Boarding or Military School for Teen Girl?

Family counselling seems so obvious. But you seem to be refusing to even consider it ("we could do family therapy for a year and SD could manipulate...". I know you are very frustrated, but I think it only makes sense to try everything before sending her away. After all, what would a boarding school accomplish? She could refuse to do the work and fail out there too. Where is the adult in this kid's life who will really love her no matter what? I feel so sad for her. I think you should try the family therapy first.

I think therapy and perhaps some antidepressants would be less expensive and more helpful all round.

Another option is inpatient treatment in a bootcamp/roughing it sort of way could be most helpful too.

I think you and her dad need to try harder. Yes, she's testing every limit you have, waiting for you to give up on her like her mom gave up on parenting her and her older siblings. Show her that you're stronger than that...not by sending her off to a punitive environment, but by working together as a family to get her to her goals.

You said you "sent her to a therapist" - did you and her dad go too? Are you working together as a family, or is she getting the message that she's the one who needs fixing and the rest of you are all fine? You're not all fine - everyone has areas of improvement, especially her dad, who procreated with this train wreck of a woman and, for whatever reason, lived 1500 miles away from his own child for most of her life while her life went to hell in a hand basket. It's great that he's taking care of her now, and better late than never, but the fact stands that she had a horrible life for a long time and he was part of that equation of failure. I say this as someone whose SD came to live with us when she was 13, also after her mom totally failed her. Was it my husband's fault? One could argue not really, he had no idea how bad things were and SD covered for her mom but in hindsight, he could have and should have done more earlier and had to own that when his daughter moved in with us.

If things aren't working with her therapist, find a new one, and go as a family. Show her that unlike every other adult in her life who has failed her, you and her dad will be there, your love and patience will outlast the worst that she'll throw at you. This is all assuming that she doesn't have a drug problem or is engaging in criminal activity or anything else truly life-threatening that requires a professional intervention in a therapeutic setting. If you need to send her somewhere for inpatient care, that's one thing. But to do so as a punishment? You'd fail her as much as her biological mother. Be better than that.

ETA: Per your SWH, I need to add this: If my child's counselor was discouraging me from doing family counseling for my son, who was hurting, I would find someone else. That would not be good enough for me. You took what the counselor said (that she might end up back with mom) to let yourself off the hook about going. I would never, ever accept that as doing enough for my child. Again, you have to be willing to commit, to do 100% of everything which CAN be done before you can say "we did our best". Something just isn't right here. The lack of insistence that you go to counseling with your stepdaughter speaks loudly. You could do counseling for a year and get nowhere, true, or you could do it for a year and know, in your heart of hearts, that you did *everything* you could do. It's your choice.
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original post.

Sometimes, parenting requires guts of steel.

I have to be honest, I think the expectations for this girl were pretty unrealistic. She came from an environment of hurt, violence and anger. You and your husband expected her to be able to just shift into this new life you were 'giving' her. That's not how it works. She needs to heal. She (and ALL of you, not just her) NEED family counseling and therapy.

Kids are extremely aware of our perceptions of them. You describe her as 'beyond lazy"... I am sure that as long as you think of her that way, she's going to not apply herself. You send her, and only her, to counseling. For all intents and purposes, you may have told her 'you are the problem, we are perfect, you have to change to be right with us'.

I'll let you in on a little-known secret-- many therapists these days won't work with kids any more. Why? Because the parents refuse to see their part in the problem and refuse to change. It's beyond frustrating for a therapist to listen to a child over and over again and work with them when the parents deny any responsibility and refuse to grow themselves.

It is the PARENTS who are 'lazy beyond belief', who just think that somehow, change will be enacted by some magic feeling of gratitude or some revelation that the child is going to have. The parental expectation that the therapist is going to 'fix' the kid is deluded and narcissistic. Families are their own organism with their own dynamics and no one person is completely separate and all on their own causing all the problems. When parents refuse to see that every person in the household needs to be involved as a family team and committed to changing their own behaviors, beliefs and actions, no change happens. Or worse, the child absorbs all the blame, turns it inward (the cutting and self-harm you describe) and in this,damages their self-image.

Before you think of sending away this incredibly hurt and angry young woman, ask yourself:
Am I willing to dig in and do what it takes? Am I willing to do everything possible to keep this young woman at home? Can I listen to the hard stuff about my own self and my own actions? Did I go above and beyond, go to my own therapist to help me deal with my own anger at this situation? Am I willing to go to counseling with my husband and step-daughter so that the therapist can get a realistic picture of what's happening at home, not just stepdaughter's version, but mine and her father's? Are we willing to learn to communicate in healthier ways?

