What do you do in this scenario?

paddy's_mum

There are people who have, quite simply, a huge over-growth of resentment against the world and a matching degree of contempt and defiance.

There is no logic in them. There is no way to make them listen. Many of them go on to become career criminals. All that the people who love them can do is pick up the pieces and wait, in hope, for that person to grow up or leave.

Ask any police officer you know if he recognises this description.

Bennifred

paddy's_mum wrote: »

There are people who have, quite simply, a huge over-growth of resentment against the world and a matching degree of contempt and defiance.

There is no logic in them. There is no way to make them listen. Many of them go on to become career criminals. All that the people who love them can do is pick up the pieces and wait, in hope, for that person to grow up or leave.

Ask any police officer you know if he recognises this description.

There is also a large number of these "disaffected" children who eventually grow up and turn out to be respectable, responsible adults, especially if they are from "decent" families in the first place. So do not give up hope if you are in this position! Sometimes you just have to wait it out. Some males in particular seem to mature much later than you'd think.

ChasingButterflies

Errata wrote: »

Why aren't the parents talking to ed psych?

^ This a thousand times over...

At around 13 my mum had similar problems with me, it wasn't until after I took an overdose that she found the phone number for the above and I started to get the help I needed. The overdose was taken after telling my guidance teacher at school that I was being abused and their reaction was to tell me "there are worse things happening to other people - keep your head down"

At age 15 1/2 they were finally able to give me a place in day unit for "problem kids" Not one person I met there was actually "bad" we were all too young and ill equipped/didn't have the correct support to deal with our own life experiences at that point.

It can be sometimes quite hard to find the right support (I had been on some long waiting lists!) however it generally is there.

Amanda65

Having read through this it sounds to me like a young girl who is screaming out against the world, and therefore by definition her parents, for attention.

All of her behaviour is attention seeking - she smokes, drinks, has sex, truants - and yet still her parents aren't really listening in her mind.

If it were my child, and I appreciate we only have a third hand story here so may be completely wrong with my assumptions, I would be taking some holiday from work and spend some time with my daughter, involving CAHMS or an ed-psych and trying to get to the root of the problem.

If I had to armchair analyse I would say an immature young girl developed a crush on an older boy who took advantage of her, it got them both into trouble and before she knows it not only does he turn his back on her because of police involvement but he then paints her as the local slapper! She's trying to come to terms with all those emotions and probably thinking if that's what everyone thinks of her she may as well prove them right.

I feel for your neighbour OP but think both she and the girls father needs to take charge and spend some time rather than just telling her she's grounded and leaving her to her own devices.

Spendless

Going back to the issue re absent from school. Your friend needs to find out what the procedure is for registration.

My teen attends morning registration in his form class, then as he goes from lesson to lesson his presence or absence is marked at each lesson. I know this is the case as I can log onto the parental part of his school website type in my password and look up exactly what lesson he has been flagged at being in at that point.

In the event that I had taken son into school and he had turned up at morning registration, I would see it as the school had the onus to keep him there, assuming I have actually taken him into school/class or handed him over to a member of staff not merely dropped child off in the car park for them to do a bunk from there.

How does she get out anyway? The main entrance at my kids schools are manned by someone on reception or need a buzzer to get you in/put. The playgrounds have locked gates/fences.