Quote From: kygalathrtThere are problems in every family. Sometimes a child can have the best parents who have raised them the best they know how, and still end up with a run away or a rebellious teen. I don't pity her too much. Her parents didn't beat her, they weren't on drugs nor were they alcoholics. I agree we don't know exactly what went on in the home and the invasion of her privacy may have been a little extreme or may not have been how the situation needed to be handled but this child does need intervention. The parents seem to be at their wits end, they obviously aren't the worst parents, they have one daughter who doesn't want to run away and who is happy at home. I think this kid is blinded by puppy love. At sixteen what kid doesn't think their parents don't understand them? She just wants compromise? Such as? She needs a firmer hand and less compromise....
especially the mother's emotional problems.
The mother's emotional manipulation and abuse was proven when the mother told Amanda her father did not even help look for her.
A prime example of bad parenting style and of a person who will use anything to emotionally manipulate another.
Amanda appeared not to be willing to succumb to her emotionally abusive, controlling mother. I give her credit. A young girl with courage. She will do well in this world.
If the mother does not get help, she will live a lonely life, even if she is able to continue to successfully manipulate those around her for the remainder of it. She will never find happiness manipulating others, she just doesn’t understand this yet and is too afraid to give up her manipulations of others. The mother needs help with her internal problems. Dr. Phil should have been giving the mother help, the sister who thinks this is all normal because it is all she has seen and is what she will accept as normal for her life and the father needs to get Dr. Phil’s talk about being a MAN and quit letting this woman ruin his family.
However, thank goodness Dr. Phil saved the daughter and sent her away. He has saved Amanda from this mother! Amanda only had a year to go, hopefully most of which she will be at this school. Then she will be free of this poor example of a mother. I hope she knows or perhaps learns she does not have to continue the cycle of abuse. She can break the chain when/if she chooses to have children later.
Thank you Dr. Phil for saving Amanda from the abusive clutches of her mother, even though you were incapable of seeing the mother’s manipulation of everything around her.
