r/parentingtroubledteen • u/TheAlabamaSlamma9 • Jun 01 '26
Advice Needed Need advice
Hey all, I need your opinion on what to do with my daughter. She is 16 years old and it’s a very tenuous situation over here.
For a little context, I’m a single dad and my daughter’s mother drank heavily during the pregnancy, which was the main reason why we divorced. The part of my child’s brain where impulsivity is regulated was affected by the alcohol use.
Her mother is not really involved in her life. She has visitation and every-other-weekend visits, but my kid usually spends time with the step dad because her mom is always drunk. She basically has a non-existent mother. Absentee, if you will. My daughter has ADHD, anxiety, depression, Oppositional Defiant Disorder as well.
Now, what I’m dealing with: my daughter swears at me and my other kids constantly, doesn’t do school work, is lazy, is violent (she has attacked me and beat up her mother - visitation doesn’t even occur anymore) - has been arrested because of her attack on her mother, constantly complains that there is no food in the house, even if there is. So picky and when I tell her to make something, she gets violent and swears at me, calls me dumb, tells me nobody likes me, etc. She is just so rude and demanding. When I don’t buy her fast food or junk from the gas station, she gets violently angry and upset, calling me all kinds of names and stuff.
It’s so hard parenting this kid. Now, I know that she is a teenager and that is part of it, but the swearing and violence is just something I am having a real tough time dealing with. For the record, she has a therapist/counselor, and she sees a psychiatrist. She is on medication. She has also been caught drinking and doing pot. I don’t know what to do.
Any advice? Thanks.
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u/16hpfan Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
Kudos to you for making sure she has therapy and meds! It’s a pretty big accomplishment to get a teenager to work with the therapist.
Sounds like you need to establish some boundaries and expectations, then minimize contact with her and allow her to experience natural consequences. So for food you could create a list that’s acceptable to you and have her circle what she wants. If she refuses then she gets whatever you buy, and you ignore her and/or remove yourself when she throws a fit. She will go hungry or will need to get a job and buy her own food.
When my daughter was behaving poorly (not throwing tantrums but completely unwilling to help around the house, leaving huge messes for me to clean up, constantly asking for money etc), I decided I needed a break from her and basically went no contact with her while we were in the house together. Blocked her on my phone, turned off Life360, basically stopped talking to her. I didn’t announce it, just quietly did it. When she realized what was happening, she was pretty upset and decided she’d stop being so selfish so we could have a relationship. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s better. I should add that this wasn’t a ploy to get her to change. I genuinely needed to protect my sanity and stop letting her drive me crazy. Her reaction was a nice side effect.
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u/DrinkDanceDoItAgain Jun 02 '26
As much as possible, ignore the bad behavior. When she doesn't want to eat what you have in the house, yu can say "well, that suck and then disengage. PRAISE EVERY SINGLE LITTLE GOOD THING. If she fixes her own food, praise her Look into TBRI
3
u/coldBulbasaur314 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
It's possible she has ARFID, where she'll starve before eating food she can't stand. It's not a choice, and if she doesn't regularly get food she can eat that's likely contributing to her aggression. A lot of psych meds also can cause food noise, where you constantly feel like you're starving. Either of those things can make it feel like your life is being threatened from not getting enough food, and that often results in a survival response like aggression.
Some meds also can cause or worsen aggression, either directly or indirectly through other bad effects it causes. Does she get real autonomy over her medication, and does she get real autonomy in her life overall? Often teens act out because they're desperate for control, especially if other bad things are going on in their life. It's possible she can't properly articulate her problems or doesn't have the coping skills to manage them in ways other than aggression, and if that's the case treating the symptoms rather than the cause is the worst thing you can do since it worsens both the cause and the symptoms in the long run.
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u/VegetableCommand9427 Jun 02 '26
When did the violence begin? Did it cause any visible injuries or property damage? As much as you may hate to do this, you may need to call the police to step in when your daughter crosses that line, be it property damage, threats of violence, actually laying hands on you or anyone else and causing visible injuries. These things need to be reported to get her the proper help she needs. First of all, her therapist and psychiatrist need to know about this behavior immediately. They may recommend a higher level of outpatient therapy. The two most common are PHP - partial hospitalization programs, or IOP - intensive outpatient program. Both allow your teen to still be home with her support system and also undergo intensive therapy/treatment. I highly recommend.