help with 14 yr old daughter

bonjovibel_729

am just asking for some advice...my daughter has just turned 14 and have just found out she has slept with her bf for the first time...she has only been with him for less than a mnth...i challenged her about it....(i found messages on her tablet) and she refused to talk to me she admitted she had done it and not used anything....whilst being angry i also tried to get her to understand what she has done is wrong for someone her age and that hse has to respect herself more...however i think it went in one ear out the other...i have grounded her and took her internet gadgets away apart from her laptop that her dad bought her.....now i have been umming and ahhing about whther to tell her dad (we are seperated) and my husband persuaded me that he needed to know if we are to work together...so i bit the bullet and told my ex ....he hit the roof when i told him...was going to find the lad and basically kill him...and when she comes to his house this weekend she will have her laptop taken off her...after a few hrs he rang me back and told me he is not going to tell my daughter he knows and he is not going to do anything about it...


fast forward to this weekend both my daughters have gone down there i had a call yesterday basically saying the reason why she has slept with this boy is that she is sooo unhppy at home...that my husband shouts at her all the time which is not true and that my other daughter has collaborated her story that my husband is constantly on their backs...now while i agree my husband is quite strict he only nags at them to tidy up the mess they make to make my life easier..such as not leaving their bags directly my the front door..or putting empty wrappers in the bin or taking their plates to the sink.....their dad thinks this is too harsh and thats my job...

think he said regardless of what they do my husband has no right to shout at them..i disagree while they are in our house the run by our rules...

so basically by deflecting the blame onto us my 14 yr old daughter is getting absolutely no punishment for what she has done...he said she is just a curious teenager and while i agree with this i dont want her coming home pregnant at 14......he has also got her to change her facebook password in order to stop me checking up on her....(i allowed her facebook as long as i had the password)


am at a loss how to act when she comes home now ... she said she is coming back as she doesnt want to miss her friends but surely if things were that bad she wudnt want to come home at all


any help wud be appreciated as i am going out of my mind tryng to figure out wat to do

bizzybee

Didn't want to read and run.

I know this must be very upsetting, I have a 15yo DD and know I would be devastated.

Is she year 9 or year 10?

When did you and your husband separate?

Is there a counsellor at your daughter's school that you could ask to speak to your daughter to see if there are any underlying problems?

Sorry for all the questions!

Jaffa_cake

Ouch !
So the girls are saying your husband (their step father) shouts and moans at them too much.?
How long have you been apart /divorced from the girls father?

Was he strict with them, or was he more relaxed, with you being the strict one to dish out the punishments?

J.C.

bonjovibel_729

hiya me and her dad have been seperated for around 10 yrs i have been with my current husband for around 8 yrs she is in yr 9 now

basically she is saying all her problems are down to my oh

bonjovibel_729

Jaffa_cake wrote: »

Ouch !
So the girls are saying your husband (their step father) shouts and moans at them too much.?
How long have you been apart /divorced from the girls father?

Was he strict with them, or was he more relaxed, with you being the strict one to dish out the punishments?

J.C.

we been apart around 10 yrs never married (thank god) they seem to wrap their dad around their little finger tbh whilst he is strict with them i think my eldest knows how much her dad hates her being brought up by another man and uses it to her advantage ....

Cherry_Bomb

All you've done is ensure your daughter will never voluntairly speak to you about sex ever again!

OK it's far from perfect that she's having sex at this age but short of chaining her in her room for the next few years you need to be discussing contraception. Or if she doesn't feel comfortable talking to you or her dad about (and let's face she's probably not going to) then get her the number for a FP clinic so she can make her own appointment.

I really believe prevention rather than cure is your only option at the minute. She's had sex once. Chances are she's going to engage in some sort of sexual activity again so get her covered.

The issues with your husband I think are completely separate and should be dealt with after your daughters needs.

ETA I agree with your ex getting her to change her passwords.
She's entitled to some privacy.

splishsplash

I understand you're shocked and upset, but you need to calm down and take a breath. It has happened, the world still turns and life goes on.
HOW it goes on is key here.
Sex is part of life. Without it, the vast majority of us wouldn't be here. It was going to happen sooner or later. It's just happened sooner, is all. It's not like she's had sex once and that's it over and done with. This is part of life, and part of her life now. It doesn't mean she's a bad person, does it?
So far, you've been angry, punished your daughter and made her feel like a piece of something nasty stuck to the underside of you shoe.
This is your daughter. Is that really how you want her to feel? Is this really how you want this to play out moving forwards?

Maybe it would be more constructive to put aside your feelings of disappointment and anger, and concentrate instead on damage limitation. After all, this is not really about you.

Your priorities might be 1) Birth control and prevention of STIs and 2) Managing your daughter's self-esteem.

