My daughter has lived in the same community since kindergarten. She is getting ready to enter her senior year in high school. I feel that this is a triumphant year for her with graduation, job prospects, sports, prom, and school activities she has participated in her whole life! Last night she told me that she was not coming home and that she planned to live in a neighboring state with her father. He has been living with his parents since our divorce 14 years ago. He does not work and when she visits him, she stays in a bunk above his bed. He has never acted as a parent but has definitely been a good buddy to both of my girls. My 19 year old is also living with him now and attending the local state university.
My reaction to the demand was: "No, you are not. I have legal custody and I will have the sheriff retrieve you." However, I am told that this could cause her to run away or commit suicide. I really don't know what to do. I feel that she may be happier with her father but I think that she is safer and will be more productive with me. I have devoted my life to parenting my children and I think I do a pretty good job. When my oldest graduated she went to live with her father and has since gotten a large graffiti like tattoo on her forearm, a piercing in her nose, and has failed (for the first time in her school career) several important classes. There isn't a lot of structure, rules or responsibilities with their dad so it is a very attractive environment for a teen.
Twice, in the past two weeks I have taken my daughters iphone because of the disrespectful way she was speaking to me. Once she told me "No" and the second time, she spoke to me in a condescending manner. I honestly think that losing her phone is what has prompted this decision. I feel as if I am being strong-armed and that giving in to her is allowing her to run from her problems. She has also recently suffered a break-up with a boyfriend and severed a long-term girl friendship. Which I am sure both of these issues play a role in her decision as well.
Sadly, she went up to her father's and told him that she is being mistreated because I reprimanded her by taking her phone. She has a habit of inaccurately depicting situations in which she is the victim and the whole world is against her. Her father has not spoken to me for over ten years. My husband has tried to communicate that my daughter over-dramatizes yet I believe this fell on deaf ears. My oldest has joined the band wagon and is now telling me that it would be best to let go over my daughter. I feel as if both of my children have betrayed me. I have centered my world around them and am devastated by their actions. I am not sure whether to help my child pack or fight to get her back.
Many states will alllow a 16-year-old to decide which parent s/he wants to live with, regardless of the custody arrangement.
Yeah at 16 the sheriff is going to tell you there is nothing they can do. Not a state in the union is going to deny a 16 year old the choice of which parent they will live with.
Get into some therapy, an attitude that your children have betrayed you by choosing their father isn't healthy and it will drive them away even more. It sounds like you are not ready for them to be grown up but that isn't their fault. Please, find someone you can talk to.
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Oh, I had a really! good attorney. He said no court will enforce a custody agreement on a 16 year old. My older daughter was 16 at the time and said no way in hell she would live half the time with her dad. He tried, the cops laughed.
I have a 17 and 15 yo who spend the summer with their dad. My son went through a phrase about wanting to spend his senior year with his dad. He's been at the same school since kindergarten. It was not in his best interest to make that change.
This is NOT about you. Your children have not betrayed you - they're children. Yes, you can be devestated, but they're responding as children. You're the parent and you make the decisions - that doesn't stop just b/c you're not with their dad. Talk to him. This is a decision you two need to make jointly. Don't give that kind of power to a child. At 16, most states allow the child to have a voice and give an opinion about where they would like to live but its up to the courts to make the final decision. Yep, she could run away just like any child could at any point. Do you want her to have that power and control over you? Keep being the parent and make amends with the dad - YOU chose him, YOU chose to have children with him so follow through to the end. That's your key.
As hard as it may be to you, she is 16 and in some states she is able to decide where she wants to stay. You have done what you can to teach her the rules of life. In another year she would be out the door on her own anyway.
We mommas want to keep our babies close to us. Sometimes we keep them too close and the child fights back for their independence. We try to keep them safe and sometimes they have to learn the hard way by experiencing the rejections and defeats and the pain on their own. We cannot cushion every bump. They have to learn how to cope and live in the real world.
I understand that your ex has not been a stellar person but he is their father and they may just want time to learn who he is and what he is all about. She also gets to know her grandparents and other family members from her father's side.
It is time for you to move forward and take care of you. Go back to school, take up a hobby, travel. Do not harp on what if or what could be. Changes have been made and you must accept them. Remember the only constant in life is change. It is how you roll with the change as to how you mature and become wiser.
Good luck to you.
the other S.
I think I would fight for her. Right now she is making a lot of bad decisions. Compromise. Tell her to come home and finish high school. After that if she decides to go live with her father, then let her go. Perhaps your older daughter will wake up in the next year and realize that she needs to grow up. It is really sad (and maddening) that the grandparents are enabling their son and their granddaughters to not take responsibility for their lives.
