Me [32 M] with my daughter [15 F] who I've had full custody of for 3 years, she has been a constant burden on my relationship with my wife [29 F] and this morning she point blank refused to listen to a direct order from me.

I'm reading through your list of things she's done wrong and I'm struggling to see anything that's really pathological or awful. She has sex, experiments with drugs, wants to go on social media, and doesn't want to be away from her phone? Welcome to most teenagers. Yes, a lot of that behaviour is undesirable and generally reckless but if we all got disowned for doing teenager things, most of us wouldn't have parents. You're meant to explain consequences, figure out ways to keep her safe, and stop the desire for instant gratification from having a severe impact on the rest of her life. How's her school work? What are her friends like? Do they ever come over? Do you even know them?

You say that it all got worse after the nudes - that kind of suggests that your reaction to them set off a pattern of behaviour.

You say all you want to do is get her through highschool unimpregnated and with a diploma - let's be brutally honest, you didn't manage that yourself. I understand that you don't want your kid to make the same mistakes you did but you also need to have some empathy for her and treat her like a human being who's figuring out who she is and what she wants, rather than a kid that needs to take orders from you.

Re: the concussion, I had to go 4 weeks without watching any videos, without reading, without looking at screens, and I was really sick at the time so couldn't go out and entertain myself that way. It's AWFUL. You literally can't do anything, I ended up just lying on the sofa and listening to films, which is still incredibly boring. Why didn't you download some audiobooks or something to help her get through a week of being allowed to do literally nothing? I can understand why she'd want to ignore the doctor and just go on instagram.

She's screwing up - she's meant to screw up. This is when you can do that with much smaller consequences than when you're older. You're screwing up more, and frankly you're not meant to at this stage.

/r/relationships Thread