Honestly, it may be that 'the damage has been done'. This young woman has seen a lot. It may take her until her 20s or 30s to fully recover from the anger she witnessed, the parental neglect and violence. You have a valuable opportunity to do something truly profound- go enter *her* world. Be with her in that. Don't expect her to come into your world and be thankful and just 'get her act together'. You and her father both need to realize that, because of trust issues, the only way you are going to reach her is to sit with her in the hard, dark and ugly spaces of her feelings, her anger, her distrust.

One of my son's teachers has a phrase he shares with the children when they are upset with something they have done: "You are wonderful human being. The behavior is a problem, but you, as a person, are not a problem. You are good." The child comes away realizing that their behavior is not *who* they are, and there is, in that exchange, a chance to do better.

Personally, I don't have high hopes that anything I've written here will make an iota of difference in your opinion or your stepdaughter's life. It seems like everything you have written assigns blame on others: bad stepdaughter, she has bad mom, bad siblings, and the schools are too expensive. You can do the brave thing, which is not ship the child off and insist that you all go through the trenches of hard, real change together. I know women who have worked as teachers at these sorts of schools. They say it's incredibly sad, the amount of kids who are thrown away to military and boarding schools because of discipline issues. It's like the parents just give up, don't want to deal, and scar their child in giving them to someone else to love and care for them. The stories are heartbreaking. We rail and expound on the ills of a society which treats children as though they were disposable, and then we go send our kids to live with strangers because we think external factors are going to 'straighten them out' instead of being responsible adults and doing the long, hard walk with our children. This is long, but I do feel an obligation to make you aware that more needs to be done *in home*-- a lot more, before you go down this road of just getting rid of her. Start with family therapy first.

You know what doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Your home. Where you invited her to live with you, promising to help her, take care of her, love her, direct her.
You set up HIGH expectations for this girl. Had she come from a "normal" loving home, perhaps it wouldn't have been that hard. But she didn't.
She needed you to say, come to our home. We expect respect in our home, good grades in school. That's it. But you piled everything else on TOP of that. The girl doesn't even know HOW to get good grades or be respectful! How in the world do you expect her to do all those other things?
She needs to take baby steps. Respect, good grades. THEN possibly an after school sport or activity. THEN possibly a job.
I came from a "normal"ish family. When I was her age I had an after school job, a before and after school activity (jazz and soccer), and my required chores. Guess what? That was too much. My grades suffered. I didn't have a lot of friends. I was OVER scheduled.
This girl only has a couple more years where she gets to be a "kid." so far it seems like she hasn't had it too great.
Counseling for EVERYONE. You too step mama. Husband too. Find a different therapist. This girl is cutting herself. That is not normal. It is a cry for SOMETHING! Family counseling. Sending her away is the LAST thing you should do. She NEEDS family to love her. So far, it's not happening.

Your post comes off like you thought you were so great at this parenting gig she was going to turn into Mother Theresa when she crossed your thresh hold. Kind naive dont'cha think?

Cutting is an outward expression of very sad and lonely internal emotions. So is acting out, engaging in risky behavior, participating in abusive relationships and failing school for lack of trying. It isn't behavior you can discipline or punish out of her at this stage. Your husband should be making up for a lot of lost time and take the lead here, not you.

Try counseling for the whole family. Try counseling for just her and her Dad alone together. Encourage your husband to spend one on one time with her. They should have a close personal relationship that doesn't really involve you.

Finally I encourage you to read back your post imagining the child in question is one of your own. Feel any different? Ready to throw in the towel after a few months?

So you are saying that your SD is so bad you are unable to love and support her when she needs it the most and you all just want to send her away which will confirm you don't want her around?

I think you and your husband need to all go for counseling as a family. She sounds so lost and un-loved and will do anything (including bad things) for attention. Remember parenting is not easy and requires a lot of work form everyone. She needs to see that she can become a part of a loving family and it wont happen over night.

Please, please make it the priority -- immediately -- to get her a new therapist who is better at working with teenagers as troubled as this girl is, and who will listen to her father and you when you explain her background and when you explain that she is a skilled liar who will "say what the therapist wants to hear." It sounds as if she's not with the right therapist. Also, is this a psychiatrist? Psychologist? Counselor? She needs serious psychiatric therapy but may also need to see someone for behavioral work as well and that might mean a second professional involved. Is she on any meds? If she were sent away, how would she get regular therapy? The answer is she won't, and she'll get worse, not better.

I would really, really hope you and her dad would first work on keeping her at home while getting her better help with professionals who will really dig with her. Family therapy might also be in order so you and her dad can get some serious assistance with how to speak so she might remotely listen. I totally get that you don't want her there and I frankly would feel the same -- but this is one time that adult feelings and preferences should be put aside until this hurting, angry kid gets some kind of even keel.

