Raising a Teenager: Concerned Mom of Teenage Daughter

Sample E-mail Question and Answer by Carol Agnew, MA, LMFT

Question:
Dear Carol,
I have a 14 going on 15 year old teenage daughter, and have had problems with her. She has ruined my trust by lying to me about certain things like smoking, getting caught by the police when she was with a friend of hers in a van with 3 boys. She wants me to stay out of her "business". HISTORY: Her real dad never wanted her and she knows that. The man I have been with for 9 years and have an 8 year old son with, does not get along with her and vice versa. The older she's gotten, the worse her attitude has gotten. I know teenagers act that way, but she has issues and I can't get her to talk with a counselor. Based on the information I have given you, can you help? She says she can't talk to me.

Concerned Mom of teenage daughter

---

Answer:
Concerned Mom,

It sounds to me like your teenage daughter is angry and hurt. My guess is that she is really struggling with feeling important and trying to fit in. She is dealing with rejection from her bio dad, rejection from you for marrying a man who doesn’t like her and then having another child with him. Now she has to share you with two other people and my guess is she feels like the outsider in her own home. You and your husband and son are a nice little family and she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Add to that normal teenage junk of trying to fit in at school, always being judged and never feeling like she measures up. She is struggling with whether or not she is worthy of living or not.

Of course she doesn’t want to talk with you and for several reasons. 1. She is a teenager, where she starts to want to be separate from her family. 2. She is angry at you for your rejections (she may perceive a lot more rejections from you than you are aware of). 3. She isn’t going to tell you something that will get her into trouble which is instinctual self-preservation.

So what do you do? You put away your anger at her for lying and her attitude and her defiance. It is your job as a mom to step back and look at her behaviors objectively. When you allow yourself to react emotionally to her, you hurt her. Every time she is defiant, does something dangerous, etc., she is testing you, her mom, to see if you love her enough to do something about it. If you just get angry and yell and scream you are 1.) giving her negative attention, and 2) you are hurting her with your words and reinforcing that she is unimportant. What she needs is for you to be calm and firm when she acts out. She needs YOU to do the disciplining, not her step-dad. Have set consequences and enforce them. You are her mother and you DO still have the power to enforce consequences. She may not like them, but she needs them. Make sure the consequences are appropriate for her action and her age. Grounding her from social events, or the phone, or her My Space account may be sufficient. Then make sure you follow through to ensure the consequence is followed.

In addition to calm and firm consequences what your daughter REALLY needs is for you to nurture her and to communicate to her how important she really is, just for being her. She may reject you and push you away when you try to get close, but it is your job to continue trying and continue reinforcing how valuable she is as a person, how much she is an important part of this family and how lucky you feel to have her be your daughter. Don’t tie her importance to any accomplishments or grades or skills. She needs to be important for simply being her. Then, I would set up some time every day to connect with her and every week to do something, just the two of you. Leave step-dad and brother at home and spend some quality time with your daughter. She may balk at that too, but it is SO important that you need to insist on this. You need to rebuild your relationship with her and you need to start today. If you let her continue down this path she may do something that could permanently damage her life.

As parents it is easy to get caught up in the day to day routine and only put energy into discipline. If we put half as much energy into loving our kids and showing them that, we wouldn’t have near the problems we do. Our kids need to be our first priority, both in word and in action.

If you continue to have problems with her or have trouble not being reactive to her, I would recommend some counseling for both you and her.

Carol Agnew, MA, LMFT
Online Counselor