14yo refusing to go on trip

[Anonymous]

Yeah, she’s 14. You’ve totally lost control. What are you doing to do when she’s 16 and driving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it's real, your teenager dictated how it would go (or not go) every step of the way and you rewarded her. Well done.

+1

+2000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We weren’t even flying out of DC, but from another state we’ve been in since Saturday. This morning she refused to get out of bed, started crying, and wouldn’t do anything to get ready.
I called my SIL. She stayed on the phone and tried talking to her, but DD ignored her for about 10 minutes and didn’t say a word, just wrapped up in her blanket. After about 20 minutes she finally realized she wasn’t getting off the phone, got up still crying, didn’t even wear her shoes, slammed the door, and then stayed quiet the whole way there and ended up falling asleep.

This is the worst update ever and we’re all invested so at least make up something good. Why did you call the SIL? Did she go on the trip or not?

She refused to get out of bed or get dressed that’s why I called my SIL for help, who tried talking to her for about 10 minutes, while she ignored her and stayed silent. Eventually she yelled “no I’m not going,” and it took ten more minutes for her to get out of bed. She tried taking the phone away from me multiple times. She slammed the door, and went out to the car.

At the airport, she initially refused to get out of the car, layed in the backseat then started crying, saying she wanted donuts—specifically that she wanted them in the car. I told her she needed to come inside, so after more crying she did get out and we got donuts. After that she mostly shut down—very minimal talking, one word answers, and spent the rest of the time sleeping at the airport. On the plane, she slept for most of the flight. When food came, she refused it at first, then later asked the flight attendant for food . Still while disengaged and grumpy.

By the end of the flight she was fully awake. She asked my phone, I said no, so she sat there and read. While we were waiting for our ride, she opened her suitcase, took out the folded clothes, and put everything back in disorganized. When it was time to leave, she refused to carry it and sat on top of it instead.

When we told her it was time to go, she got up and walked off toward another part of the airport, not responding when we called her. She didn’t go far, but she positioned herself off to the side near a wall and just stood there. It took a few minutes just to get her to come back over.

Then the cab arrived. The driver was very calm and patient and tried speaking to her kindly. She didn’t respond to him at all. When we tried to get her into the cab, she again refused to move and stayed seated on the suitcase. The driver ended up waiting while we tried to work through it and kept reassuring us it was fine. After about 10 minutes of going back and forth, he bribed her with something and told her she could sit up front. That, combined with us continuing to prompt her, finally got her to stand up, get in the car. She’s acting okay now and is happy about being in Italy, and wants to go to a beach tomorrow, but I don’t know about that after todays terrible behavior.

So we did make it, but it was a very slow, drawn-out process the entire way, with a lot of refusal.

Girlllllllllllllllll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, she’s 14. You’ve totally lost control. What are you doing to do when she’s 16 and driving?

Gonna be hard to drive NothingCar. That's what you get when you have no privileges for being a spoiled brat.

[Anonymous]

No more vacations for her. Wait till she's 18 to plan an expensive vacation and leave her alone at home.

Or send her to summer camp or something and vacation without her.

[Anonymous]

One of our kids pulled a similar stunt and I can’t even remember how it was resolved, but they did go with us on the trip and got along ok once out the door. I feel ya OP!

[Anonymous]

I’m so so sorry op, I would be FURIOUS about her behavior. And I would be sad.

Do what you have to to get through this trip and at home you figure out how to get her to be a more grateful human being. she gets a job, she helps the homeless, whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m so so sorry op, I would be FURIOUS about her behavior. And I would be sad.

Do what you have to to get through this trip and at home you figure out how to get her to be a more grateful human being. she gets a job, she helps the homeless, whatever.

It’s always fascinating that this forum thinks “helping the homeless” is just this easy kind of task that’s designed to make the brats of dc/va/md more grateful (when really it involves the work of very trained mental health and social work professionals) or that homeless people want your yucky kid around them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our trip is to Italy, half vacation/half visiting relatives. She doesn’t want to go Italy, and wants to go to the Hawaii, or somewhere else, but it isn’t her choice. There isn’t anyone available for her to stay with. OP

OP I cannot believe this is a serious question. Hopefully you're just packing and stressed and taking a break on DCUM to ask this.

The idea that a 14 YO could be allowed to disrupt a family vacation like this blows my mind.