Sending her away to a boarding or military school could end up with her running away from either. Can you see why? While the idea of a very regimented, disciplined place might seem like a way to force her into being disciplined herself, I would be very concerned that she will run away or do things on purpose to get ejected. I know that's not what you're asking -- you want names of schools from us here, but you're getting a lot of advice along the lines I'm using here: Sending her away to some third party place with discipline might be worse for her than going back to mom's.

As someone else said below, the expectations for her living with you started out too high. It sounds reasonable to say you will have chores, you will help with X and Y, you will maintain grades of this or that -- but she is cutting, which indicates very, very deep issues that won't respond to the discipline of chores or schoolwork. Yes, she needs to learn to earn privileges, needs to have structure, needs to stay occupied so she doesn't have time for a boyfriend or fights with boyfriend exes..... But please sit down now with a family therapist and her individual therapist and work out a start-from-scratch routine of what to expect now (no lies, and going to and from school, might be all you can start with) and what to add on much later.

Sounds like she is a teenager trying to get someone to pay attention to her, feeling unwanted, and not sure of what to do about it. If your go to answer when she does not behave perfectly is to kick her out then I suppose her feelings are completely legitimate aren't they.

I would suggest getting into family counseling all together, and also letting her go to individual session so she can talk freely without fear of judgement. She also needs to feel secure, like no matter what her family will love her and will not turn her back on her, right now she most certainly does not have that.

I am so sorry you are going through this. How wary.

I didn't get past the cutting before I thought military school is not he way to go. Boarding school, maybe, kbit only if they are trained to work with teens who cut.

I've had a little experience with cutting, and I think all the issue you are experiencing with your daughter are stemming from that one act alone. When girls cut,k they are dealing emotional pain they can't release or don't how to dal with an other way, and trauma of some sort is often the cause. Teens who love sometimes feel rejected and unloved or under.

I think instead of sending your daughter away to a program that won't address her real issues, you need to rally around her, and find a program that deal with teen cutters. I would start with making an appointment with her pediatrician. Go alone, without your daughter, and tell him/her about the cutting and all the other issues. Get a referral to a psychiatrist who can prescribe meds and who can treat cutters. The doctor may recommend a specific program for your caught.

Here is a link to a WebMD site abut cutting that might be helpful.

http://teens.webmd.com/cutting-self-injury

I wish you luck on this. Don't give up until you get help for your daughter. If the first doctor doesn't help you, get a second or third opinion. Your daughter needs help now. Hugs to you.

Updated

I am so sorry you are going through this. How wary.

I didn't get past the cutting before I thought military school is not he way to go. Boarding school, maybe, kbit only if they are trained to work with teens who cut.

I've had a little experience with cutting, and I think all the issue you are experiencing with your daughter are stemming from that one act alone. When girls cut,k they are dealing emotional pain they can't release or don't how to dal with an other way, and trauma of some sort is often the cause. Teens who love sometimes feel rejected and unloved or under.

I think instead of sending your daughter away to a program that won't address her real issues, you need to rally around her, and find a program that deal with teen cutters. I would start with making an appointment with her pediatrician. Go alone, without your daughter, and tell him/her about the cutting and all the other issues. Get a referral to a psychiatrist who can prescribe meds and who can treat cutters. The doctor may recommend a specific program for your caught.

Here is a link to a WebMD site abut cutting that might be helpful.

http://teens.webmd.com/cutting-self-injury

I wish you luck on this. Don't give up until you get help for your daughter. If the first doctor doesn't help you, get a second or third opinion. Your daughter needs help now. Hugs to you.

The goal is to make her a healthy functional person.

She has had 16 years of damage.

It may take close to that amount of time to get her well.

Will structure, such as a military school, help her?

Yes, structure will help her. Structure = predictability = safety/security.
Only with safety and security does emotional growth and healing take place.

I don't think the military school could provide the emotional support she desperately needs.

You are to be the (detached) emotionally supportive wall that stays firm and loving. The more she bounces off you (the wall) the more she will heal.

You need to be very simple and concrete with you expectations of her.

You need several therapists, more family therapy then her individual therapy. Please find another therapist who is really qualified to work with this type of personality. And please understand, your SD may only be able to 'travel' so far with a therapist bc her own emotional issues may block any further growth, and then she will need a different therapist. This does not mean failure.

This should ultimately fall on her father.
So please make sure you have support for yourself, for yourselves as a couple, and do not let this be the focus of your marriage.

If she runs back to her mother, so what?
Stand firm, let her know you love her, and when she is ready to heal she is welcome back. She has to want this.

Always leave the door open, but let her walk thru it.

Good luck.

When I was in high school I had decent grades, worked part-time and usually only helped around the house when my mom made me. I had a fabulous relationship with my parents and really never got into trouble. I suspect you would have to build towards those kinds of expectations when you are working with a teen with such a troubled past.

