re: Looking for Parenting Tip

My kids are 6 and 3 so not there yet obviously.

But I remember being that age. The hard my parents came down on me the harder I pushed back.

I would be careful with just laying down punishments and such. Need to respectfully explain to her the seriousness of the situations. Monitor her social media and phone closely. And find out her hobbies (not the sneaking out hobbies) but honestly what is she interested in. Try to involve yourself with her in those.

These are the parenting times to me that are terrifying. It’s not as simple as just locking a kid up in a house and punishing them no a days.

Serious question - does she go to public or private school? And I’m not placing blame anywhere but as the dad of a one year old girl, I’d like to know how involved you were when she was younger. We’re you always around or always working? Not trolling, I just genuinely want to know.

Absolutely therapy - I have a teen that struggles with mental health, and it will continue to escalate without intervention. Family and individual counseling. Also an alarm with sensors on the windows and super restricted phone so its harder to plan bad decisions. 10000% take snap chat away. Mine is 17 and still doesn’t have it back - can only login on my phone in front of me. Because it’s where he finds all the trouble. Look into genesis - they could help you guys all get on the same page and they do group therapy with teens. It helps a lot for them to see other kids dealing with the same feelings. It also helped us to see other parents doing all the things we do and still struggling with the same issues. And as a family, we are all much better at communicating now. I’m guessing she has snapchat and if you’re wife saw what teens are doing on that app, she wouldn’t be telling you to take it easy. I honestly can’t comprehend any parent in today’s world being able to consider anything as being too harsh a consequence for a 14 yo girl sneaking out to spend the night with 2 boys. And I’m a mom that has very much been held hostage by the fear of my kid killing himself and let that fear drive my decisions for a long time. It doesn’t help you or your kid though. Prayers for you guys - it’s not a fun road to be on.

There’s some underlying issue. Don’t punish her. Push her to talk about what’s going on. Believe me when I say, I know what I’m taking about.

quote:

---

We've tried therapy and Lexapro. She's been resistant.

---

Who’s the parent here?

Oh and definitely do therapy for a while before medicine - my kid has had severe and very scary reactions to several different antidepressants.

quote:

---

this is serious. be harsh. Best solution, remove her social media and physically move. go to a new school, new friends, new life before she ends her current life.

---

We have family friends who did this. They basically put their lives on pause and moved out west for a couple of years to pull their teen daughter out of a spiral. It worked (so far). Easier said than done, but as a parent I'm keeping that in the back of my mind (being in a position to do something like that).

I remember hearing the mom of that Washington QB who committed suicide saying something along the lines of how if she could do it again she would have taken him to live wherever appealed to him and tried anything she could to get him to hang on as long as possible. Heartbreaking.

When dealing with people with mental illness or with substance abuse issues, I feel like you can get lulled into a weird and uneasy "comfort" that can keep you from stepping out to take major action. I don't blame those people, it's what keeps you in a position to keep your career, take care of the rest of your family, etc. But sometimes I think the life-changing move might be the only option to try and fend off the inevitable.

Something traumatic happen to her when she was a toddler perhaps?

Kids with mental health issues aren’t the punish it out of them type of kids. It doesn’t work. But hard and consistent boundaries are a must. And put everything back on them - you’re not punishing them. They made choices to do xyz and therefore failed to earn their phone privileges. We literally had to go to therapy to learn how to re-word things in a way that our kid’s brain responded to. I know how ridiculous that sounds - we have one easy breezy child and one that is going to put us in an early grave. If you’ve never had one of the hard kids, or been close to one - with serious mental health issues, it’s hard to understand all of the dynamics. I also can provide a long list of psychiatrist (might be the place to start and I’d choose Dr. Alicia Pellegrin), psychologists, social workers, etc. if you are interested.
We see Dr. Ashley Albarado and she’s amazing. But she’s private pay and moved her practice to Lafayette. We see her virtually now, but only because we were established - not sure if that’s an option for an initial evaluation. But she’s great - because she’s private pay only, she’s a lot more hands on and we have a lot more access to her directly when things go sideways. Especially when we’ve had those crazy medication reactions and needed quick advice.

Take all luxuries away and let her earn them back with a clear plan to do so. The cutting is merely attention seeking. But, have a family counselor help with the plan in a “safe” setting.