What to do about my daughter???

[xenia]

Little bro made huge bill too using Internet whit cell phone and he didn't seem to be sorry either. I guess thats just because kids are so embarrassed and shocked about what they have done so they lockup.

This is a true statement.

 

[fishstix]

I think DixieNurse did exactly the right thing. In the end it won't hurt their relationship at some point the daughter will thank her mom and love her for loving her!

I think it depends on the people involved. What works for some may indeed cause nearly irreparable damage to others. We can't know how much is too much in this case, as we don't even know the people involved.

To be honest, if my parents had ever sold off all of my stuff and humiliated me in front of the community, it would likely have hugely damaged my relationship with them and resulted in me moving far away and barely contacting them again as soon as I was old enough. The rest of the stuff - working and paying off the bill, not getting new things until I had paid it off, even having my door removed and being temporarily watched like a hawk etc.- I would have been ok with and able to look back at and realize that it would have been for my own good. But it is possible to go too far.

 

[Silent Enigma]

Dixie,

My wife and I both agree that you're doing the right thing. I in no way think that its "provoking your children to wrath" to expect them to pay back a huge bill that they sneakily racked up.

Keep it up.

 

[bornagain-053184]

OUCH.. wow i dont know what to say. im only 20 and i had a simular thing happen with my mother.. she did what ur daughter did.. *shakes head* i was only 17 and my mother being 39 should have known better i did what u did blcoked the long distance from our phone too i called the company saying i was her haha i know pretty cleaver but i knew she didnt have the money to pay the 3grand bill she tool my cell when i was asleep and did it on that and ran my bill up and i was a student in HS tryin to work as much as i could to help pay the bulls with my mom since she was newly devorced she too didnt see a problem with it.. I was the MOTHER she was the CHILD is basicaly how it went.. i screamed at her till i was blue in the face and it didnt fizz her... she then left me to be with some man and just abandond me and my father found out and got sould custody of me... i think that kinda of streighted her out. i dont know what to say about your daughter but maybe she is going threw a stage of rebellion kinda like my mother did... acting out to get attention and im sure u shower her with it as i did with my mom... hopefully she will grow out of it and smarten up. slient treatment always got to me.. try that as harsh as it it it drove me nuts and mademe fell soooo guilty... and relize i did something wrong.. hang in there... godbless..
StephanieLynn

 

[mostie]

This happened to me with our phone some years ago when my son was 15. I called the phone company, couldn't figure out what on earth happened, or why my bill was so high. Turned out my son had joined some sort of phone get together thing, a party line or something- when I told her how old he was, they immediately canceled the entire bill- since he was under 18, and this was done without my knowledge- you might check and see if they could at least reduce it because of that. They just might.

As for her complete disregard for what she has done, and the hardship it's caused you, sigh....welcome to the world of 'some teens'---I have a daughter who is now 17, who is very much like that. She does things, and doesn't really care what it does to anyone-her antics at one point caused me to lose my job, and subsequently, my home- we ended up living with friends-(calling the office constantly, to try and corner me about various places she wanted to go, and knowing that while I was at work, I wasnt going to go into an argument why she couldn't do the things she wanted to do...then hanging up on my boss when she answered the phone instead of me...sigh...we had caller ID for crying outloud)--once we were in that predicament, of living with a friend- I was blamed by her for not fixing everything and making it ok- and she was angry with me for it-and never once saw her own actions as a big contributor. Once she found out why I lost my job, it was like, 'shrug, oh, ok-'......and the demands are still there. Sigh. Talk about depressing. Like your daughter, this was always a good kid, good grades, very intelligent--and its like when she hit high school, that all changed- and none for the better.

The best thing I can tell you, and it isn't so great- is that we have to remember, our kids have their own personalities...and some of them are like this. Of course, it could be a case of rebellion that hopefully she will get over soon enough...or perhaps this is just the way she is, and she wont be getting over it. This is what has happened with me and my now 17 year old daughter- she's let up some, but not much- and she scares the daylights out of me. about all I can say, is try to hang in there- because when yours turns 18, she will be responsible for the things she does, and not you-and sadly, she will be the one who pays for her behavior. Good luck--I feel for you!

 

[ChristyP4Christ]

Having her bedroom door removed and all of her posiossions taken away and publically sold is not a logical consequence. It's mean and bullying and it it the kind of thing that damages relationships for years to come.

Okay, think of it this way....Who buys stuff for our children? 99% we have paid for with our own money. If a child runs up a bill and we have to sell the things that we got for them to start with to pay that bill, seems logical to me. Children have to learn that everything comes with a price and selling off her stuff is just helping pay the price of the phone bill she ran up.

 

[gweneviere]

In regards to the verse about angering your children, there has to be more than a notion of what is going on, for someone to make a comment like that. There is probably no way that a parent can never make their child angry. People get angry all the time for unreasonable things. So are you saying that any time a parent's action will anger their child they shouldn't do it? No matter what she does, her daughter will probably be angry, but that's no reason to let her get away with things. When I was younger I used to get in trouble for no reason at all, and was even grounded for an entire summer, just for being in the vicinity when my aunt was in a bad mood (I moved out when I was sixteen due to this type of silliness). That is bringing your children to anger, not punishing them for things they have done.

If this one thing makes her realize that what she has done, then I'm all for it. If you are doing it out of love, and your daughter realizes that, she will look back and understand. The same way children don't like to be spanked, she will not like to be punished, but it will benefit her in the end. I wish that I had been properly punished for bad things I did, rather than things that weren't my fault as a kid, because now, as an adult trying to move on in my life, I have trouble with basic principles of relationships and discipline within my daily life.

Good Luck with your daughter, and just make sure that you make it clear every day that you love her regardless of what she does, and you just need to make sure that she realizes that what she did was wrong, so that when she leaves your house, she can survive on her own.

 

[ChristyP4Christ]

Strange... Scripture never says anything about breaking a child. Parents are instructed to train up a child, not to break them down.

Proverbs 23 says not to withhold correction from a child, it even goes on to say if you beat him with a rod he will not die....

 

[Mr.Cheese]

Well, she could have landed the guys in jail for how she was portraying herself. Maybe one of them deserve it.
Complete selfishness and lack of concern for anyone else.
I hope she knows that she'll be paying back 1700 dollars worth of phone bill and if she ever wants a cell phone she gets it by herself whether that means she has to wait till she's 18 or not.

Man. We didn't have cell phones when I was growing up. Between that and the internet...