Reply to Help! DD14 does not want to come with us on family trip

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[quote=Anonymous]I have a feeling that a lot of the "clearly you're a bad parent who never disciplines and the kids run the household" posters have to be in that magical age where your kids haven't hit their teen years and are happy kids who love being with their parents and are easily cowed through simple consequences into doing what you require them to do.

OP, I also have a 14 year old who over the summer became depressed and expressed suicidal thoughts and has been withdrawn and moody. We are very firm with our kids and have clear rules and boundaries, but you cannot bully your child out of depression.

I agree that you can't and shouldn't leave her alone for her own health and wellbeing. I like the suggestion of making the trip more palatable by changing up sleeping arrangements, and I also think you should take her expressed conflicts with her cousin seriously. I don't believe that we should always disregard our kids' experiences and opinions just because we don't want conflict with family and we want to enjoy our own trips without regard to how unpleasant our kids might find them. We have had to deal with a lot of conflict at younger ages with our kids' cousins, who objectively speaking have gone through terrible periods of unacceptable behavior and zero limits from their parents. My kids have a right not to be exposed to that.

But I also think it would be OK to make alternate plans with her (not just both of you sit at home, but both of you find something to do that gets you out of the house and into the wider world).[/quote]

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