Teenage daughter

My teenage daughter is being difficult.  Out of pure hostility she has emptied cleaning fluids on the floor, and toy beads over the stairs and has emptied shaving foam all over the bathroom door.  She won't clean up.  We, her parents, are powerless in that regard.  Now she has put her coat on and gone out.  Normally she's a house-body and hardly ever goes out.  Because it's in the middle of the day, I'm not worried.  I believe that she'll come back when things start getting difficult/scary - she doesn't like the dark.  She gives us the silent treatment, so it's hard to communicate with her.  If anybody has been through this kind of behaviour, I would appreciate any advice.  Unless you have, you couldn't understand how awful it is to have a teenager that is miserable most of the time, and so unreasonable.

Parents
  • Thank you all for your replies.  Since I last wrote a lot has happened.  My daughter went to the house of a friend of hers and said that she didn't want to go home.  The friend is also on the spectrum.  The parents were trying to be nice but they said that they didn't know if my daughter would be safe at our home.  That alarmed me, so we went to their home to take our daughter home and the police were called.  The police heard her our daughter's story, and ours.  We didn't hear what our daughter had to say, but whatever it was, the police enabled us to take her home.  They only wanted to know if we had any help from any agencies.  (We shall be getting some sort of help from the 1st of March). Since she's been at home, her behaviour has been weird.  She's been conforming without being reminded.  She put her pajama's on and went to bed at a reasonable time.  She started doing her homework for school.  I gave her her phone back and she didn't start using it straight away.  In the last month I have hardly seen her do any homework.  And in the last month she's been on her phone almost constantly in her free time.  (I've only used taking the phone away when she's stepped over particular boundaries.  Getting her phone taken away is something she hates.)  The shift in her behaviour is really strange, especially as she's still not really happy, and we had given up asking her to do her homework.  My husband told me that my daughter had confided in him, last week,  that she was lonely.  That she wished that she had friends that lived closer,  that she could visit more often. That she had tried to tell us this before, but that we weren't really listening.  She sees how close her younger siblings are with each other, and she wishes she had something similar.  She's been wanting a dog (we live in an apartment, don't have experience with dogs, and don't want the hassle of having a dog).  Asparagus, you're right about the poetry.  I was wrong to misinterpret it and not believe her.  We have told her that she can visit her friends more often (that we'll pay the travel costs), and that they can visit us too.  And my husband and I agreed to let go of the idea of her achieving anything at school (to lessen pressure on her.)  That's why I completely understand what you're saying Aspymum (about the p.e. lessons etc. )  It's a lesson I've only just learnt.  I've been giving her those talks about how important it all is in the real world.  But the weird thing is that after a really defiant last month, I don't understand why she's changed to being studious without us even asking.  I tried to talk to her, but she didn't want me to and politely asked me to leave her room.  I left.  But I still don't understand her.

Reply
  • Thank you all for your replies.  Since I last wrote a lot has happened.  My daughter went to the house of a friend of hers and said that she didn't want to go home.  The friend is also on the spectrum.  The parents were trying to be nice but they said that they didn't know if my daughter would be safe at our home.  That alarmed me, so we went to their home to take our daughter home and the police were called.  The police heard her our daughter's story, and ours.  We didn't hear what our daughter had to say, but whatever it was, the police enabled us to take her home.  They only wanted to know if we had any help from any agencies.  (We shall be getting some sort of help from the 1st of March). Since she's been at home, her behaviour has been weird.  She's been conforming without being reminded.  She put her pajama's on and went to bed at a reasonable time.  She started doing her homework for school.  I gave her her phone back and she didn't start using it straight away.  In the last month I have hardly seen her do any homework.  And in the last month she's been on her phone almost constantly in her free time.  (I've only used taking the phone away when she's stepped over particular boundaries.  Getting her phone taken away is something she hates.)  The shift in her behaviour is really strange, especially as she's still not really happy, and we had given up asking her to do her homework.  My husband told me that my daughter had confided in him, last week,  that she was lonely.  That she wished that she had friends that lived closer,  that she could visit more often. That she had tried to tell us this before, but that we weren't really listening.  She sees how close her younger siblings are with each other, and she wishes she had something similar.  She's been wanting a dog (we live in an apartment, don't have experience with dogs, and don't want the hassle of having a dog).  Asparagus, you're right about the poetry.  I was wrong to misinterpret it and not believe her.  We have told her that she can visit her friends more often (that we'll pay the travel costs), and that they can visit us too.  And my husband and I agreed to let go of the idea of her achieving anything at school (to lessen pressure on her.)  That's why I completely understand what you're saying Aspymum (about the p.e. lessons etc. )  It's a lesson I've only just learnt.  I've been giving her those talks about how important it all is in the real world.  But the weird thing is that after a really defiant last month, I don't understand why she's changed to being studious without us even asking.  I tried to talk to her, but she didn't want me to and politely asked me to leave her room.  I left.  But I still don't understand her.

Children
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