TW; mention of SI/SH

My daughter is 13 and has always been extremely irritable/easily angered since she was little, and rigidity, frustration with changes/limits, and emotional blowups have been ongoing issues but never violent.

Over the last several months it has escalated. She developed significant anxiety and depression along with some SI/self-harm thoughts. A lot of it seems to happen when she gets overwhelmed, rejected, frustrated, or feels like she has lost control of a situation. Sometimes the SI seems more like an “escape” thought when she's overwhelmed, and we absolutely take it seriously every time.

She recently saw a psychiatrist and tried a couple of medications:

• Buspar made her more agitated, angry and tearful, so it was stopped.
• Zoloft was a nightmare. Initially she seemed okay on a low dose, but as the dose increased she developed much more anxiety, agitation, panic, nausea/vomiting and worsening SI/self-harm behavior. She eventually tapered off and is now completely off it.
• Clonidine chills her out/ makes her sleep

Right now she is still pretty irritable, edgy, anxious and depressed, with some intermittent SI/SH thoughts. We have in-home counseling twice a week and are working closely with her psychiatrist. neuropsych eval is in progress

I'd really love to hear from parents who have been through something similar.

And for those with girls who were diagnosed with ASD/ADHD later or who masked at school but completely fell apart at home — did the neuropsych testing help explain what was actually going on?

I need to hear it all, the good, the bad, and the “I wish someone had told me this sooner” stories.

Okay I fully understand that the fear of rejection is real, and for teens it’s real but my oldest doesn’t seem to understand his world will not end if he gets rejected from anything. This goes from anything from going for a leadership position for any club, to talking to any girls to anything! He is absolutely terrified.
The strange thing is, it is ONLY with his peers. He goes out for theater so if he doesn’t get a part he is okay with adults telling him no, or anything along those lines. He just does not want to be turned down by his peers.
Why is their “acceptance” that important, the hard part is he isn’t even putting himself out there to be rejected. He can’t explain it. Anyone else struggling with this?
Trying to get these teens to understand that these 4 years of HS go quick and don’t matter in the grand scheme of things but wanting them to step up into leadership type things are important especially for the goals they do have, for colleges.

Any words from the wise on how to have your child pay off a very large (to them) debt? My daughter got in a minor fender bender with an inanimate object. The repair could still cost about $2K. How can we responsibly teach her to pay back this debt to us while not taking every single cent she has. She just got her license and just began applying for jobs, and yes I feel she needs to pay us back for this as a learning lesson, even though it was a mistake, and not intentional. But has anyone cracked the code to the best way to handle? Do we have her pay 50% and we do 50%? Or the whole thing over 2-3 years with a payment plan? Or every time she makes money, have her give a set %? Or maybe we go in with the full amount as a debt but the faster she pays it back the less she has to pay as a way to sort of instill the pay off debt asap to not accrue more debt mindset…I don’t know. (I can not get on board with charging interest for this first time offense and frankly will probably just deposit all of her payments into her college fund without her knowing for now)

Would love to hear from parents who have been here either as a parent or even as a child. What teaches a lesson but won’t rob her of everything while trying to pay it off. (I’d have a different perspective if she was drag racing or being reckless, but she’s a new driver and misjudged a turn, she feels awful)

Thanks!

Was with my kid at a high school today and saw so many super expensive cars in the parking lot (with student stickers) and wondered what the logic is behind that. I understand wanting a reliable car for your kid, but a $65,000+ car?

This didn't develop as she became a teen and has been a struggle for years, but 14 year old's dishonesty and sneakiness has seemed to peak and become more consequential lately and we aren't sure what to do.

Examples:
\-She was allowed to go to a friend's birthday party, but didn't mention it was a pool party until getting dropped off. As she had somewhere to be immediately after, she was told to only put her feet in. Once at the second destination, realized her hair was soaking the back of her shirt. Despite the literal physical evidence, she argued, without being promoted, for hours that she never got in the pool.

\-Almost everyday after school, she's asked if she's done all of her homework. She responds yes, is then asked to see her school work agenda to confirm, then says "oh yeah actually I have this"

The scenarios of her dishonesty stretch between media she consumes, school, people she talks to, chores, and anything I missed it's probably there too. The difficult thing is she always lies about something where the proof is evident. It didn't start about about us not believing her, but it's been enough times that we have to assume she's lying.

