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My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Lekino

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

Hi JAKGR8, thank you for your reply, much appreciated. I do need some time away without my daughter interrupting our daily routines. She has left me a nice message on my phone yesterday. It said " Hi mum, hope everything is going good. I don't expect you to reply or to ask how I am, just wanted to say that I miss you and love you. Have a great day XO". I have answered that rash decisions such as hers are the never the right decisions, that she should have stayed home and spoken to us about any troubles she may have had, to better her relationship with all of us. That a relationship with a boyfriend would have been possible while living at home and following the rules. I also told her that it is just a sad thing she has done.

 

I am just tired of repeating to her that what she is doing isn't right, not at her age. I think she needs to really feel now that while she thinks she is all so grown up, she is not. She thinks that we should accept what she is doing and have  a great relationship with her. That will not happen. That is a fairy tale really at her age. 

 

I have told her in the past that we do realise that one day she would leave home, but it should have been when she was at least a little ready to leave, like after education was finished, or she had a job to support herself. I have told her over and over that there was at least one thing she had to ensure when leaving home and that was that she would not have to rely on other people/ finance for her own upkeep. To make sure that she could independently stand on her two legs, while still getting guidance and help from us when times were to be difficult. She has not listened to that advise and so needs to learn now that there can't be any happy interactions as long as she is out there doing whatever she wants. I cannot agree with anything she is doing and so cannot reward her with paying her lunch or coffee or other things. If I would still help her, she will not learn that her decision to leave was more than wrong. She has run away for extended periods before, grass is greener on the other side, always came back and that time I did support her a little bit, but not anymore. This is also different as she was not attached to any of those other people, now she is as she thinks she loves the boyfriend, who is just using her as all the others did for his own reasons. That is why we need stricter laws in regards to children or minors as we all know that their brains are not equipped yet to make sound decisions and that there are many people out there trying to benefit from the fact that some children/minors put themselves at risk. There are a lot of predators out there and so, I will never understand that there aren't any stricter laws regarding minors in this country. She knows that she can text me but she does not get priority in replies. I will reply when I have time, such as yesterday as I was attending a course and could have written her during breaks, but I only wrote back after the course was finished. 

 

I do think she is learning that not all is roses and moon shine and when she will be going back to school after Easter, repeating year 10 as she really "stuffed" that one up last year, though we enrolled her in a private school, she will realise that it will be very hard to keep up with everything with no parental support. She will also come into school again (state school) with kids younger than her as well as in the second term. these are consequences she will need to face as we did not want to help her enrolling in school, after she left a week before it started again. We paid a lot of money in the private school last year and she hardly attended and did not take part in the exams, claiming she did not know enough. 

Star contributor
Jess1-RO

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Hi @Lekino 

 

Reading back through your posts from this last week, my heart really goes out to you and your family Heart Such a challenging circumstance and I can hear how powerless you have felt under lack of legislation to protect minors over 16 and lack of choice in your daughter's actions. 

 

There have been lots of posts from other parents ready to be a listening ear Heart I was also wondering if you would be interested in our parents coaching service? ReachOut offer one on one support to parents around a particular issue they are facing with their teens. Do you think this might be helpful?

 

How did it feel to get the text from you daughter? I can hear that you are really wanting her to see the impact of her actions and see the bigger picture Heart What are you doing to look after yourself through this difficult time? Has there been anything that has helped you manage the feelings of anger and pain you have been feeling?

 

We are all thinking of you Heart Please feel free to check in with us whenever you need to chat. I know that there are so many parents posting to this community forum and reading your posts who can relate to what you are going through- you are never alone Heart

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Active scribe
Lekino

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Hi 

 

 

 

Active scribe
Lekino

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Hi 

 

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Lekino

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Hi 

Super contributor
Taylor-RO

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

Hi @Lekino, thanks for responding and answering my question! It was insightful and helped to explain the situation a bit more. It does sound like a very frustrating and powerless situation to be in. It is great to see that you have kept the lines of communication open with your daughter.

If you feel that your behaviour of your 11 year old has changed, perhaps you could use the parent coaching service with them? It might help to explore this with them sooner rather than later Heart

Do you know of any parent support groups that are local to your area? Would you find it helpful to find a parenting support group from those who had a similar upbringing arrangement to you? Just an idea Smiley Happy Your business must keep you very occupied, it can't be easy juggling all of that. Is there anyone that helps you out when things get hard to manage? It can be a shame to lose friends when you have moved around so much but online support can still help you through this. Do you chat to your friend a lot about what is going on? Have they been helpful?
Active scribe
Lekino

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

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Hi 

Super contributor
Taylor-RO

Re: My 16-year-old daughter is so naive

Hi @Lekino, thanks for your response. It is a shame there is no parent's support groups nearby. You sound like you are keeping yourself very busy and of course, you have your hands full with your other daughter too. How are you looking after your mental health and these feelings of sadness and anger? I can only imagine it must be difficult to hold these feelings over such a long period of time Smiley Sad It would be very hard for your other daughter to be without her sister. I imagine it must get a little lonely even if they did not quite get along with each other. Do they have any contact at all? Unfortunately the parent's forum is anonymous and so there is no private messaging between users here.

Sorry if you have taken offence, it sounds like you dealt with a lot of loss in your childhood. That must have been so challenging and heart-breaking for yourself and your family. What I meant by 'similar upbringing' is that you mentioned a lot about your home country.. and how it differs to Australia. I thought it might be reassuring to speak to any contacts/parent support groups you may have in your home country. It could help to vent out your frustrations that way.