After more than 1,5 years of running away from home, living with complete and not very good strangers and coming back, last time just less than one month, my daughter walked out again for the 9th time moved in with a bloke she only knew about 1 month. He is the "boyfriend" and just turned 20 and started an apprenticeship as boiler maker only a few months back. I did not know anything about him as my daughter just really dropped that bomb three days after returning home for Christmas. We don't really understand why she is always walking out, other than the fact that she hasn't had decent friends and that many of those have left home at young ages as well, telling her it is the best thing they ever did.    Each time, she ran away it was because of something she had actually done wrong and did not want to face consequences for her own actions. We had enrolled her in a private school for year 10, last year. She left in the last term and did not complete the year. she has not attended school for the whole past term this year either. We had told her that if she left again, we could not enrol her. It was our intention to get her back in the state school and see if she could get into year 11 while still completing some year 10 subjects as her grades had been awful in year 10. she left before we could do this.    On the same day as her leaving, I went to see my daughter and this bloke, told him it was a bad idea she lived with him and that I wanted him to send her back home which did not happen. I tried to find out more about him through his facebook and talked with some people, his sister as well, or adopted sister as I don't know much about his situation other than that he ran away from home as well an that his mother lives in NZ with a new partner. The result was that he blocked me on facebook while I was not even friends with him and blocked me on his phone as well.   A few weeks ago, a centrelink social worker called me to tell me my daughter had applied for centrelink benefits and wanted to hear what I thought. I told the bloke from Melbourne (I am in rural QLD) that my daughter did not need payments, that she simply has to come back home. They asked if they couls speak with my daughters (and mine) counsellor and I said that was ok. It was said counsellor who told them that my daughter could not come home to centrelink. I had put my trust in this woman and had visited her just before where she said she had advised my daughter that she should divorce her parents. It turns out that for the past 1,5 years that she has been counselling my daughter, she has turned her away from us, rather than working towards reuniting her with us and work with the family for her to realise that the best place for her is home with us. I will be lodging a complaint as I found out that she is a mental health nurse and not a counsellor and also found out that she has done this with other teenagers, because she wants to be popular among them. a social worker in centrelink who does not know us, who does not know my daughter has decided that she should get payments but also enrol in school, which she did. i have contact with the principal who knows my daughters story and she told me she will be keeping a close eye on my daughter and she enrolled her in year 10 again. She will now be 2 years older than some of her class peers as we lived in Victoria before and in QLD they are a year in front.     When my daughter came home the last time, at Christmas, I had bought her some lovely presents, painted her room an got a new Queens bed for her. We have done everything in our power to make her see that home is best for her where she gets help and support. But the boyfriend had other ideas, he did not want parents to stop him from seeing his girlfriend on a daily bases. My daughter just refuses to live by the rules at home. they aren't strict, not as strict as in other families with 16 year old girls.    I found out that the bloke already had at least 4 other relationships, one with a girl his age, that went bad after 1 year. It was that girl who told me about this bloke. She told me that he was a narcissist, a mummy's boy and that he cannot be alone and only wants someone to cook and clean for him. He had 3 other relationships that all ended bad as well, with three older women. I was told about a bad drug past and that he was on medication for anger issues. I have told my daughter about this but of course she won't believe me. The bloke told her that these are all rumours. Police won't do anything not even visit her to see how she is. I feel so left out as a parent with no tools to make her come back home. I don't like living here anymore, kids can just do what they want in this country and get help with breaking relationships with the only people who will love them for ever.    She uses that fact, she is always telling me that I should love her unconditionally and that she can just do whatever she likes and I still need to love her, but I have just no respect for what she has done. She has caused so much hurt. i just don't want to hear what a good bloke this boyfriend is and that my daughter learned to cook healthy, while she refused to cook anything at home.    We had given her a horse three years ago, but she just does not care for it, though she helps a friend look after her horses.    My husband has not spoken to her since she left on January 20 this year. He blocked her off his phone, its the only way he can deal with it. He does not want to speak about her and tells me to do the same.    