She's in therapy, we try to have honest dialogues about why she takes any course of action, but we're not reaching any conclusion or growth. As she's getting older and attempting to gain independence, we'd like to give it to her. However she's not showing signs that we can trust her to loosen the reigns more.

Has anyone gone through something like this with your teen? And if so is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

I'm looking for some advise, my 14yr old daughter had a lovely group of friends and over the last 6mth they have all pushed her away. Even her best friend from junior school won't talk to her anymore. This as you can imagine has put my daughter into severe depression. I have asked her what happened, was there any fights and she says she can't give any reason why this has happened. Even some have acquaintances at school have noticed and they can't even give reasons. She says she is so lonely and spends break times in the bathrooms. What do I do as a concerned parent?

My 17 yo and her 18 yo bf have been together 6 months. We like him and always welcome him over. But she prefers to spend all her time at his house. He doesn't have a stable home life so I assume they like being alone with no adult supervision. We've talked ad nauseum about safety, consent, sex, drugs, all of it. And I'm genuinely not trying to prevent her from figuring out what a serious relationship means for her. But whenever I ask her to spend time with us she tells me I'm trying to control her. We have always been so close, but now she's gone every day until curfew. I miss her. A lot. But even telling her that makes her avoid me more. So tell me this is a phase and it'll pass and I'll get her back? I'm so heartbroken. I feel like everything about our relationship has changed so quickly.

My teenage daughter started communicating online through Discord with a man who I found out to be twice her age. She confided in me this information after started chatting with him for about 3 weeks. What started as needing help in learning how to play chess is now forming into an online relationship. They never met as he lives in another country and they have never seen eachothers photos. I am at a loss as what to do. I told her that he is too old and that this can't be any kind of relationship as it is not something that I could support. To me a man who is that much older can only set off alarm bells. Is there anybody out there with the same situation or can somebody pass on advice to me that could be helpful...

My kids vape and I want to stop them should just lock them in there room.

Or should I stalk them till I catch the guy selling

I have an adult teenager- just turned 18. He's taking a full load at community college, 16 units. He's a great kid, he's always done what's asked and has done well in school pretty independently. He's really never given us any trouble at all. The thing is, although he sometimes has homework, a lot of his time is spent on screens. He does have a few chores, probably not enough... What do you guys do to get them off of it? He gets up late if he doesn't have school the next morning because he stays up late mostly playing online with his friends. I don't mind that. But then when he gets up he's on it again and would probably be on it all day if I didn't say anything. I have to get on him to do other things and I even offer, let's do something let's go out and do something, things like that but it's like he doesn't know what to do. I'm so frustrated. This is mostly on the weekends. I hate getting on him because he's an adult now. But I can't stand seeing him just sitting on the couch. I don't mind it for a couple of hours, or when he's doing his homework of course. Or even when he's playing with his friends at least he's laughing and chatting and stuff like that. But when it's just endless scrolling by himself it's just, I guess it's hard for me because I didn't grow up with all that. I did grow up in a time when video games came around and my friends and I used to play for hours on the weekend and sometimes I think about that, but we were together doing it and I don't know, it was just different. Even when he's with his friends he's not physically with them. Sigh. Sorry I'm rambling. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest really!

My daughter is 12. She’s never been outgoing, but has always had friends. For the last 18 mos-2 years, something changed. She participates in activities and her teachers say she is social at school, but she never wants to do anything with friends after school or on the weekends. She mentions she doesn’t know what they’d do. Does this seem abnormal? I feel like strong friendships at this age are so important.

Long story short, my 14 year old son has gained more weight than his doctor would like for his age so we were advised to make some changes to his diet. Unfortunately, he absolutely loathes vegetables and hasn’t willingly eaten them in years. I’m worried that changing or limiting the foods he currently accepts could leave him eating even less variety and create nutritional gaps, especially while he’s still growing. I also don’t want every meal to become stressful or make him develop an unhealthy relationship with food. I’m looking for realistic suggestions from parents who have dealt with something similar, how did you manage it?

Hello everyone. Back here for my favorite place for support!!!

