Hi @antitype
It is never easy to have conflict in a family and wanting to have peace and harmony in a family is admirable.
The reality of your daughters behavior would have been quite difficult to deal with and there probably is no good answer to the situation you found yourself in.
Sorry to ask a hard question right up but ...
Why are you buying/giving money to your 16 year old daughter to buy cigarettes?
I know it is not a popular thing to say but Nicotine is a highly addictive drug and cigarettes have long term health impacts.
With the interaction you outline, it sounds like your daughter was acting like a drug addict only caring about their next fix. Given dealing with dependency issues of any type are always an extremely hard situation to deal with it is not surprising that when you were feeling ill you weren't in a position to handle it well.
IMHO you probably should evaluate the whole question of buying cigarettes for your daughter when you are feeling at 100% and in that avoid similar situations moving forward.
It is quite typical for addicts to be lacking any sort of empathy or compassion when craving their next fix.
Unfortunately being a parent means sometime you have to act in a way that causes conflict and distress in the short term to help our children in the longer term.
I would suggest if you are willing to address the underlying issue of buying cigarettes in the first place you do it in a planed way.
Make sure you are
- in private,
- it is not too late in the day
- the person appears calm and more likely to be receptive.
When you raise the issue
- own what you say (i.e. I felt scared the other day when..)
- Look for solutions not to allocate blame... ( I would like to work out a way we can)
- Avoid emotive and exaggerating words (Huge issue.. )
Some of these can help keep the discussion focused on the issue rather than turning into a shouting match about what is being said.
And above all ... Seek to Understand before being Understood