At 16 even in the courts she would have a say about which parent she would like to live with. Your role at this point would be to discover legally how this change of custody would impact you.
Talk to a lawyer and then let her go legally.
She is 16 and will be a legal adult sooner than later. Ultimately it is her life and her decisions.
As for you centering your world around you kids, that was a bad decision. Children are designed to leave your life and your home. It would be much more healthy for you to have lived your life with your children as an accessory in it rather than them being the center of it.
Yes, your daughters have betrayed you but you must find a hobby or something else to do with your mind, energy and time than devote another second on them and their lack of gratitude. The one thing you should have taught them was how to appreciate you. It still isn't too late to appreciate yourself and let them know how you expect to be treated and appreciated.
It's painful when children reject you but for some kids this is their way of trying to gain their own identity and control over their lives.
There are so many things about this that concern me that I am unsure where to begin.
I suspect that your daughter is running away from problems like the breakup and the loss of her friend.
The living situation with the dad and grandparents sounds unhealthy. There's no reason why dad shouldn't be back on his feet financially 14 years later. He should also not be sharing a bedroom with his teen daughter. Even if the other issues were non-existent, Dad having at least a 2 br apt of his own would be a pre-req for me allowing my daughter to move in with him. Edited to add: I am pretty sure that regardless of how much input your area family court wants from a 16 year old, CPS will not allow her to sleep on a bunk bed in his room in non-emergency situations.
I urge you to seek both counseling and legal advice immediately. Document everything that is happening.
I think you needed family therapy a long time ago, but I guess better late than never. That you let your children have visits with someone you don't even speak to is shocking to me. I understand what it's like to have a crazy, irresponsible ex - both my husband and I have one - but we can ignore ours because our kids don't spend any time with them. If our kids spent time there, you can bet the lines of communication would have been wide open all along and if we weren't on the same page with long-term goals for our kids, that would have been addressed.
I also think it's a bit telling that you mention several times in our post that you centered your lives around your children. Yes of course for all of us, our kids are the most important people in our lives. But we don't have them for us, we don't have them to provide a center for our lives - we have them and raise them to be adults and know that they're going to go off on their own someday and that when they do, we will still be whole and complete people.
You need to see past what this is doing to you and be able to do what is best for your daughter. This is about her, not you. Now I do think that she is acting like an irrational teenager and that the best place for her to be is with you in your home, in her school, for the last year of high school. But you need to get her to understand that this is what's best for her - to get her to see past the recent upheaval in her personal relationships, etc. Right now not having to deal with her ex-boyfriend or her ex-girlfriend and be able to start over in a new school sounds awesome. You know it won't be but she has to see that for herself. I think the best way to accomplish this is with a therapist. And get her to talk about her older sister - does she see that her sister is on a dead-end path? Is that really what she wants in life or does she want more? Does she really think that success looks like a grown, unemployed man living with his mother while sharing a bunk bed with his teenage daughter when she comes to visit? Have her tap into images of success around her and have her connect the dots in how one gets from here to there.
When my step-daughter came to live with us when she was 13, she didn't want to come here. She desperately wanted to be with her old friends in her old school, even if it meant living with her loser mother in a hell hole of a house with violence and neglect lurking around every corner. Once she was here and got a taste of how normal people live, there was no looking back. She has many friends with nice lives and successful parents and that's what she wants for herself. She's very focused on doing well in high school, doing well in college, having a good career, not having kids while young or single, etc. A family therapist would be able to help your daughter (honestly both of them need this, not just your younger one) articulate her hopes and dreams and understand that living with dad is NOT the way to get there. And a therapist might help you to better set age-appropriate boundaries and consequences with your children. I'm not saying that your girls should be allowed to come and go as they please, etc., but I think their extreme choices are a giant signal to you that they don't feel that you and they are on the same team.
ETA: Children over the age of 12 do not get to choose where they live. If the parents have joint custody then yes, a child can express his or her wish to the court to increase parenting time with one parent or another. The age at which a child's wishes are taken in to consideration varies, but 12-14 is a typical range. However, when one parent has been given primary physical custody, the court will need a compelling reason to transfer custody to the other parent. In the case of our two oldest children, their other parents wouldn't get custody even if they and the kids wanted it because we have ample proof that the other parents are unfit. Your ex-husband's living situation and lack of employment would pretty much render him unfit for custodial parenting of a minor so yes you can force her to come home until they take you to court.
