I was thinking about it. Also we decided remove all the locks at home for inside doors as she is just going locking herself when gets angry or doesn’t want to talk to us. That’s what she did last week with the online therapist.
You don’t play “tricks” here at any point. If that’s what you think works then no wonder your daughter isn’t going anywhere with you. I wouldn’t blame her.
Anything you do for her–make appointments, find therapist etc is for her. Her part that she needs to “buy in” to is to show up and make a good faith effort.
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@gouf78 , do you think at least I can trick her and take to the pediatrician?
If she needs a vaccination before school starts, make a well-check appointment with her pediatrician. The pediatrician will screen her for depression and anxiety as part of the well-check. We went through this with my older daughter when she was in 9th grade, she’s a rising college junior now. Luckily she had a good relationship with her pediatrician, who recommended therapy, a psychiatrist to prescribe meds (my daughter was very depressed/anxious and actually asked for meds after living with depression for several months during which she didn’t find therapy helpful). She still takes depression/anxiety meds years later and it helps her be a functional person in all ways. She also has done acupuncture for anxiety and even a treatment of hypnosis at one time for some unwanted personal behaviors. We also attended a DBT skills group for 6 months which combines mindfulness with cognitive therapy, and looks to address unsafe behaviors and ways of thinking. DBT was helpful to her as well as me (parents are required to attend with their teen), the group is run by a therapist.
I think it’s important to tell her that depression is not her fault, it’s a chemical imbalance in her brain, it’s very common, and there are treatments to help her feel better. When my daughter got tired of being sad and crying every day, she herself sought help, managed her own meds, and was proactive about her appointments with her doctors. She hit rock bottom and knew she wanted to feel better. Can you talk to your daughter about the possibility and hope of treatment? Treatment is not a punishment, but a necessary plan to help her be happy and healthy.
Also, in some states, minors can refuse medical treatment starting at 15 or 16. This was the case with my niece, and as a result her family struggled to ever get her full mental health support. She is 20 now and has untreated mental illness and it’s quite scary. I highly recommend framing the situation as a family one, and that you want to help her recover because you are part of her team and because you love her.
I’m sorry your daughter and your family are going through this. It’s heartbreaking to parent an unwell child.
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Tricks won’t work and will further impair your relationship. Unless she is in danger, you need to think long term. Long term, bribes and threats won’t work either. Long term, your relationship is important.
Treat her like the adult she almost is. Tell her you are going to leave things up to her. Give her a note or email with resources and withdraw.
If depression continues and she cannot function, there are resources. If she does not go to college next year, thing can work out. I write from experience.
You cannot force her to cooperate even if you get her in the same room as the therapist. The initiative needs to come from her unless she is so depressed she cannot take that step.
I would not take her phone or mess with locks or any of that. However, again, I am wondering what is going on that you don’t know about, socially.
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I am thinking about how I would proceed if this were my daughter, or me at that age, and I don’t think forcing/tricking is going to do any good at all.
Getting her to a counselor will not magically fix things if she doesn’t want to even give them a chance, and it seems like she quite strongly does not.
I would try backing way way off on the counselor/grades discussions, letting her know she can come to you if she needs your help or changes her mind. Ask her how she wants you to support her.
I would also consider going to counseling yourself to see if they have any tips for how to rebuild your relationship with your daughter or if there are any things you might be doing consciously or subconsciously that are making things worse. Unrealistic expectations of what her mood should be? Keeping up appearances? Is it possible she really is OK and is getting tired of all the focus on her in this way?
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Try talking to her more like an adult. Explain to her that you are very concerned and want to help her. Tell her that you understand that the last therapist wasn’t a good fit. Tell her you would like her help in choosing a new therapist. You can give her links to several different therapist websites so that she can read their bios and preferred methods. I would also make sure she’s knows that she can call or text 988 anytime she is feeling overwhelmed. There are probably also local phone and text lines for teens. Hugs.
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I may be an outlier here, and she may have some form of depression, but among other things, you said that a doctor (that she did see initially) told you it may be some ‘anxiety.’ You also say you have a happy, loving family. But your child has not really talked to you for months, locks herself in her room (or bathroom), and in your words is ‘rude’ to you and angry at you, for presumably no reason. I guess my first thought is that t’s not always depression that makes people act in certain ways. I think we tend to over-pathologize teen mental health.
I’m curious, since you don’t seem like the kind of parent at all that is pushing her to succeed, is it possible that the workload got too much for her and instead of finding ways to get help from you or herself (peer tutoring, more studying) she cried and then found out that you were ok with her just dropping stuff and giving up, and so that became her path of least resistance?
You said she goes out and eats with her friends all the time, so that means she has money that you presumably give her (no job) and a volunteer gig she comes and goes to (do you drive her?) so she is having positive social connections, just not with her family. You are just there for money and rides.
