It all started about 5:30 when I awoke to look at the clock, and then remembering my teen telling me she wanted up at that time so she could get ready for school. I didn't have the alarm set until 6, and I usually don't start work myself until 7 a.m. I told her what time it was and that she wanted up, but she didn't get up. 6 a.m. rolled around she wasn't up. At 6:15 I decide to go to work a little early because I would have to leave my desk to take her to school and so at 6:30, 7, 7:30 rolls around and she is obviously not going to school, and on several trips up the stairs inbetween typing reports to check on her she is sitting on the bed in the dark just staring into space. I have encountered that scene a few times, and I know where that leads. It's a tug of war wills with some verbage and physicality thrown in. In trying to teach her limits and provide her less distraction she was supposed to give up her laptop computer by 10, but she refuses to do that and sleeps with it on her bed. I don't know whether she was up all night or not. I feel she has a mood disturbance and possibly a bipolar component, not to mention that teenage defiance. Who to say where one ends and the other begins, huh?
She knew her homebound ran out and she was expected to be in class. She even tells me that she wants to go to school just a little while ago. I have heard that song and dance before. Even on homebound she is failing to complete her assignments, and just yesterday I had to sit her down at 5 p.m. after she gets off work to finish what was due for the last 9 weeks after her lying to me that she got it done.
Needless to say, she has an unexcused absence for today.
Is there any logic as to why this kid can hold down a part-time job and not go to school? I thought that by letting her work part time (these last three weeks) this would improve her self esteem and sociality and help her social anxiety, therefore even helping her with getting back to school. I remember the first day she was reluctant to get out of the car, but with encouragement she did. Next thing I know I'm going to end up in court over this school stuff.
I just don't get it. She tells me and everybody else that she had no problem going to school at her Dad's, however in a conversation she tells me that she felt threatened and that was the only reason she went; she says she was more or less forced to by her dad and bitched at everyday. What does this mean exactly? That she was living with stress to the extent that once out of the stress and in a normal situation she couldn't function? This is not the only concerning factor either. Also with making new friends, I have let her have more of a social life, but she has taken that to extremes here lately as well.
I talked to the school homebound coordinator, Ms. Brown, this afternoon after working eight hours straight through. She said that her psychiatrist, not her family doctor, would have to write her out if she truly wasn't coming back to school, and write her an absence for today. Sometimes I feel like if I had forced the issue at the beginning of year, we would be okay now, but considering the shape she was in when she got here that was impossible. By Christmas break, she wanted to go to back to her old school, and even when I arranged that she wouldn't go in after I drove her out there, so I had no choice but to make her homebound once again. I thought at that point, anxiety and posttraumatic stress was still interfering with her ability to function. What I guess I hadn't realized is that the longer this goes on the harder it would be to get her back to school.
At the beginning of the year, I had her placed in an 'home confinement setting' that deals with behavioral issues, as she was so angry and defiant when she came here about going to school. I think it did help her with the initial anger and adjustment of being taken out of her Dad's house; however despite changing schools, this issue of her attending did not improve. I still see the anger when she's confronted about her behaviors, and I've felt her physical aggression, so I have to watch at what point our arguments escalate and back off. This morning, she got mad because I took her laptop away, so much that she blocked me from going out of her room telling me I would have to get past her first. I told her that from my vantage point I would throw that laptop out of the window if she insisted on blocking my exit, so she relented in my bringing it downstairs and put in under my desk, only to follow me downstairs, then in a few moments pushing my work desk (she was behind me), resulting in spillage of my coffee everywhere including quite a few things off my desk hitting the floor.
At some point she also had taken some of my hair products and sprayed it all over the bathroom to include the mirrors, however not too long thereafter I saw her going upstairs with Windex? After she cleaned up the mess she admitted to me what she had done. I hadn't known it as I was trying to work at my desk. If looks could kill I can assure you I would've been dead this morning. I told her that was pretty immature of her at 17 to pull.
Oh, did I mention she threw her meds across the room, and was this before or after I took her laptop? Before.
Tomorrow is a new day, we'll see what happens.
and there you have it! Happy Whoring!