I just want to turn off too, I just can't bare it. She has done so much damage, last time screaming abuse and a lot of ugly words. We had just started with the 100 hours she needs to complete for her L license, after she succeeded in her exam, the Wednesday before she left. She made all those promises that she would not leave again and then a stupid bloke comes around and lures her into his house with pictures of a new mattress and a love heart on one side, saying "this is your spot".    What should I do or not do? I have sent her many messages, that I am angry for what she has done, that I don't want to hear about this good bloke. She just answers me to get over it and swallow my pride, but its not pride, its the hurt she caused. how can she do this to her father, her sister, to me and still think its all normal and I should take her out for a coffee or lunch.    I lost so much in my life, my very best friend when I was 20, to an accident, my mum when I was 20, my 23 year old brother to suicide when i was 30 and ten my long time ex husband abducted my then 9 and 11 year old daughters internationally, after we had been living in Australia fora year, back in 2001. I have no contact with my daughters, 27 and 29, not because I don't want to. I feel lost and sometimes I just don't want to be here anymore.    Thank you for reading.   ... View more

I wanted to let you know what is happening with my 16-year old daughter, but I can't find the article back I wrote before, to add to it. Can someone help to find it back? Thanks ... View more

I am wondering if anyone can help me. I am at my wits end with the "protection laws" of children in Australia. Children as young as 11 can simply run away and everyone in authority claims there is not much they can do... I was born and grew up in a country where one had to attend school until 18 and it was followed up vigorously. If one had no parents or family, one had to live in a home with professionals. There was no money for children who turned 18. They were only adults at 21. If they wanted to move away from home, they could at 18 but had to have a job to maintain themselves. I have been having trouble with my daughter who recently turned 16, for nearly 2 years now. She has run away over this period ten times. Her reason is that she wants to be able to do what she wants, e.g "hanging" out with friends and attending parties etc. She thinks that she should be allowed to live out on her own and that we need to pay her accommodation and expenses out of home. she has moved in with total strangers, the longest for 3 months at a time. I have had police involvement who do "safety" checks every now and then. This has all come from the peers and their parents who have been the worst influence on my daughter. When she returned home last year, we put her in a private school, to do year 10, away from the very bad influence from peers in the state school. She refused to wear skirts and that was the uniform there. She ended up running away again in the last term of the year and did not complete year 10. She finally came home just before Christmas. We took her back in and two days later, she announced she had just started a relationship with a 19 year old, turning 20 soon. We held our hearts. We did tell her that we did not like it very much and that she really would have to concentrate on studying so that she could better herself. She said she understood. She was hardly ever home since the day she returned, chores were not done and one Sunday we told her that today she had to stay home and help out with some jobs. She said she needed some time alone, walked into town (we live 6 km from town) and finally returned at 9.30 pm, driven home by her P plater boyfriend. We told her it was unacceptable and grounded her for two weeks. First week went reasonable. Then I discovered on Saturday night that she had run away in the middle of the night. i was worried, could not reach her at all. She returned at 2.30 am in the morning. She went to bed and the following day, she was packing her bags, just like that and moved in with the boyfriend. She has had a few jobs over the last couple of years, lost all of them, one due to stealing, one due to not turning up and my husband had given her an apprenticeship in his business, she threw out the door as well. each time, we think we have made headway, she doe sit again, it leaves me in tears. i do not want to live in a country where teenagers tell adults how it is going to be. We have tried so much for our daughter. She recently got her learners license and we started to let her drive our cars, one automatic, one manual. Now, she left again and the boyfriend told us that he cannot support her but still says that he will not send her back. She has health issues and needs to eat more nutritious. I doubt the boyfriend will help out with that. I want her to come home and attend school. I have told her that i cannot support her when she is not home. She was given another casual job in my husbands business, which she threw out again as well. She blames us for not wanting to listen to her, but we cannot grant her wish which is to live away with our full financial support. Her little sister is devastated and started eating far too much and is struggling with weight issues. Police aren't happy that they don't have the power to pick them up and send them home with the warning to behave. It is one big joke. We lost the power as parents to protect our children. She was behaving well until she met this new friend and her mother 3 years ago. We have send her to counselling and it took the counsellors months to establish that my daughter was telling so many lies about the reasons she wanted to move out, she went as far as accusing her father of abuse, it has been really hard on him. We are left behind to look after the horse we bought for her, her again.... I am very worried for her and frustrated that my hands are tight. ... View more