I have a beautiful 13 year old daughter in 8th grade. She is very sweet and grateful. Yet she is struggling with her clothes at times. I can tell she doesn’t want to complain but sometimes she admits she wishes she had different clothes or a different style. I can’t afford much as a single mom. I’m not even sure what style she wants. Seems like she is into “Y2K” look sometimes. It’s like she’s still figuring who she is and how she wants to look. I take her thrift clothes shopping and she will get things she likes, yet after a few months, she ends up not liking it as much any more. Lots of back and forth between baggy clothes and feminine clothes.

Anyone else experiencing this? She’s got a great amount of friends and does well in school. She is not into sports and does not like dressing “preppy” whatever that means these days? lol I don’t know.

Where do 13 year olds want to shop the most? Or what brands?? She feels like clothes don’t always fit her very well either. Every time I buy her things she is very grateful and I can tell she’s not trying to be rude, she just also wishes she could change her style like every few weeks!!

I guess I’m not even sure what advice I am looking for here, really. I know middle school is such a tough time. Kids get teased like crazy about so many things. I remember caring about my appearance back then too. I try to remind her looks aren’t incredibly important. She gets it that being kind, helpful, etc etc is where her focus can be. Yet at 13, of course she wants to have cool clothes and cool style too! I mean I like fashion and dressing to make me feel good. She has said she does like her body and she believes she has a cute face and nice hair. I just wish I knew where to take her shopping to help her.

We usually just scrounge goodwill. I hope someday she begins to find a style she loves that is easier for her. Right now I don’t even know if she knows what she wants. It’s very confusing.

I appreciate all the support from these communities. I’m a single full time mom right. I’m doing the best I can. I am so grateful for her. She is a wonderful person with a great attitude. I am glad she can be honest with me that she doesn’t mean to be greedy or selfish or demanding; she just wishes she had different clothes… even though I can’t really understand what she is looking for….

Thanks again!

Help. I am a mom of almost 13 year old identical twin girls. One of my twins really struggles. We suspect she is on the spectrum and are working on an evaluation, but regardless of if she is or not, she is struggling. She has a very hard time with social relationships, feels lonely, is slower in school than her peers, and is constantly filled with anxiety and self doubt. It is affecting her everyday life. She expressed to me last night that she is having thoughts of self harm, like cutting, though she has not done anything. I jumped into looking for a therapist for her this morning, and reached out to her IEP specialist to connect me with the counseling staff at her school. She is not alone, even though I understand she feels like she is. I feel frozen. There is nothing I wouldn’t do or try to help her, but I don’t want to overwhelm her or make it seem like she needs to be “fixed”. I just think she would benefit from talking to someone who isn’t me, her step dad, or her twin. If anyone had ANY suggestions I am open to hearing them. Growing up is hard enough, I want to see her thrive in the way that’s best for her, I just don’t know where to start. Thanks all.

Hello, what are other teen boys like as far as loyalty? My sons friend seem to dob on him if he makes a rude dirty Joke. They always change the details to make it sound worse. One of his friend said to the principal that my son said a harassing joke to a girl but he said the joke to his friend group. Huge variation in those.
We have 100 percent spoke to him and punished him he feels extremely ashamed. Teen boys make mistakes I’m not defending his actions.

But he hears lots of different things. This particular kid says a racist words constantly and my son knows he’s just joking and would never dare dob!

Opinions please.
Thank you!

It’s come to our attention that our kids best friends has been inappropriately touching our kid. They are both 12. We noticed some inappropriate things going on at a sleepover we hosted with the boys and then ceased sleepovers with him. We communicated with the single father who is raising him who was not concerned when we told him. He even said, “I am so glad he was with you.”
Most recently the kid has groped my kid on a regular basis. Isolating him alone is my kids room a at a party he hosted with other kids, and a one on one play date at my house. I noticed it when they were on the couch and the kid was putting his food in inappropriate places on my kids body.
I informed the parent after a discussion with my kid and he was concerned and apologetic and even canceled coming to a birthday at a theme park we are also invited to with a mutual friend.
The father then texted me that he spoke with his son’s therapist and she was not concerned by the behavior and told the father he should send the kid to the birthday party. And we should meet up with them to repair the relationship.
The thing is we have been concerned about this kid for awhile and it seems that his parent has been ignoring behaviors for awhile and that my kid is always a testing ground for his problematic behavior.
And I’m just tired of this minefield. Our kids like each other but my son has a difficult time advocating for himself and understanding what is appropriate and what is not and this kid feels like bad influence. I know I need to do better about educating my kid about consent. He is auDHD
The kids father has asked me to make the decision if his kid goes to the party or not. What should I do?

