Kids Aren't Suppose To Have This Kind of Power
DH has been focused on trying to make SD15 "want to live here". He is her father, he has full custody. Why should this even be a discussion point? If he tells her that she is living here, then she better get her butt here or else there will be consequences.
But no, DH is letting her have completely control over the situation, letting her get away with her threats and trying to bribe her by giving her anything she wants so she'll like him and stay here voluntarily.
She has threatened to runaway if he makes her come back and instead of doing something about it, he's gone into Guilty Daddy mode and wants to bribe her not to rather than actually dealing with her being a defiant brat.
This is the problem with parents who are separated. Kids should never have this sort of power. Children should be dependent on their parents for food, shelter, clothing, money. There should be no option to leave or to do what they are told.
In SD15's case, all she cares about what "extras" she's going to get, since she knows she can go live with some relative somewhere - her half-sister, half-brother, uncle, whatever. Her BM is completely out of the picture, but that doesn't even matter.
I've been researching what to do to stop her from running away and trying to find a program/camp/school to send her to, but I'm so pissed off that these programs don't consider refusing to go to your custodial parent or running away to a non-custodial family member "running away". I had one admission counselor tell me that running to somewhere isn't the same, she was running towards her family and that we need to just let her go decide where she wants to live.
How can a parent have any sort of authority over a child when they get to decide if they do or don't want to live there?
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DH knows he report her as a
DH knows he report her as a runaway and he knows where she would be headed. The police can pick her up, bring her back and he can have charges filed against her half-siblings for helping her and harboring a runaway.
The problem is DH doesn’t want to deal with how badly SD would react, what she might do and doesn’t want to be the one who has to be responsible for SD having juvenile record or her half-siblings being arrested.
She already hates him, so I don’t see why that matters. If she was arrested for being runaway, then we would have far more options of places to send her and it would be sweet karma if her half-siblings went to jail.
That would be the sane,
That would be the sane, rational view of things. Unfortunately, SD and her half-siblings will spin it as he is trying to destroy their lives and has a vendetta against them or something. They hold every judgment call or mistake he’s made against him, this would be no different.
Her half-siblings are still pissed at him about something that happened 10 years ago when they all were in foster care. They never will let any of this go.
SD has the ability to be an honor roll student. If he forces to her to come back here, she’ll fail another grade and probably get herself arrested running away.
That’s the power SD has. If DH enforces his parental authority, then SD gets a juvenile record running away and will probably fail out of high school to punish her dad. And she turns our living into an even bigger living hell.
He lets her go live with her half-siblings, she gets no parental authority, to do whatever she wants and she’ll graduate with honors.
The kid is doing great where
The kid is doing great where she is. Leave her alone.
He should focus on being a great dad to his sons. Hopefully he won't make the same mistakes with them that he made with his daughter.
SD doesn’t want to stay with
SD doesn’t want to stay with her aunt & uncle, where she is doing “great” (if everyone wants to insist on calling getting good grades “great”.)
She wants to move with her half-brother to Seattle, which DH said unequivocally no to and resulted in the running away threat.
The alternative is her moving in with her half-sister, who attends college full time and works part time. How in the world does she have time to raise her sister? And why should DH dump his kid on a 22 year old?
Even if BM became Mother
Even if BM became Mother Theresa reincarnated there's no way she could get custody of SD after what happened to cause BM to have her kids taken away in the first place. Last I heard, she was in and out of psych hospitals and off her medication.
A judge will not let a child live with whatever relative they want. DH has custody and her half-siblings or uncle can’t go to court and ask for custody unless they can prove DH is an unfit father, which he is not.
SD has been talking about being emancipated but most judges won’t let kids do that.
So it doesn’t matter if SD did do better with her aunt & uncle, a judge is going to side with DH because he is her father.
Yes let her make this
Yes let her make this mistake, sometimes protecting them dos'nt work, she will just see it as interfering or as trying to f her life up, just be there to pick up the pieces, if you kow tow to her it will just make her worse, she is being a brat, hey at that age they think they know it all and if you don't let her make some mistakes she will never learn, I really hope she one day see's that you have her best interests at heart, I know how hard this is when they just don't appreciate it, I hope your dh appreciates you? I too hanker for the old ways lol, children fitted in with the adults not the other way round, you cannot give power to someone so young and unexperienced, children do need to told how to act and what to do, but in this case I think she really needs to make this mistake, Daddy is Im afraid doing everything wrong, he should offer to pack for her, this is just about control, if you can't change this situation, maybe you should lay down some ground rules, its your life/home too, if she gets her own way in this, what will come next? Good luck honey.
Thanks for your advice. If SD
Thanks for your advice.
If SD running away meant she was going to fail, I’d wish her luck and sit back munching popcorn waiting to enjoy the show. But in all likelihood, she doesn’t fail because her half-sister won’t let her.
DH won’t get to be the hero picking up the pieces because her half-sister will be the one there doing that.
Have you seen the post
Have you seen the post "Running Away"? Get your partner to take a look, there is some really good advice there.
Yes, I have seen it. It’s a
Yes, I have seen it.
It’s a little different of a situation, since if DH offers to just let her go, odds are he would never see her again. She doesn't rely on DH for anything and she has her half-siblings and other relatives who stick up for her.
Odds are SD would find a way to buy a train or bus ticket and head back to her home state from either where we live or where her uncle lives and go stay with her half-siblings or friends in her home town.