I don’t mean to make assumptions, but based on what you are saying, it may be that she’s just not being very nice and has figured out a way to avoid being a part of the family with the responsibilities that come with it.
While also telling her that love and are worried about her, it sounds like you might need to start laying down some ground rules about interactions with you. You wouldn’t let your spouse treat you that way, or your friends, so why is it ok if your child does it?
I would explain to her, that in loving families people should be able to talk to one another and share what is going on, and if that isn’t happening then family therapy is probably the place to work on it.
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The suggestion to see a therapist yourself is an excellent one. Many of us have done that along the way.
ps I gave my kid names and numbers of three therapists that I thought were a good fit. I used the Psychology Today therapy finder website. She made the choice and I have never spoken with the therapist. Alternatively your daughter could look on that website. It has photos and descriptions of each therapist’s practice. (My kid wasn’t up to that search so I compromised by giving her the choice among 3 )
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I mean she didn’t talk to me for months is not 100% accurate. I meant, she was really dull and not in a mood to talk much. Of course, also too busy with the school work and the other distractions for this generation. In general, she is not very expressing and also recently we felt she is missing her older sibling too who graduated high school few years ago. As she doesn’t express much, maybe we never realized.
We do push little bit and also help her equally with all the resources to succeed. I mean obviously, I do not blame her if the result is not fruitful but I try my best to take precautions much earlier and provide her all the resources like tutoring/books/other sources/high school guidance. I educated myself a lot but nothing really worked out much. My older child is in pre-med and we initially thought she would also going into STEM and slowly we realized she is not interested in the direction we were thinking. Then we changed the conversation and started encouraging towards the area she is interested in. She was very interested earlier in pol. science and other general election discussion etc. She volunteered for city counsel canvassing, interned with our state governor candidate etc. She used to play hours together till 4/5th grade with a globe but definitely never much interested in reading but could manage very well till end of 10th grade. She really struggled with AP BIO. She took it as there were no other Honors courses at school but tried to pull the grade to B by the end of the year. She really worked hard. All of a sudden, why that enthusiasm and motivation gone in 11th?, we don’t know.
I started encouraging her when grades were down in the 1st semester and later in the 2nd semester, she was damn stressed out and she became adamant that she wanted to drop out of AP CALC . Then I talked to her teacher too and she suggested it should be ok for her if she really struggling and overwhelmed. We had no choice so we supported her.
I mean we are encouraging her these days little bit as she is alone at home and also bit depressed. Sometimes, we have go out of our way to make kids happy. It’s very hard to raise this generation kids. Of course, we do give her money if she wants to eat outside occasionally (it doesn’t mean that she eats outside daily). First of all being a vegetarian and Asian, we hardly find anything outside to eat. It’s not that she spends lavishly without our permission or anything. She has enough ECs that she doesn’t get time to do job and moreover she is already getting stressed out with academics so I cannot expect her to work. Fortunately, by God’s grace, we can afford little bit. Our kids and their academic success and happiness are our family’s first priority. We parents do not really spend anything.
She doesn’t really have too many friends. She is an introvert, most of her friends are from childhood preschool classmates. They have been in the same school for a long.
I cannot answer this but I feel few of her friends are not much motivated academically and she also couldn’t perform well, maybe that demotivated her, lost confidence. Also her sibling is very strong academically may be there was hidden inferiority and comparing that she is not able to meet our expectations. I really don’t know. I am struggling to understand too.
I do try to talk to her more often without even any reason. I also explain her when she behaves rude. We make rule that we all should eat lunch/dinner together. We try to involve continuously but I am little concerned that she is not liking much to come out of her room, don’t know if getting addicted to social media and also how her friends are influencing her. We know their families but kids do change as they are growing. We feel one or two of friends are little bit bad company to be with.
Teens will see taking away their phone as a drastic measure. Sometimes the teen’s situation is drastic (dangerous), and nothing else is working, and then taking away the phone to get cooperation may be a reasonable tactic. For example I have seen it work in situations where the problem was: Anorexia, Cutting, Suicidality, or Drug Use. That said, if there is nothing drastic this may not be worth it, and it would be better to encourage her to cooperate. If you do get her to the pediatrician, I do not think it will be possible to see the therapist there that same day. But I would call the pediatrician office ahead of time and tell them the visit won’t just be for a shot but also mental health concerns (you want them to give you enough time. A shot-only visit is only 10 minutes, and doesn’t include any doctor time, just nurse time.) Then during the visit, your daughter should get some time to talk to the doctor alone, but there should also be some time for all 3 of you to talk together, and you should bring up your concerns.
Are others reporting the same thing with your daughter? Are teachers, friends, bosses, relatives etc noticing the same patterns of sadness and irritability you are? I am trying to understand whether she is struggling at all times, or is just when she is at home.
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@fiftyfifty1 , thank you for your advice!
Yes, few of her mentioned when we talked about it but they just it was just school work and exams stress. Of course, she expresses that outside smile on their face.