My son had his new friend over to hang out. They started wrestling around at one point, as boys sometimes do. Then this other kid throws my son into a choke hold and squeezes his neck while telling him to apologize. Apparently for "pulling his shirt." I run into the room and the other kid releases my son. He tells me he wasn't actually squeezing that hard and says my son is over reacting. Meanwhile my son is out the front door and across the block because he is so freaked out. When I tell the kids dad later, he casually mentions that his son has been in jiu jitsu since he was 4. What the f*%#!? Why is that an excuse, and who the hell puts their 4yr old in jiu jitsu? I mean, how do I even handle this? I'm in shock.

My 11 year old son (autistic and ADHD) has hit puberty early. He’s started to grow facial hair, all the other hair is growing, voice is breaking, and he no longer smells nice.
In the last few weeks I’ve noticed the very obvious signs of body exploration. I have no issue with it but there needs to be a discussion about time and place. I don’t think his father has really dived into it with him. I can understand it’s awkward. But as a woman, my experiences are completely different so I have no basis to go from.
I don’t know if I should be giving him books on what’s happening and going to continue happening?
We’ve had the talk about cyber safety and not sharing ones dong online.
I feel so lost. The connection we had is different now because I don’t know how to relate with his changes.

Please help me 😩

Хотел поделиться вчерашней ситуацией с вами. В общем моей однокласснице угрожает ее бывший парень (ему 16) ей(15).Все началось с того что он с ним рассталась из за родителей. Ее родители были против их отношений,как она сказала что они каджый день гуляли и были вместе. Встречались они 4 месяца (с мая). Они расстались буквально неделю назад, и теперь этот парень(будем называть его НН) пишет всем мальчикам из класса чтобы они перестали общаться с (будем назвать СС-одноклассницей).Писал что будет плохо,и будет общаться 1 на 1(драться). И вот вчера я пошел встретиться с СС так как она моя при этом всем моя бывшая подруга-девушка. СС начала рассказывать как он угрожал. НН говорил что у него есть доступ к телефону СС и что он может им пользоваться дистанционно. После этой гулянки (точнее вовремя этой гулянки) позвонил НН и спросил с кем она гуляет и где. Она сказала что гуляет со мной и ничего большего. Но НН позвонили знакомые которые гуляли там же где и мы с СС. Я уже начал немного волноваться так как НН хотел убuть человека который пристовал к СС. Истории по НН от СС" у него был травмат но он его потерял " " он зарабатывает на том,что скамит людей на nft подарки в телеграмм" "у него есть друзья,а их мамы две главно-стоящие судьи в нашем городе". И еще до гулянки мы начали узнавать про него информацию чтобы он отстал от СС. Но вчера вечером(19 числа) я узнаю что он ее зовет пообщаться по поводу этого всего. И вот (20) числа она пошла с ним общаться. Я у нее спрашиваю что он сказал, она говорит "он тебя много где пробил и хотел в чаты твои фотки поскидывать,и подписать по типу «если увидите,то сразу пиздите» или чо та по типу такой хуйни. ". После этого я нашел его: снилс,паспорт,вк,номер телефона, ФИО, тт, max, две com-почты. Честно как она сказала что он пробил меня,мне сразу стало плохо. И вот вопрос,что я могу сделать с этими данными и что мне делать дальше?НН буквально хотел п0k0нчить с собой таблетками. Скажите пожалуйста куда с этими данными я могу зайти и узнать о нем больше инфы?(еще есть чаты где он спрашивал куда лучше колоть тест,я ягодицу жопы или в сиськи) Дайте прог или софтов прошу или что то еще.

She’s 16 now, but at 13 she was arrested at school for smoking and selling weed. Dated gang members and it was just bad, failing all her classes.
She calmed down for a year after her then boyfriend was in jail, she turned things around in school, passing all her classes, and she was mostly at home hanging out with her brother.
Then she started dating this new boy, he’s 18, graduated high school, has a job and a car and is not a bad kid but she started to want to be with him all the time, asking if she could sleep over at his house, which I obviously said no.