I wouldn't really know where to begin, but I think the first thing I would do would be to talk to my pediatrician and ask for a referral or some guidance. It's great that she has been in therapy, but I think you need to find a family counselor that can work with all of you individually and as a group.

This is so much more than just a teen who is being lazy. She has a lot that she needs to work through. She needs to feel loved, and she really, really needs to know that you are not going to give up on her!!! Ever. She probably is going to really test her boundaries, in part because she needs to know that no matter how hard she pushes, you love her enough to push back and to keep loving her no matter how much she screws up.

I understand that you are probably lost and just are not at all sure how to help her. That's why you need family counseling. You need to work with someone who really can give you some concrete ideas of how to help her and who can follow up and work with you as you implement the plan.

My youngest so has Asperger's, and we have been working with the school and with therapists for about 2 years now. We absolutely see progress, but it's really hard sometimes. Still, I have to say that the therapists are amazing!!! They get him. They really get him. They are able to explain, what they see, what it means to him and what is probably going on inside his head. And then they help me figure out ways to help him at home and at school. I don't know if we could do this without them!

Don't give up on her! Don't try to find a place to send her! She needs to know that no matter how hard she pushes back and no matter how much she screws up, you will always be there for her! She will always be loved and always have a home with you.

ETA - I forgot that you mentioned cutting. This is a very big deal. It is a serious cry for help! From what I remember (and it's been awhile), people who cut are feel so much pressure in their world that the see cutting as a way to try and relieve some of the pressure. I'm sure that's not quite accurate and is very simplistically put, but this really is very serious. She needs to be under the care of a counselor or therapist.

I would start with lots of counseling. Counseling for her and also family counseling where you all go. She sounds like she is seriously depressed and has very low self esteem. Was the therapist she saw a psychiatrist? What was his or her specialty? How long did she see this person? It's not a quick fix...it takes a lot of time. I would look around for what services there are for troubled teens near you. I would also encourage your husband to take her out once every week to do something just the two of them. You say nothing positive about her. Is there anything positive about this kid? What does she like in life? It sounds like there is zero bonding going on. Sorry it has been so hard....but if you have only had her since the summer that is a very short time. I would look into therapists for the next couple years...as well as whatever other troubled teen programs you can find. There is an amazing one near us where the kids hang out all together with the therapists and they do fun things together. They slowly work on building a community, self esteem, and then once there are bonds formed they work on taking responsibility. It's a slow process.

Sending her to boarding school will not make her feel more wanted. Also, many have a standard and may not want your SD.

Possibly an Outward Bound style program. This was popular when I was in HS, yet I do not recall any of the kids (who are now adults) made much progress except for giving the parents and other siblings in the house a break. Usually family who could afford it did it. The ones I am familiar now have become normal adult to free loading drug users. So there is no guarantee with these programs.

I believe is it is not all about the teen. Your health and well being is important too. Our society has spent the past 1 or 2 generations coddling children to the point of unhealthy.
edit: then there are the kids who fall in your SD category as being neglected.

edit: My perspective is as a sibling who watched an older sister put my parents through hell with her drama. It was nice when she was sent out of the home for a few months. I'm sure all the therapist and such can defend her behavior, but as a younger sibling the excuses they would think up didn't make my life easier. Waking up with a knife to my throat because she was emotionally disturbed and needed help, did NOT make my life easier. My parents sent her to so many 'experts.' If you have young children in the home, please think of their feelings too.

I completely agree with all the wonderful answers below. It is very difficult dealing with teens when they have this many problems, but it's unrealistic to expect them to go away overnight. It will be a long haul, and you must stick by her for it. I don't think a military-type school is what this girl needs.

You need to be happy for very small successes. One thing you really need to focus on, is to "catch her being good." ANYTHING she does that is positive, praise her for it. "I really like the way you..." "I really appreciate that you..." "It's so wonderful that your grade went from a D to a C, it shows you have been working hard."

Stop focusing on how lazy she is around the house. You have way bigger, more important fish to fry, so if she doesn't do a lot of house chores right now, that's fine. Keep your demands about chores very minimal. It's way more important that she focus on school and on having good relationships, and on feeling good so she doesn't cut herself.

Lots of love and praise is the way to go, and you can pick up the slack on the household chores for now. As far as a job goes, remind her occasionally that she might want to apply for a job, and don't give her a huge allowance, and maybe she will be inspired to get one. But if she's failing classes, school should be her priority.

Keep your focus on the positive with her, and really try to ignore the negative. Any accomplishment must be praised and acknowledged with her, no matter how small.

Our son went to a place called Second Nature Wilderness Program. I highly encourage it. Our son is now on a very encouraging path. It is crazy expensive too but our insurance ended up paying a large portion of it. You are right about no one having a clue unless they go through it. It's a very difficult time but a program such as this gives everyone time to reprocess their lives.