consequences and adolescents?

[Horace]

Hi everyone,

I've been reading a lot about how consequences... .a normal healthy parenting tool... .don't work with BPD kids.
So how do we work on teaching them accountability and responsibility when they've been abusive or aggressive or just plain horrible?

My DD of 15 has nothing in life that she cares about or is involved in except her phone so we tend to take that for up to 48 hours... .but its not ideal... .and it causes great stress and escalation.

ideas please?

Thanks all.

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

[Faith Spring]

My 17 year old is the same.  Consequences don’t work.  It’s making me crazy.  My parents raised me and I can’t use the parenting they used on my own daughter.  So how the h am I supposed to parent her.  I feel it’s all too late.  I discovered her problem too late. 

I’m sitting in my car watching my husband run around the track.  We had to get out of the house.  She’s moving furniture.  She’s demanding justice for the neglect and abuse.  Shes scaring the cat.  And me.  I am afraid of her. 

I just want to run away.   I’m sorry you asked for ideas.  All I can do is turn off her stupid phone. 

A psychiatrist once told me to kick her out when she’s 18. She admitted to having a daughter with BPD, didn’t kick her out, and regrets it. 

[Only Human]

Hello Horace,

I'm inclined to disagree that consequences don't work with pwBPD. Perhaps in the traditional sense they are less effective with pwBPD. For example, grounding my DD when she was 12 because she broke something didn't work and she continued to break things. Plus, she was nasty throughout the period of grounding.

I started to look for natural consequences, but it wasn't always as easy as the example I gave above: If she broke something, she had to pay to fix or replace it, out of her allowance. I also had her repair the holes she punched in the walls. She hasn't purposefully broken anything of mine in years even though she's an adult living in my home. Recently, after her 4-year-old son flushed the toilet paper spool down our toilet, she offered to pay the cost to replace it.

What types of behaviors are you seeing and what types of consequences have you tried?

~ OH

[Merlot]

Hi Horace

This is s really interesting issue that you raise.

My DD27 has just made contact with me after 10 months of being cut off. Ahead of that initial first contact, the first thing I said to my husband was that I just needed to listen and validate, not judge, or rescue. Im not sure you can hold someone accountable who cant be held accountable.

Like OH, in the past, I made her pay for things. For example, she arrived back from the races at aged 18 in a rage because she got a speeding fine. "How am I going to pay for this" she asked. I said "Im not sure, how are you going to pay for it". That sent her to a bigger rage. If I knew then what I know now, maybe I would have just validated the stress of getting a fine. When she calmed down, I may have helped her to problem solve.

Looking back, I now suspect my ex husband has BPd. Even after we separated he borrowed his parents Prado. They never got it back except for when he crashed it and he gave it to them to manage the repairs and insurance. I could never understand why they never held him accountable. Now I do.

Its a really difficult issue and one that I really struggle with and will continue to work through.

Merlot