When one of my teenagers was depressed, it was very helpful when a teacher she knew and liked noticed and said “I am concerned because I notice you are more tired and don’t seem like yourself.” Sometimes they hear it better from an outside adult.
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Please find your local or state NAMI organization. See if there is a contact there who you could pose some of these questions to.
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Sure, Thanks! I will try to get in touch with them. We do have a NAMI locally.
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I’m sorry you are going through this, it is very hard! We went through depression, anxiety and more when my son was in high school, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. We did eventually get him into a therapist. He was resistant for a long time. Here’s the thing: Therapy only works if the patient is willing to go and to participate. Establishing trust at the beginning was important…trust between the patient, therapist, and family. This was the therapists advice and it did work…eventually it started with a phone call from the therapist (that my son agreed to) and then sessions. So…I would strongly advise against any tricks or punishments to get her into therapy. The simple fact is you need her to go back, and you need her to participate, so she must be aware and willing.
Something I’ve also learned the hard way is that our teens will “listen” to us/take our advice when the relationship with parents is good…and NOT when it is bad. There is a therapy mode called Motivational Interviewing that parents can learn to use…I strongly recommend it. Here is a free course. The School of Hard Talks Online — Handhold
The basic premise is that people will accept help or advice when they feel understood and in control.
And another thing we learned the hard way over the past couple of years is what we can control with our teen, and what we can’t. We CAN control our side of the relationship. It doesn’t sound like your daughter has anyone to open up to, so you are it. Build up the relationship with her so that she will be open to discussing things with you. This can take a while, and it’s hard, and it doesn’t mean that she walks all over you, you can still set boundaries that are clear and fair and that are based on her safety and well being. But I truly believe that you can’t punish or control a teen into mental health treatment (with exceptions of course for life threatening scenarios).
Some other things that we tried along the way that may be helpful: Asking older siblings to try to get him to open up. Giving him information/online assessments on depression to see if he wanted to learn about it on his own. Giving him statistics about mental health disorders in teens and within our family so he knew that he was not alone or weird. Telling him about lifestyle changes that can help such as exercise (we bought him a gym membership…that helped) and time outside. Turning off our Internet connection at bedtime (there are ways to do this with cell phones).
It is very hard to deal with a depressed teenager. If I were to sum up what I’ve learned in the past couple of years, it would be “Relationship First”, meaning the parent child relationship.
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Yes, NAMI will be helpful. It sounds as if your daughter really should see someone. I’m glad you’re taking it seriously. My children’s psychiatrist said it’s surprising how often parents are in denial. Keep us posted!
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@TS0104 , Thank you so much for the detailed response! I glad your Son is doing good. I would like to know more on how you could convince him.
We can try that but we were just concerned even her relationship spoils with her as she is the only other family member. Also she may not open up that easily. She is actually a Psychology major student, maybe I ask her give her some examples and talk to her.
Are there any specific links you have handy?
My friend has an online support group with this organization (her 21 year old was hospitalized several times o to self harm). Our 20 year old son is medicated for anxiety and depression, meets with his therapist online every other week, we check in with him every few months. Our son was all in, he had some psychotic episodes that terrified him.
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My older son was a Psych major too, but younger son is very resistant to older sibs acting like parents. So it was more of increasing contact (often by phone) from the older ones, older daughter would take son out to lunch, etc. Just relationship building, not having sibling try to talk your daughter into therapy. My younger doesn’t open up either, and still doesn’t, emotionally, to them, but it did help with feelings of connection and self esteem or just getting out of the house sometime.
There is a standard form for adolescent depression called PHQ 9, my son’s drs used and I initially did give to him to fill out. It’s been a few years but I think he was resistant at first and eventually I tried just asking him to fill it out for himself, not to show to me or a dr. Just to get him to start thinking about how things were going and that that there is help. And that if he wanted to talk to me about it, he could, and that I had resources ready when he was ready for them. But until then he just had the info for himself. (He eventually showed me, he scored high and that may have gotten him to talk to the therapist. I can’t point to one exact thing that got him there).
https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM5_Severity-Measure-For-Depression-Child-Age-11-to-17.pdf
And honestly I think the privacy part was what got him to agree to therapy. The therapist, and me, told him that his sessions would be private and that info is only shared with parents if it is life threatening. Therapy was HIS thing, the therapist was his doctor, not mine. I did not get recaps after the sessions, the work was theirs. I admit this was hard to swallow, and maybe this would not work for all parents or all teens don’t need that…but that is what got mine to attend and stick with therapy.
As for other info on depression it depends on how that goes for you. If I gave son a paper or email, it would be ignored. So, when conversations were happening I would tell him about a family member with depression or give him a statistic such as ‘a new study shows that 3/5 teen girls feel persistently sad or hopeless. If you want to read up on it, I’m sure you can find info online, or I can give you some info if you like.’
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