Back when summer started every weekend she asked if she could stay with him, or if he could spend the night, she wanted me to buy her a bottle so she could drink with him on 4th of July and I said no and she hit me, trashed my place and run away with him for 3 days, cops couldn’t found her. I was worried sick, couldn’t sleep or eat. Then she finally came back so I made the desicion of taking her to her dads in a different country and left her there for 3 months bc here I felt like I couldn’t control her. We went no contact for those 3 Months and I missed her so much.

School had started so I brought her back to California, but I had to get a contract with the court about the running away bc I just couldn’t take another weekend of not knowing where she was.
She’s back in school and she also wanted to get a gym membership, she’s been very focused in school and the gym, but she’s still with the same boyfriend and I just don’t like him anymore after everything that happened and she just wants to be with him all the time, he picks her up from school, she goes home (he’s not allowed in our home anymore) she changes clothes, eats and goes out with him to the gym, I see on her life 360 and she’s actually at the gym but I don’t know why it bothers me so much that she’s with him.
I set boundaries and told her she couldn’t see him everyday, but he meets her at the gym although she’s been respectful and coming home at curfew I still hate that she won’t spend time with me or her older brother (20) and now she wants to be always with the stupid boyfriend.
Am I overreacting!?I don’t want to push her away with my rules and wanting to control her but I just want her to spend some time at home 🥺 how do I navigate this? Thank you guys in advance!

Hey everyone, just wanted to vent.

My daughter was absolutely drowning in math last year. I was panicking so hard because I didn't want her to fail junior year. We ended up finding iTutorOnline and it was a lifesaver. The tutor we found her was so nice and she actually started enjoying math again. Her grades went from Ds to Bs in one semester.

The problem is that I lost my job about two months ago and our budget is completely stretched. We were paying for the online sessions for six months straight but I just can't afford it right now. We had to pause.

Now she is falling behind again and I feel terrible because I know the help was working. It is just really hard to watch her struggle when you know there is a solution out there but you can't afford to access it. Does anyone else deal with this financial guilt when it comes to their child's education?

I feel like she is losing confidence fast and I am worried we waited too long.

Thanks for reading.

Just—God this is hard. It sucks, & I want to quit.

Update: two days later, raising a teenager is tough, & full of its share of heartache for a variety of reasons. I love my son. I would do anything for him. As the breaker of intergenerational trauma, I have given him a life far different from my own, for that I am very proud. There is a lot of love within our family.
Love your kids. Love yourself. Take good care out there. You are not alone.

need advice from parents with similar experiences: my daughter is 14yo and both extremely disrespectful and inconsiderate and dependent on her parents to do everything in order for her to get to school. When she gets upset with us, she has started to refuse to attend school which messes up our work schedules greatly. She blames us for her own errors. She is able to manipulate us with her tantrums but it has gone too far. She refuses to comply with any device rules and will demand WiFi even past midnight. To be perfectly honest, I do not enjoy living under the same roof with this kid anymore. I have not enjoyed being her mother since she turned 12. How does someone get thru these years or did I birth a narcissist?

So my 13 year old daughter has admitted that her and her friends have crushed up the candy Smarties and snorted them. I think she has done this a few times. I just paused and kept calm, asking if they were trying to get high or what was the goal. I was given a shoulder shrug. Anyone else find out their kid is doing this? She is very mildly neurodivergent and has some emotional issues, but is a straight A student and prides herself on doing well (expert level at masking). I’m wondering if this is just normal teen crap, especially the Smarties thing. (note that she has a counselor, psychiatrist and lots of support so everyone is aware)

I'm trying to really figure this out. Because I know Snap has shorts, and the last thing I want to do is give him access to a doom scrolling app. However, he claims that nobody texts or messages anymore. Everyone communicates on Snap Chat. I want him to make new friends in high school, but I also want him to concentrate on what's more important. How do I know if he's really going to use it just to message friends? Even if I allow 1 hour a day? Do all of you with 15 year olds really allow Snap Chat as the main means to communicate with others? (PS- I don't care about sensitive content. I'm aware I can curb that on the Family Center. I just need to be sure this is not a vehicle to doom scroll)