19 year old daughter is extremely immature.
I’m (m48) and a step parent to daughter (19) and son (17) as well as my bio daughter (9). I raised my step kids since they were 6 and 4, we are close and they call me Dad and I never refer to them as my “step” kids.
My wife works full time and I work from home as well as take care of daily household chores, taking kids to their sports, and making dinner.
Since I’m home more than my wife, I’m more around my 19 year old daughter (she lives at home with us). Since junior year of high school, she’s been addicted to social media and while we would monitor her usage - it got much worse once she turned 18 and began to treat her as an “adult”.
She sleeps in until 9am - goes to college from 10am to about 12:30- goes to the gym for at least 3 hours - comes home to sleep for - few hours - goes to her job (she works as a cashier) from 5pm to 10pm - then to her boyfriends house until 2:30am. Then does it all over again the next day.
Any free time she has, she’s on her phone. She rarely helps with chores. She quite literally spends any moment of free time on her phone. Furthermore, she’s struggling with school (she goes to city college). She averages D and C grades. She procrastinates on assignments or any small chores we ask her to do (again because she’s on her phone or sleeping or she prioritizes the gym).
As an example of her procrastination: Last Saturday was my birthday. She went to the gym in the morning from 9am to about noon. She then lounged on the couch wrapped in a blanket on her phone for the rest of the day. My wife reserved a wonderful dinner at a fancy restaurant, we all knew the plan. However on the way home to dinner, I noticed my daughter was on her laptop. When we get to the restaurant, she asks if it was ok to bring her laptop into the upscale restaurant. I said probably no, it’s not that kinda place. She then tells me she’s taking an online test for class and it’s due in 30 mins.
She ended up finishing the online test on her phone while we all ordered. She got a 47 out of 100.
She procrastinates like this constantly.
She’s failing at all aspects of her life and I feel powerless to stop it. My wife is of course concerned as well, but she isn’t privy to her behavior as much as I am.
The Dad in me was to put screentime on all her social media like I did when she was 15. But she’s an adult! Granted, we pay for her phone and the plan.
I’m out of line in wanting to “control” her free time and phone usage? Is it best to let her crash and burn as a tough lesson? At what age should I let her be her own person?