Quote From: msoliva1Back in May, the arguing between my daughter and I came to a head. She has a juvenile delinquent as a boyfriend and is totally in love with him. When I caught them going to my house after school, I confronted them, as they are not to be alone in the house, much less see each other because of his track record of drinking, being involved in a recycling center robbery, etc. During the confrontation, he called me a f****** b***, multiple times, my daughter tried hitting me to get away from me as I was attempting to get her in my car and it was just bad. There have been continuing arguments about this boy and his family in the past. So I told her if she wants to continue living in this house, she must obey my rules. She decided she doesn't want to follow the rules and therefore wants to live with her father. Her father rents a room from another man. It is a house with two bedrooms, one bath. No bedroom for her. She has been there for 2.5 months now and frankly I think she likes it there. Actually she told me it is better she lives there because we don't argue as much. I told her it is because we don't see each other very often. There has been no set schedule to see her since she has been gone. When we do spend time together, she makes a point to nicely tell me how her father cooks her healthy meals and how funny he is,etc. He is the great parent all of the sudden. Very hurtful. School now starts in two weeks and I have brought up the subject about her coming home, but I think she is not intending on coming home. The living situation at her dad's is not condusive to a teenage girl and her father has threatened me to take custody of her and that i will have to start paying him child support. I have a feeling his stand has more to do with "getting revenge" more than the welfare of his daughter and he is definitely not encouraging any type of reconcilation between me and my daughter, that's for sure. Additionally, he condones the relationship with our daughter and this juvenile delinquent. Can't I just lay down the law and tell her it's time to come home and work on our relationship? We were both going to counseling, but she hasn't gone since living with her dad. Yikes.
Her age, plus laws where you live, affect what you can do. If she is near or has reached18, there is little you can effectively enforce. Whatever her age, getting a court to mandate your payment of child support likely would be a challenge for her dad given the living circumstances and his condoning the girl's "boyfriend" he'd have to defend to a judge.
If she is under 17, you might formally seek legal custody yourself, and have dad required to pay support (whether or not he actually does being another matter). With that, I's suggest you look into special programs likely available in your area to help redirect teens like your daughter. Local school counselors, youth services and/or social services professionals should be able to help you with that. And of course, a return to counseling is in order. In addition to that, it would really be great if she could participate in something like a therapeutic OutwardBound type of program. At one point, there was at least one - in Colorado, as I recall - that took teens on weekend hiking/camping trips, incorporating counseling with the wonderful power of nature. Cost of that was very modest, so if anything like that is available near you, try for it!
