Parenting Teenagers (12-18) Support Group

it is sad, kids can come from good homes and make wrog choices that can really hurt. she is 17 and it hard at this age because even though you are still legally responsibl for her you have no control over her. it is hard a parents to watch our kids make choices that are bad. and we have been there. as hard as it is you will need to put tough love into force. sit down with her and tell her this is a family we love you we want you to be a part of our life but we have rules here and they need to be followed. the choices you are making are not healthy for you or us, we love you and we are there for you but we cannot allow you to continue this, so this is the way it is. follow the rules or suffer the consequences, we cannot make you get help, we cannot change you only you can do that, and when you are ready we are there foryou to help, but the choice is yours on wether to make good choices or bad choices. then all you can do is pray. she is goingto have fall on her face before she wakesup. and itis tough, you worry yourself to death over them are they going to end up dead in jail what, but you cannot really do anything about it, even though they are not legal adults they are close enough it mkes it hard, if you have a curfew and she does not follow it, lock the doors at night, do not enable he to have control, my son smoked, we do not, we refused to buy cigerattes for him, he had to do his own laundry and fix himself meals because he would not have his clothes in the hamper and he was never there when it wa tme to eat. he had problemms with the law and he had to learn to the hard way, he was the only one who had control to stop it, we could love him and we could tell him that, but the rest was up tp him, very hard to do as a parent, he is 28 now and has a good job, he still has struggles but he is so much better then when he was 17. natural consequences are not fun but they are nessacary. hang in there and I hope you can get through this..

Jillybugsmom has good advice. My son is currently 15 years old and has gone through all of this stuff. About a year and a half maybe even 2 years ago I laid down the law that if wasnt home for dinner...7pm usually...then there would not be dinner waiting for him. If we went out to eat and he wasnt there he didnt get any. I told him I was not his maid or his ride or anything else if he needed clothes he knew what to do to get them washed. We do smoke and when he decided to start smoking we started to carry our smokes with us so he couldnt sneak them from us. He started thinking he could come and go as he pleased....we locked the door at 10pm when we headed to bed. There is a covered porch in back and a blanket so he wont freeze or get soaking wet. He now realizes we mean it and has shaped up alot.

my daughter was not like our son,but she decided one night that she was going to break curfew. I called the sheriff on her. We live in a very small town, she never broke curfew again, kids can be a challenge when they are teenagers, and that is when we have to be parents and not their friends, it is so hard to watch them do stupid things, because they think we are dumb and do not know anything and theY are going to live 4-ever.. IT takes a lot of patience and tears to raise them, hang in there.. we are there for you,,