If she doesn't want to pack, tell her that you're going to pack for her and she'd better hope she likes what you decide on, because there are no purchases there.

If she doesn't want to get in the cab/ car tomorrow, you pick her up and put her in. If she screams, you ignore her.

Who runs the show at your house?

How do you pick up a teenager and put them in car? Let me guess, you have toddlers!

I'm imagining the teenager having a meltdown at the airport.

[Anonymous]

I hope things go more smoothly from here. When you get home I would consider immediately finding a good therapist. Something is going on with her.

It’s one thing if she rolled her eyes and said “ugh, not Italy again! When can we go to Hawaii?” and then packed her bag and sucked it up. This is a massive tantrum that lasted an entire day or more even after eating and sleeping and making it halfway around the globe and when she go there he continues to even be rude the strangers. The cab driver needed to help coax her??

This is not normal even for a spoiled or moody kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so so sorry op, I would be FURIOUS about her behavior. And I would be sad.

Do what you have to to get through this trip and at home you figure out how to get her to be a more grateful human being. she gets a job, she helps the homeless, whatever.

It’s always fascinating that this forum thinks “helping the homeless” is just this easy kind of task that’s designed to make the brats of dc/va/md more grateful (when really it involves the work of very trained mental health and social work professionals) or that homeless people want your yucky kid around them.

I am the one who suggested this. I didn’t mean she should provide direct mental health support for homeless people, you do know there’s a wide range of support opportunities available, right?. Making sandwiches or gathering period supplies for women and teen girls, coordinating a food drive, collecting socks and hygiene supplies for men. These are legitimate needs for the unhoused populations and it can’t hurt a spoiled brat who throws a toddler like tantrum about going to Italy to acknowledge through this work that there are people much MUCH less fortunate than she is. Our family does community service on the regular, not because it’s to teach our kids lesson, but because we can fill that need, and if it has helped my kids develop more empathy along the way than I’m happy that’s a side effect of community service.
Isn’t it our job to raise empathetic humans that are contributing members of our society?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so so sorry op, I would be FURIOUS about her behavior. And I would be sad.

Do what you have to to get through this trip and at home you figure out how to get her to be a more grateful human being. she gets a job, she helps the homeless, whatever.

It’s always fascinating that this forum thinks “helping the homeless” is just this easy kind of task that’s designed to make the brats of dc/va/md more grateful (when really it involves the work of very trained mental health and social work professionals) or that homeless people want your yucky kid around them.

I am the one who suggested this. I didn’t mean she should provide direct mental health support for homeless people, you do know there’s a wide range of support opportunities available, right?. Making sandwiches or gathering period supplies for women and teen girls, coordinating a food drive, collecting socks and hygiene supplies for men. These are legitimate needs for the unhoused populations and it can’t hurt a spoiled brat who throws a toddler like tantrum about going to Italy to acknowledge through this work that there are people much MUCH less fortunate than she is. Our family does community service on the regular, not because it’s to teach our kids lesson, but because we can fill that need, and if it has helped my kids develop more empathy along the way than I’m happy that’s a side effect of community service.
Isn’t it our job to raise empathetic humans that are contributing members of our society?

Sure, but suggesting making your kid help poor people in order to teach them gratitude, which is exactly what the PP suggested, always rubs me the wrong way. Poor people don't exist to teach your kids lessons. Have them volunteer because it's important to contribute to their community or whatever, not as punishment/teaching moment/life lesson.

[Anonymous]

When you get back, she is grounded until the end of the school year.

This is behavior she chose.
No sports
No School activities
No special school trips
No birthday parties
No technology in her bedroom
No excuses that this is her best friend forever and the only time that she will be able to ______
No starbucks or special drinks
She choose to be a PITA and threw a fit that impacted everyone else.

Family dinners that she needs to sit at the table. No ordering out her favorite places.

If you are going out running errands, she goes with you.

Take social media apps off her phone and block them at your home router - no TikTok

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No more vacations for her. Wait till she's 18 to plan an expensive vacation and leave her alone at home.

Or send her to summer camp or something and vacation without her.

Send her to a pseudo military camp, the ones for kids who are detoxing from screens.

[Anonymous]

One of my DD's ruined a vacation by bullying her sister to the point we were all miserable. She did get food poisoning after that, so there was a little instant karma. Still, we have not been on an expensive family vacation in 3 years. Not willing to pay to be tortured.