How to deal with teenage a-holery?

[Anonymous]

"do not have access", sorry

[Anonymous]

18:24PP, what evaluations did your 17-year old get? My brother is going through something similar with his son who recently became violent and destroyed property at home. The police got involved and my nephew was taken to a children’s hospital but quickly released by the attending psychiatrist because he became calm, cooperative and contrite. There was no diagnosis even though he had been erratic, made verbal threats to his family, and destroyed property. Outpatient psychiatry was the recommendation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:18:24PP, what evaluations did your 17-year old get? My brother is going through something similar with his son who recently became violent and destroyed property at home. The police got involved and my nephew was taken to a children’s hospital but quickly released by the attending psychiatrist because he became calm, cooperative and contrite. There was no diagnosis even though he had been erratic, made verbal threats to his family, and destroyed property. Outpatient psychiatry was the recommendation.

18:24 here. First I'm going to say that I'd never go to Children's in a psychiatry emergency. From what I hear from my social work friends, they are always busy and never have the resources to fulfill the needs that show up on their doorstep. So, they try to discharge if they can. In the future, I'd go to a suburb. But, then you have to transport yourself if Children's is the closest option and you have involved the police. I did find the police to be an amazing resource (we are in MoCo MD). But we have better options than Children's so we could use them.

As far as evaluations, there really isn't anything but psychiatric evals when it comes to a diagnosis and treatment. The problem is that it can be a long process, they don't like to diagnose kids, and there are certain medications that they won't use for kids until everything else has been exhausted and your kid is so vulnerable that they have to try and medication success is one of the criteria they use to diagnose. We used a lot of different services - inpatient, outpatient psychiatry, outpatient therapy, IOP, PHP and eventually residential treatment.

The single most effective thing we (not the professionals) did (and this was me in my family) was this. I kept a diary. Every single day, I recorded behaviors, what was happening before (like what they were doing, what they ate, how the school day was, what people were present . . . - anything I could think of, what happened after, whether anything worked to calm things down. After awhile I could see patterns and could focus my diary. It was a lot but it was extremely useful to everyone who worked with my son.

I hope they figure things out quickly for your brother's family. If you have other questions and post again, I typically only read the Special Needs forum but if I see something I'll share everything that I can to be helpful.

[Anonymous]

I didn't find out for two years after my DD started acting like this that she had been sexually assaulted by a boy at school. She was 14 when it happened. It started years of absolute hell for us - and anytime we treated the situation with discipline it obviously just got worse. Once I knew where it all stemmed from it didn't get better (the shame she felt when we knew about made things much much worse) but everything made sense and I could lean in with love during the hard times. The years I tried to "discipline it out of her" are incredibly painful to me now. I, as her mom, got the brunt of it, and I think it was because I was a "safe" place for all those terrible, dark, scary feelings she had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a mom to six daughters (27,25,22,20,18,15) and I always made it clear that we don’t tolerate disrespect in the name of “teen moods” or hormones. 2 of them were a little disrespectful mainly around 12-14, and we treated it the same way we treated anything else, there were consequences. It should’ve never got the point where your kid feels comfortable saying these things.

I don't have nearly as many kids but I am from an almost entirely female line on both sides of my family and the first born so...idk. I am a friend of my kids but everyone knows who the alpha female is too and this kind of blatant disrespect is just not tolerated at all. On the flip side, probably considered extremely liberal for responsible kids who earn trust.

[Anonymous]

our DD is like this and it’s been a very long road
we have had the psych evaluations and have done cognitive therapy as well as psychiatrist.

i will say that cognitive therapy is nice but there is no real work component. look into DBT.

the tough part of DBT is the kid has to agree to it but they also can help with the parenting aspect too

it’s been helpful for us the the last few months. it’s not perfect but it’s a start

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a mom to six daughters (27,25,22,20,18,15) and I always made it clear that we don’t tolerate disrespect in the name of “teen moods” or hormones. 2 of them were a little disrespectful mainly around 12-14, and we treated it the same way we treated anything else, there were consequences. It should’ve never got the point where your kid feels comfortable saying these things.

Six daughters?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a mom to six daughters (27,25,22,20,18,15) and I always made it clear that we don’t tolerate disrespect in the name of “teen moods” or hormones. 2 of them were a little disrespectful mainly around 12-14, and we treated it the same way we treated anything else, there were consequences. It should’ve never got the point where your kid feels comfortable saying these things.

Our daughter often just doubles down when given a consequence. It's gotten to the point where she just says something even more awful, and/or she refuses to go to sleep, refuses to eat, or she refuses to speak to us for days.

Then there must be more going on.
Maybe get her a psych evaluation.

