Dear Lordslady, it isn't important what I think/thought... but what your daughter does...

Yes, kids can walk on parents if seeing a lot of love WITHOUT boundaries, rules, discipline... Kids crave for them... giving in means to them - not caring enough, being indiferreent, being not so important to their parents...

It's (almost) the same with us...
E.g. my X was never jealous (never shown)... for him it's - it's easier, not headache thinking where I might have been, close your eyes and problem will disappear... for me it's - he doesn't care where I was, he needs me just as 'an inventory' in the house, to contribute to paying bills...

I agree this moght be way out sample... but the essence I hope you get...

My true best wishes to your daughter and you!

Since I've posted so many negative posts about my daughter, I wanted to take a moment and post a somewhat positive one (knowing as soon as I post it, she'll probably do something totally wrong again.)

After the two-day "house arrest" last weekend she has done a good job following curfews AND being civil. Of course the snowstorm this week did limit her ability to get out, but she did go out a couple nights with her boyfriend and was back before curfew.

Friday night she told me in advance she was going to see her boyfriend's band play, told me who she was going with, and agreed to be home at 12:30am.

I got a call at 7pm asking if she could spend the night with the girl she went to the show with. I hesitated, but remembered how she always says I won't let her stay and that's why she does things behind my back.

I decided there was really no reason she couldn't stay, and asked for the other girl to be put on the phone. I cleared the plans with her, and told her Kaitlin had to be home by around noon Saturday. She told me who was staying at her house and said they were going there after the show.

Saturday rolls around. Kait wasn't home at noon, but called me about fiften minutes later to say they were currently without a car but that when the girl's mom returned with a car, they'd be home--though it would be a brief stop because she was going sledding (something I'd okayed for Saturday afternoon already).

She checked in at home, went sledding, and was back in the house by probably 9:30pm last night.

And today, XH/OW asked her to come over for the first time in almost 2 months. So she's with them and should be home soon.

Although she's not done much to keep the place clean, she has done a couple things, and because she's done well on the curfews and checking in with me, I have praised her for it.

It was nice to have a fairly calm week.

LL

Yup, knew it. As soon as I post something good...

She extended her 10:30pm curfew (school-nite curfew) to 12:30am (her weekend curfew time) tonight because she was at her friend's house and wanted to watch a movie they rented.

Not as major of an infraction as she usually pulls, but nevertheless, she did disobey and by far more than 15 minutes.

So...this time I'm not pulling phones. She's grounded all day Saturday and all Saturday night. I hope the movie tonight was worth it.

LL

I wanted to post about a "rule" we had in my house when mine were under 21. They could not spend the night with anyone unless the parents called. Even though it was a rule, my oldest tested it with the "it's so embarrassing" talk, but I wouldn't give in. Guess what, the boys parents were out of town. He was also a dead give away as he had spent the night away maybe 2 times in his life (he was 16-17 at the time). My youngest (the social butterfly and ADD), was always having someone spend the night and spending the night away. The parents always called first.

This calling like that in the middle of the night out is usually about nothing but beating curfew. I know about this trick.

I know it is hard to start some of these rules mid-stream, but you might want to consider this one.

By the way, fortunately mine were always good about meeting curfew.

I had a saying about raising teenagers and that was you better hope the "bluff" worked with them, because if they decided to defy you, there wasn't really much you could do. I am a firm believer that if you really made believers out of them, the "bluff" would work. If you threaten, you MUST follow through or they will call your bluff in little steps til they get it figured out. If you told them not to walk out the door, you couldn't tie them to their bed if they decided they were going.

I would suggest you figure out where things need changing, decide what the "rules" will be and sit her down and talk to her about them and why. When I say what needs changing - you need to look at the biggies and not every little thing. We really didn't have too may rules in our house, but the boys knew we were serious about the rules we did have.

I will give you an example of a rule or way of life we had in house and my sons social circle(a lot of good parents), when my oldest got his drivers license I almost freaked. Not because he was driving, but my boys had never been anywhere without an adult with them. If they went to the movie, a parent went, if they went bowling, skating, a party - a parent went with them (did not drop them off). My youngest son's group had parties all their life, believe me when I say social butterflies. But, they were at houses with parents present and the parents were conferred with and confirmed.

It's hard, but try to set some of the important rules, and REMEMBER - Good behavior and following rules is expected. It does not need to be rewarded.

LL,

You are doing really well. Your daughter is learning very quickly that you mean what you say. Now she is just testing you a little more. This is to be expected. Don't yell or lose your temper, just tell her she made her decision and there will now be consequences.

You are doing a wonderful job! Keep it up. My guess is that your little girl is starting to have some increase in her self esteem, too.

LL

I am just kind of curious about how your little girl is doing. You seem to be doing very well. Please update when you have a chance.

**bumping**

<<<<Elan in the cheering section from the couch!>>>

Okay...latest update.

Things are not perfect by any means. We have a long way to go, but they aren't horrible either right now.

It's still darned near impossible to get her to do anything around the house. She FINALLY loaded the dishwasher after I protested and let things sit on the counter for 4 days and we were down to using plastic silverware.

But she did pretty well with curfews all last week, because she had something special she wanted to do on Friday night at one of her girlfriend's houses.

So I debated letting her stay the night on Friday, because she was to be grounded all day Saturday for breaking a curfew several days ago, but decided there was "improvement" so she went.

I think it was a rather unsupervised sleepover, and maybe shouldn't have allowed it, but I did know where she was going, and I told her I was stopping in mid-evening to bring snacks and check up on her. She didn't object--more progress--because normally she wouldn't want me anywhere near her friends place.

So I played "Domino's delivery dude" and showed up with buffalo wings at just before 10pm. She was there and answered the door. I know they were hiding guys from me, but I know one from the cars out front that one was her boyfriend. And I already know what I'm dealing with there--and my keeping her from staying at Amanda's isn't going to prevent everything with the boyfriend.

Saturday morning her friend dropped her off at the XH's place because A) this was the night she was grounded and couldn't do anything anyway, and B) he hasn't seen her in forever and they offered to have her spend the night. You can see my other post for how well that went.

If I were her, I might never offer to stay with them again, but she loves him and is much more forgiving than his son who doesn't even want to see him. She and her boyfriend are going to a Dutch town close to here tomorrow because there's no school, and picking up some yummy pasteries. She wants to bring some back to me and to her dad as well.)

And today, her boyfriend picked her up and they went to one of his shows. She hasn't been home for more than a few minutes all weekend, but she's done well keeping in touch with me.

And we had our first appointment with the new IC on Thursday. I doubt my daughter liked her, because she didn't confirm that I'm crazy like my daughter expected her to when she told her of my pulling all the phones out of the house a couple weeks ago. The IC just said "did she do this as a consequence for something you did?" Daughter admitted I did, but argued that it was a stupid consequence. She didn't get far with the IC on that one!

But one of the things that DD kept bringing up is that I yell at her. This is true, but generally only when she's really ticked me off for breaking one of my rules. I was very open about my anger issues during the last year when XH was having the affair and still living at home or coming around, and the doors I kicked in anger, etc.

I'm hoping that sitting in on therapy with my DD and being totally open in front of her about my own shortcomings will help her open up a little as well.

At any rate, this therapist wants to see us weekly right now. It's tough to pull off 2+ hours away from work, but if it helps, it will be worth it. This is the first time a therapist has offered to see us that often and it's also the first time I've been able to go to therapy with her. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So...fairly long update that really doesn't say much except that things aren't going crazy right at this second.

LL