My 15 year old dd has just a few friends and I really believe that this is because her BFF is preventing this. H has shared with me several times that BFF doesn't like it if she talks to other people and wants her to spend all her free time with her. H recently had a boyfriend and BFF was very upset about it and hounded H daily about how much time she was spending with the boyfriend. H talked to me about it and said she didn't understand why BFF won't allow her to have anything good in her life??? This BFF finally decided that H could have a boyfriend as long as she split her time 60/40 60% with the BFF. After weeks of listening to dd talk about this and seeing her continually following the "orders" that BFF gives her I sat down with her and asked her how she felt when BFF gives her ultimatums, what she gets from her friendship from BFF. She answered with "when she is happy with me then we have fun but I also take a lot of abuse from her" I tell her that if the word abuse is used in any way to describe any type of relationship then it is NOT a healthy relationship. This girls puts so much pressure on H to do things. Not things like drugs but just to come hang out with her, not talk to so & so becuase BFF doesn't like so & so and H just can't seem to tell her NO. I have talked to H until I am blue in the face trying to make her see that BFF is really bad for her but I get nowhere. We have discussed this with our family counselor who has told us that H really does recongnize that BFF isn't the best for her but she still doesn't have the "umph" to tell BFF to get lost yet. If you read my other post on my dd you know that she had to miss homecoming because of her grades her BFF was calling non stop that evening telling dd that she should just keeping asking because if dd didn'g go then she (the BFF) wouldn't have anyone to go with. Finally I figured out how to block BFF's phone number because I was getting tired of trying to get to the phone before dd or anyone else to tell her dd couldn't talk to her. I have tried to let dd come the conculsion herself that BFF is bad for her but hasn't seemed to work. I have conveniently found things that we had to do everytime BFF wanted dd to do something but I am getting tired of the game. I have not unblocked BFF's number from the phone because when dd is pressured by her she is just nasty to the rest of us, if she spends time at this girls house she comes home and is just nasty to the rest of us. All the parenting books say that you can't tell your children who can or can't be their friends because as soon as you do they will choose that person just to irritate you BUT I can't take this anymore. So it wrong to do this...I would like to come right out and tell DD when she asks again that she can't go to BFF"s house nor can BFF come to our house because I don't like dd's behavior when she comes home. I also do not plan on unblocking BFF's phone number. I have no delusions that I can keep dd from talking to or being friends with this girl at school or anywhere else they might have contact but I would sure like to limit as much as I can.

By Debbie on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 11:39 am:

I see nothing wrong with telling your dd that you do like her behavior after she has been at her friends, or her friend has been over, so for right now, she will not be allowed to go over/have her over. As far as forbidding the friendship all together, your right, you can't do that. Hopefully, she will eventually get sick of the behavior, and end it herself. I do think you should keep talking to her about it. Also, you might want to continue to talk about how great friends can be, and that she is missing out on the opportunity to meet some real friends because of this girl.

Hang in there. She will get it! At least she is talking to you about it, and she knows she is not good for her. Baby steps....

By Tarable on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 11:50 am:

If she feels that this friend is abusive maybe she needs an excuse. My mom used to tell me that I always had the best excuse if I didn't want to do something, even if it was not something that my mom would say no to. I could always tell anyone that "My mom won't let me do that" or "I can't talk to you because my mom said i couldn't" because she said it was against her rules for me to do anything with friends that I felt was a bad idea or I was being pressured into that I didn't want to do. Sometimes people need an excuse or a way to put it where it is not all on them to get away. You might talk to your dd and see if this would help her. Tell her that when she is ready to give up the abusive friend to tell the friend that you said she can't be her friend anymore. Sounds weird but you would be surprised how often I found myself telling people how my mom wouldn't let me do things that I knew she would because I didn't want to but I didn't have the courage to say that to certain people.

Just a thought but sometimes relationships are hard to end...

By Ginny~moderator on Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 07:46 pm:

My general rule of thumb, assuming the friend was not taking a son into dangerous territory, was to stay fairly hands off, with some gudelines, and allow my son to figure out for himself that this friend wasn't really a friend.

There are a couple of issues. The barrage of phone calls is just plain rude, and against your family rules, so you blocked her number and I think that's appropriate. It won't help, of course, if she calls from another number, but it will help.