The first would probably be better handled through reasonable discussion, with appropriate contact information about where and how to access birth control and condoms - if you felt up to it, you could go with her and help her with this.

The second issue will require you to back down from your current position, I think. How does it help your daughter to have respect for herself if her mother a) snoops on her tablet behind her back; b) goes off on one and goes nuts about a choice she has made and c) talks to others about her very private affairs (i.e. your husband, her father and sister). How is all that helping her feel loved and cherished and trusted?
Or put it another way - if she's feeling unloved, uncherished and not trusted by her family, who then is she going to run to? Careful your reactions don't make a rod to break your own back with.

I think the only way to move forwards is to try to start talking. To do this, you have to let go of your anger. Try to see her life from her point of view. Just because you feel your husband has valid grounds for giving out or shouting at you daughter doesn't make her feel any less shouted at. Maybe now is a good time to reassess your whole relationship with your daughters, and take it to a new level of more adult and open communication, and less of a 'I say, You do' situation.

bonjovibel_729

splishsplash wrote: »

I understand you're shocked and upset, but you need to calm down and take a breath. It has happened, the world still turns and life goes on.
HOW it goes on is key here.
Sex is part of life. Without it, the vast majority of us wouldn't be here. It was going to happen sooner or later. It's just happened sooner, is all. It's not like she's had sex once and that's it over and done with. This is part of life, and part of her life now. It doesn't mean she's a bad person, does it?
So far, you've been angry, punished your daughter and made her feel like a piece of something nasty stuck to the underside of you shoe.
This is your daughter. Is that really how you want her to feel? Is this really how you want this to play out moving forwards?

Maybe it would be more constructive to put aside your feelings of disappointment and anger, and concentrate instead on damage limitation. After all, this is not really about you.

Your priorities might be 1) Birth control and prevention of STIs and 2) Managing your daughter's self-esteem.

The first would probably be better handled through reasonable discussion, with appropriate contact information about where and how to access birth control and condoms - if you felt up to it, you could go with her and help her with this.

The second issue will require you to back down from your current position, I think. How does it help your daughter to have respect for herself if her mother a) snoops on her tablet behind her back; b) goes off on one and goes nuts about a choice she has made and c) talks to others about her very private affairs (i.e. your husband, her father and sister). How is all that helping her feel loved and cherished and trusted?
Or put it another way - if she's feeling unloved, uncherished and not trusted by her family, who then is she going to run to? Careful your reactions don't make a rod to break your own back with.

I think the only way to move forwards is to try to start talking. To do this, you have to let go of your anger. Try to see her life from her point of view. Just because you feel your husband has valid grounds for giving out or shouting at you daughter doesn't make her feel any less shouted at. Maybe now is a good time to reassess your whole relationship with your daughters, and take it to a new level of more adult and open communication, and less of a 'I say, You do' situation.

i understand ur point but surely if i put her on any sort of contraception it is just sayin...well its ok to have sex at ur age if ya like...surely the age restriction is there for a reason...

i told her dad as he is her father and has a right to know what is going on with his daughter...if she came home pregnant and he finds out i knew she was having sex who d u think he will blame??

and maybe she does feel 'shouted at' as u put it but if she listened to what we tell her instead of just doin what she wants the whole house wud be a lot happier

Dunroamin

How old is the boyfriend?

ValHaller

Bluntly, your approach to this is wrong, in the sense that it is unlikely to be successful.

You are still trying to run things by punishment. Indeed, you are doing things which will make her unhappy and drive her into the arms of any lad who appears the least bit sympathetic, all the time telling her she should have more respect for herself.

Sexuality is basically adult and your daughter, while still a child needs to manage her own sexuality with adult thinking. While you are grounding and confiscating and punishing, you are treating her like an 8 year old and she is going to behave like an 8 year old with sexuality. Punishment is getting past its sell by date for her. You should have been managing a transition away from dealing with issues by punishment several years ago.
It is almost a given that your daughter will start to use her sexuality to defy you as her route towards adulthood if you do not change your outlook, catch up with the fact that she is becoming an adult and find more appropriate ways of developing her towards adulthood.

I feel sorry for the situation she finds herself in with the significant adults in her life

• Your husband seems to interact with her just to insist she is tidy (do they have any positive interactions)
• Your ex for being the macho idiot who wants to kill the lad, when it is not unreasonable to think that your daughter is probably a willing participant and perhaps the lad's parents have as much justification to want to kill your daughter
• You, who are several years behind the curve and have not equipped your daughter to manage her own sexuality

Yes, this post is a bit short on what you need to do. But I think that you are not going to make headway with this until you see that the things which seem to have worked to the present have probably brought about the current situation.

bonjovibel_729

Dunroamin wrote: »

How old is the boyfriend?

she has just turned 14 and he will be 16 this yr