friend, work with her, if she wants to go out let her, drive her even, become her buddy, that way say she goes out gets drunk (that will happen) she will have no issues on calling you for help etc, a teenage girl is going to get into trouble no matter how hard nose you will act. its better to be a friend compared to the do as I demand parent, that only works to age 14 most of the time.

give her more freedom, let her do what she wants and be there for when she falls, sit down and talk about it, let her learn from the mistakes with no penalties from you.

[llworking]

I am a great believer in treading cautiously when dealing with older teens, because you really can lose them as adults if you do not handle things right. However, that is when we are talking about basically decent kids who simply want to test their own wings a bit.

You are far beyond that. This is a child that you are going to lose at age 18 the way things are going now. Your only hope of getting her back on the right track is exerting serious parental control. That doesn't mean waving a law under her nose, it means chasing her down and scaring the bejesus out of the people that she is with, so that THEY end up scared that THEY will be in trouble if they enable her.

The one and only time my daughter ever attempted to pull off the "stay out all night and I had no idea where she was bit" ended up being a nightmare for her. I called every person she knew whose phone number I could find, I talked to parents whenever possible, when I got a name and an approximate area I got on one of those people search places and got every possible name and address I could find and then started knocking on doors...which got me more information. When I got to the right place I pounded on the door stating who I was and that I was going to be calling the police if my MINOR child did not immediately appear and they literally shoved her out the door, along with a friend of hers that I promptly returned to her own parents.

While the police won't necessarily help retrieve a 17 year old if ANYTHING untoward is going on in the home /place where that 17 year old is the last thing that they are going to want is the policing showing up...and if nothing untoward is going on the last thing that the adults in the household want is for the police to be showing up as well.

That whole night resulted in some pretty serious humiliation for my daughter. Yes, she was truly mad at me, but she was unwilling to risk that kind of humiliation again...and had plenty of other people letting her know just how "uncool" the whole thing was. I didn't end up being the bad guy with her world, she did.

[Dogmatique]

if you want to push her away and make her resent you even more some of the play it hard advice you got here will work great, on the other hand I would suggest a more liberal approach due to her age, become her friend, work with her, if she wants to go out let her, drive her even, become her buddy, that way say she goes out gets drunk (that will happen) she will have no issues on calling you for help etc, a teenage girl is going to get into trouble no matter how hard nose you will act. its better to be a friend compared to the do as I demand parent, that only works to age 14 most of the time.

give her more freedom, let her do what she wants and be there for when she falls, sit down and talk about it, let her learn from the mistakes with no penalties from you.

Oh. My. God.

You don't have kids, do you?

[tonynewman]

Oh. My. God.

You don't have kids, do you?

I was going to ask the few here that posted such hard nose advice that same question....

[llworking]

Oh. My. God.

You don't have kids, do you?

Clearly not...

Again, there can be a fine line between overexerting parental authority with older teens and letting them test their wings...but clearly that advice is absurd.

[Mercy&Grace]

We had 6. My oldest told me one time "I hate you" my reply was, "good that means I'm doing my job." We are all close, especially the oldest and I. As has been said here being a parent is not an easy job. If you want a friend, go next door.