Having a hard time with my 13 year old with boundaries and behaviour.
Hi, I’m 37 and I have three teenagers aged 18, 15, and 13. I have no issues with my two eldest, but I’m really struggling with my daughter.
Her dad is not very involved, but my boyfriend (who isn’t her biological dad) has stepped up and supports me in raising her. We have tried to put some boundaries in place, including a curfew of 8pm during the summer. However, she is constantly coming home late, so we changed it to 7:30pm, but she is still coming home around 40 minutes late. We honestly don’t know what else to do.
She is also constantly refusing school. She won’t get up in the mornings even when I wake her up multiple times. She refuses to go to sleep at a reasonable time and is often still awake after midnight, reading out loud, despite needing to be up at 7:30am and having a bedtime of 9pm.
She often says that we don’t trust her, but we feel like we have given her no reason to think that. We are just trying to set basic rules and boundaries, but she constantly pushes against them. She only has two main rules: be home by her curfew and go to sleep at 9pm. She says we don’t give her any freedom, but we feel like these are reasonable expectations.
We have a support worker involved who is trying to help, and she has counselling available through school, but she misses it because she refuses to attend school. Me and my boyfriend are completely at our wits’ end. Nothing seems to work — grounding doesn’t work, taking her tablet away doesn’t work, and consequences don’t seem to make a difference.
I am genuinely trying my best with her, but the situation is starting to take a huge toll on my mental health. We have tried so many things, but it feels like she doesn’t understand or care how much this affects everyone around her.
I understand she is 13 and going through the teenage stage, but the constant refusal to do anything unless it benefits her is becoming really difficult to manage. I want to be able to return to work, but at the moment I feel unable to because she refuses to get up and attend school every morning.
I’m just looking for any advice, ideas, or things that may have helped other parents in a similar situation.