+1
This is so far from the realm of standard teenage moodiness/testing the boundaries. It’s crazy that you let it get this far and still seem to walk on egg shells.
To start I’d take away all privileges (devices, internet, money, etc) unless it’s needed for schoolwork. She can earn back things if she’s consistently kind. The second there’s a hint of rudeness, take it all back.
You also don’t mention if she’s in sports or does any type of physical activity. If not, I’d put her in something asap, even if it’s just teen strength training or a running program.
Still, this sounds like the emergence of an underlying psych disorder or a chemical imbalance of some sort

[Anonymous]

Op our oldest was like that. A counselor and psychologist both saw sociopathic tendencies. Get her into someone, if you haven't

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a mom to six daughters (27,25,22,20,18,15) and I always made it clear that we don’t tolerate disrespect in the name of “teen moods” or hormones. 2 of them were a little disrespectful mainly around 12-14, and we treated it the same way we treated anything else, there were consequences. It should’ve never got the point where your kid feels comfortable saying these things.

I don't have nearly as many kids but I am from an almost entirely female line on both sides of my family and the first born so...idk. I am a friend of my kids but everyone knows who the alpha female is too and this kind of blatant disrespect is just not tolerated at all. On the flip side, probably considered extremely liberal for responsible kids who earn trust.

Two completely unhelpful responses. Sorry you have to wade through this BS, OP.

[Anonymous]

Look up defiant disorder. My son had the same thing and it took months of therapy for both kid and parents.

People who say just enforce consequences are idiots and have never dealt with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't find out for two years after my DD started acting like this that she had been sexually assaulted by a boy at school. She was 14 when it happened. It started years of absolute hell for us - and anytime we treated the situation with discipline it obviously just got worse. Once I knew where it all stemmed from it didn't get better (the shame she felt when we knew about made things much much worse) but everything made sense and I could lean in with love during the hard times. The years I tried to "discipline it out of her" are incredibly painful to me now. I, as her mom, got the brunt of it, and I think it was because I was a "safe" place for all those terrible, dark, scary feelings she had.

My heart breaks for your child and you. I hope your daughter, you, and rest of the family are healing and in a better place now.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:We went through similar. I’m not sure anything worked perfectly. But we took away the phone, the weekend plans with friends, as consequences. Maybe go full silent treatment until she apologizes for her actions. Does she at least get good grades? If so hold onto that.

She gets excellent grades. I don't believe a silent treatment is the best way to handle. She will never give a sincere apology in her life, I'm pretty sure of that. She seems incapable of taking any responsibility for her actions.

I have occasionally given consequences to her. They are either ineffective, or they just exacerbate the issues. She doesn't seem to care about anything. She never spends time or talks with any friends. She could care less about a phone or friends, or weekend plans.

I would get her evaluated for depression. Sometimes it doesn't present as sadness, it presents as anger or irritability.

We have scheduled an appointment with a therapist for her. But until then, what can we do in the meantime?

A therapist won't be able to diagnose anything or prescribe medication. I would get a mental health screening from her pediatrician.

In the interim, you acknowledge that this is a problem that is beyond you, you hold your boundary and don't escalate. Protect your other kids from her nastiness. Try to make sure she is sleeping and eating enough and is well hydrated. Just try to get by until you can get some help.

Also, the other thing to try in the interim is exercise and more time out of the house and away from family. If you can arrange it, have her do some sort of sport or dance or volunteer work.

I totally agree with you. I have been trying to get her to exercise - even something as a simple as a walk, either on her own or with me, but she refuses. There is one exercise class we basically drag her to every week, kicking and screaming, but we refuse to let her give it up because otherwise she would do nothing and refuses to do any other physical activity. We have been unsuccessful with getting her to do other activities. Straight up refuses. As much as she says she hates us, she only wants to be at home only feels safe here. She hates school even more.

This is extreme behavior.
Has she always been like this?

Which part? To some extent she's been like this since she was born. Now that she's a teen, I think she realizes that there's really nothing we can absolutely force her to do and so she's digging her heels in.

Refusal to go outside, school, or leave the house. Refusing to eat, sleep, or talk when angry.

She hasn't refused school yet, but I'm really afraid that might be next. It's the first time she's refused to talk to us for days. She used to love the outside, so that is new too. I feel like we are at the very beginning cusp of refusing to eat and sleep, but she's always denied these are actual needs in her.

Yeah, this definitely sounds like major depression and anxiety, maybe some PTSD. She needs to be medicated. Unfortunately mine is similar, is 23 now and doesn’t take her meds so we still walk on eggshells when she is around. It’s awful and I am dreading Christmas.

[Anonymous]

She needs a psych eval.

[Anonymous]

I love the people without teenagers that post on this forum. OP, I have the same teenager and Dad exerts extreme punishments and I do not. Neither technique works.