14 year old daughter coming home soon... need ideas for realistic expectations

[Lunarbeam]

Hi

14 year old daughter is coming home from hospital after 3 month hospitalization. Has BPD traits but not diagnosed

Need to come up with rules for the behavioural contact we need to review regarding rules in our house with consequences we can follow.

Subjects include: sex, drinking, smoking, drug use and internet usage.

She has two younger siblings that I need to protect

Need some solutions for Punishment and rewards in regard to behaviour

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[busymind79]

Hi Lunarbeam.

This is a scary spot to be in. I have a dd15 who came out of a treatment center at the end of January. I wish I could give you great ideas, but this is an area we struggle with as well.

I can say that my daughter has no cell phone or computer access after bedtime, she has to plug them into the living room at night. She doesn't like it, but it makes her take a break from the social stimulation. She is also aware that I check her phone for messages, pics, and social media when I feel something is up. Unfortunately this means that she deletes a lot of stuff before I can see it.

The other thing that has helped us is just trying to stay calm whenever an issue comes up. Trying not to yell or control the situation has helped us to feel more confident in dealing with problems as they arise. I hope you get some great advice on what specific things you can put in place.

Busymind

[lbjnltx]

Hi Lunarbeam 

Welcome to the family! 

So glad that you are here and looking for help for your family. 

A home contract will be based on your Family Values.  Your family values will determine the limits (rules) that your family sets.  In the best case scenario a family would  meet and the Parents would state the family values and then discuss with the other family members what limits to set... .it would be a cooperative effort and everyone's imput would be considered.  With this ideal dynamic everyone is invested in determining the rules and consequences. 

In the case where a behavioral contract is set, it is the family working with the therapist and child to set limits.  Will your d14's therapist be working with you and your daughter to set these limits?

I have found that "punishment" doesn't often give us the results we desire and can further damage an already fragile relationship.  Focusing on positive reinforcement rather than consequences... .whenever it is possible is far more desirable.

Building trust through compliance of the limits and rules is the ultimate goal for our girls.  I explained to my daughter when she first went into long term residential that her behaviors/choices and thinking errors are what got her there.  Because she was unable to keep herself safe we had to do that for her.  As privileges were taken away her world became smaller and smaller... .so small that she ended up in a 24/7 monitored environment.  When she came home from residential she would be returning to a much larger world than residential and we would gladly increase the size of her world as she showed us the ability to navigate through it safely.  The limits we set revolved around safety. 

As our daughter showed us her ability to keep herself safe in school, while online, with friends, with dating her world became larger and larger.  Each time she made a wise choice she earned the privilege of another privilege.

When we parent in this way we are placing the responsibility on our child while supporting her in the background.  We don't police her 24/7... .this is exhausting and sets  us up for constant power struggles that push our kids to dig in their heels and take on a defiant position.  A defiant child/teen will defend their position until we find ourselves engaged in a full blown crisis.

Our young teens need to have choices.  We need to let the natural consequences of their choices come to them without rescuing them.  As they earn trust through safe and healthy choice making they earn more choices.  We intervene in this process minimally whenever it is at all possible.  Our teens need to go through the individuation process from us, their parents.  They need to learn that healthy living requires healthy individual boundaries.  When they observe us having individual boundaries they realize 2 things: others have needs too and they need boundaries for themselves.

Setting up a home contract usually has 3 aspects:  Responsibilities, Privileges, Consequences.  The lack of privilege is the natural consequence of not taking care of responsibilities. Under responsibilities would be things like Friends: talk about friends openly and honestly, listen to parents about friend choices, choose positive friends.  If our teen acts responsibly regarding friends then we can gradually increase the world of friends from having friends to our home all the way to going on group dates.  There can be set backs of course... .they are teens and make mistakes... .that's ok.  Begin again!

Communication and the use of skills can be the key to how effective your family contract is.  Using validation and guiding our teens through validating questions gives them freedom to express, the value of being heard and understood, making their own choices and learning from them all while being nurtured, supported and protected in the background.

I hope that this information gives you an idea of how to formulate your daughter's home contract.  There is a lot to consider and we can understandably tend towards strict rules and punishment because we are fearful of what might happen to our child.  Making fear based decisions rarely works well for us or them.

lbjnltx