Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Four Hours

That's how much sleep I got last night. It's more Salinda stuff, but I'm not going to blog the whole story. The bottom line is that she has absolutely NO motivation to follow our rules and I'm having trouble finding anything to bribe/threaten/coerce her with. She lies to me several times a day and she finds a way to work around any punishment I give her (for example, she lost phone privileges so I locked up the phones, but apparently she had an old phone stashed in her room that she plugged in and used yesterday) If she is grounded she sneaks out.

I could blog for about two hours about all my ideas of how to play "hard ball" with her, but it doesn't seem to work. I am calling her therapist again this morning to see what she thinks.

What do other parents do when a child is being rebellious? If there are no mental health issues, no evidence of drug or alcohol use, and I haven't caught her doing anything illegal, and they do not abide by the taking away of privileges, where do you go.

Someone suggested packing up all of her stuff and making her earn it back....but I don't really have the emotional energy to undertake something like that at this moment -- though I'm tempted.

But I'm also going to get some Tylenol PM or something, because I can't be sleep deprived, and in the midst of all this, I am too anxious to sleep.

Off to give rides to the teens of our town...

2 comments:

Linda B said...

I have no answers for you. BUT Megan is a cutout of Salinda. When she sneaks out at night, isn't she breaking city curfew for her age? or doesn't Mankato have one-Rosemoutn does. They can get picked up enough on that and get social services involved and get a worker and services. That would take a long time though. I hate locking up phones. I hate locking up our stuff to keep from a kid because it is such a hassle for me. I have taken everything out of her room when she was younger though. Even her clothes and I would put out one outfit for her to wear. The only thing she could have in her room was something to write on and books. Then earn back stuff. I tired out quickly because I didn't have spousal support with that one. She's been grounded from phone, computer, and friends all summer because she hasn't been able to handle the rules of earning each one back yet. But I do know she goes on myspace (not allowed-period) and goes on the phone. So she won't get those back any time soon. Guess no friends till school because thats the 3rd thing to earn back after phone then computer. I really try hard not to get into any kind of argument with her because it won't make sense, it will go around in circles and just drive me crazy. Frustrate us both and she'll find someway to punish me for it. I know you care about her Claudia, but somehow I had to make it look like this issue wasn't going to bug me like you want it to Miss Drama Queen. It really bothers me sometimes that Megan and I don't have a close mother-daughter relationship that I always that I'd have with my daughter. We got her at 10 mos old but she had 5 placements then. I didn't know anything about attachment being affected by that then. I really think much of that stems from that. Plus that fact that I'm white and she's hispanic--remember, I'm racist!

Amie said...

This teenager stuff is so totally out of my league but my inital thought was give the Tylonel PM to Salinda instead of taking it yourself?? :) j/k btw.