Just listening to your daughter and helping her to talk about this BFF, without telling your daughter what she "should" or "should not" do about the friend - as long as your daughter's behavior follows your family's rules, is probably the best way to handle it, and it sounds like that's what you are doing. The less your daughter has to feel defensive about BFF and her relationship with BFF, the less she will try to defend the girl and the relationship and the more likely she is to be able to figure out how she feels about being abused, degraded, etc.

I think you can set up some rules, along the lines of - you can go to BFF's house or do some activity with BFF for a specific time frame (be home by 9:30 kind of thing), but if you come home and are nasty to your family after being with BFF, it will be (a week, two weeks, a month) before you can be with her again. BFF can visit you at our home ONLY IF SHE IS WILLING TO OBEY OUR FAMILY'S RULES ABOUT BEHAVIOR. If she is not, then she is not welcome, any more than we would welcome any other person who did not follow our family's rules.

I have to say, you are walking a kind of tightrope here. If dd spends time with BFF, she comes home nasty, but BFF limits the amount of time dd spends with the boyfriend. If dd spends more time with the boyfriend, I don't need to tell you that there are other kinds of behavior you will be worrying about.

Is there something dd really wants to do or to try out that BFF can't stand? For example, dance class, horseback riding, a new bike and bike riding, music lessons of some kind, gymnastics, exercise program or swimming at the Y ... anything that DD really wants to do badly enough that she would (a) want to do it even if BFF didn't want her to and (b) might find an opportunity to make new friends. (Of course, you are limiting her outside activities because of other behavioral issues you are dealing with, but it's a thought.)

I do wonder if BFF is some of the cause of dd's general behavior problems, and I'm sure you've wondered the same thing.

I didn't say in the other thread, but I'm glad your family is in counseling. I think that this kind of outside, neutral professional assistance for your family in talking about and trying to work through some issues is a very good step and I'm really glad you've taken it. And it's nice to hear that the counselor is giving you positive feedback about some of the steps you have taken. I'm sure that you felt better about your decisions when the professional affirmed that you are doing the right things.

Look, this is going to take time. It took 15 years for your dd to get to this point of unacceptable behavior and you have only been working at getting her to change her behavior for a couple of months. Give it time - because, honestly, you don't have much choice. As long as you and dh are in synch and watch each other's back when dealing with dd, you will be alright - not great, and sometimes feeling pretty angry or unhappy or even guilty - but overall alright.

Story, along the lines of what Tara said. One summer Saturday afternoon I was in the living room, reading, and middle son was hanging around on the front porch with some of the neighbor boys. The window was open, so I could hear most of what they were saying if I listened. I heard middle son say something along the lines of "I'd really like to do that with you, but you know my mother ..." And they all agreed, they knew his mother and they understood why he couldn't. When I asked him about it later - what is it I would have forbidden you to do - he said they wanted to do something that he thought wasn't a smart thing to do and could get them in trouble, but he didn't want to appear "chicken", so he blamed the mom. I told him that was just fine - if blaming the mom keeps you out of trouble, by all means blame the mom. I also told my sons to tell their friends, when their friends noted that I was keeping them from doing things the friends were allowed to do - she's my mother, and I can't do a thing with her. Blame the mom, please.

By Bobbie~moderatr on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 01:39 pm:

Hmmm, toxic friend... That explains many of the issues you are having with H. Can't ban the DFF. If H is co dependent you are opening yourself up for more issues. Better to do as you suggested and try to control the situation from the outside. Limit her free time to be with the DFF, with out letting H know that you are doing it. H should catch on in time that DFF is a bad friend, if you can distance them enough for her to see DFF beyond the co dependency of her.

Work on building a friendship (mutual appriciation) with H. She needs to learn to trust you and your opinions. She needs to see that you care what her opinions are and that you hear her when she talks but that you are just doing your job.

I would work on building communication with her. Find mutual interest and build a relationship off of those things. Find something she is interested in that you can tolerate if nothing else. You have to start talking to her about things that aren't hot topic issues in your house. She needs to see that you are human and that you aren't just the heavy hand.

One of the hardest things about being a mom is transitioning your relationship with your child as they grow up. You can't always stay the mommy your 4 year old needs, your connection to that child has to change as they do, or you end up with a child that rebels. She thinks she is becoming a woman and you know she is acting like a child, so your first instinct is to treat her as such.

Her punishments for not doing as she is supposed to should stand (good job with homecoming) but I think you might need to start pealing away the layers of the onion and figure out where this all stems from. Do you think that this started when she became friends with DFF? Or did the behaviors start and then she attached herself to DFF because she feeds off of her attitude towards life?