Teenagers Today's Health Advisory Panel Answers: My daughter decided that she doesn't want to live at my house anymore and is looking into her legal rights to move out. Have I lost her?

By Chris Crutcher Author Licensed Child and Family Therapist

Question:

My 14-year-old daughter skipped second grade and is still earning honors at school. She is involved with her youth group at the church, volunteers at a Christian camp, works whenever she can to earn her own money to do extras, has mostly great friends, is active in school sports and is even in the school theater productions. All around she's a great kid!

Just before Christmas we found some money missing from her brothers' (both younger) wallets, then some missing from my husband's "stash," then found out some was missing from my parents when she was there and even from my brother from when she had babysat. After the holidays, we found even more missing from plain view (also from her brothers). Special food items (i.e. chocolates, marshmallows, Halloween candy, etc.) have also been disappearing. My daughter is the only logical answer.

Then, last week, we caught her wearing a new skirt – she said it was from a friend. My husband searched her room and found a few receipts for quite a few items of clothing. Now she is lying to us and denying the stealing. She's such a good kid, but we grounded her for the sneaking of clothes behind our back. We haven't confronted her with the receipts yet – we think it's too much at once for her to deal with.

We decided to go see a family counselor today. My husband is her adoptive father but the only one she's ever known. Four years ago he acquired a brain injury and doesn't work. I am the sole caregiver and financial support for all of us. I don't make much. Do you think she feels justified in taking the money because she has to do a lot around the house to help me out? I don't know how else to reprimand her or discipline her. She already "hates" her dad because he comes right out and calls her a thief and a liar. She knows his brain injury is the one talking – but won't deal with it like that anymore.

She decided that she doesn't want to live at my house anymore and is looking into her legal rights to move out. Have I lost her? I have so much responsibility under my roof; if I don't keep wraps on her then I might lose everything. I feel so bad for her, but I won't stop being her mother. I send her to a counselor and try to spend one-on-one time with her, but it doesn't seem like enough. Any suggestions?

Answer:

In a situation like this, I can only make suggestions for discovery of the cause of behavior, because it appears there could be many. If I'm 14 years old and somebody is calling me a thief and a liar, even if it's technically true, I'm probably not going to be able to control my emotional response because cognitively I know there is brain damage. Those words just hurt.

I think you may be on to something when you guess that she's responding to all she has to do to help you keep things together, but I'd go further with that and say she's probably feeling as if she has no control over what happens, and she's trying to make herself feel better with the clothes and the food and the money. It probably helps temporarily, and then just makes her feel worse, and she keeps doing it because she doesn't have a better idea.

The family counseling is a good idea, provided you find a good one. I don't know the extent of the brain damage, but if its effects are pervasive, it may fall on you to be the person who deals with her. As much as it hurts you to hear she "hates" her dad, you have to let that be until you can change the environment.

I'm guessing she says she wants to move out because she's been caught and feels humiliated and angry. I wouldn't call that "losing her"; I'd call that a pretty typical adolescent response. She can look at moving out all she wants, but unless you guys are abusing her, she's not going to have a lot of luck with that at 14 unless she finds a sympathetic parent of a friend, and you'll have a lot to say about that also.

I'd give up on the grounding. Grounding has less bang for the buck than most forms of so-called discipline. We go to the family counselor because there are problems we need to get out into the open. We bring up all the behaviors – receipts, as well as brain damage responses. I would take the punishments off, and I wouldn't spend much time getting her to admit to the stealing or talking about it. You just talk about the receipts, admit you don't have any idea where she could have gotten the money for them and let her figure out that you know.

I would also take away the temptation. Tell the brothers that if they're losing money they need to put it somewhere out of stealing range, and help them do that. Do the same yourself. It's like the old "Don't-help-a-good-boy-go-bad-by-leaving-your-keys-in-the-car advertisements.

There have to be a lot of issues here related to the brain damage and to the stress on you as the sole bread-winner and other general stresses you are all under. It can be pretty overwhelming, and I don't have to tell you that. Your job in therapy, in my view, is to help everyone in the family relieve that stress. The "bad" behaviors are symptoms rather than diseases.

You will be able to tell how you're doing by whether or not they get reduced. Don't focus on "Have I lost her?" Get it in your head that you're not willing to let that happen, and be sure she knows it. You might still fight, but you'll have established a standard you can't go below. Good luck. You have a LOT on your plate.