Hello,
My daughter is extremely lazy, rude, and disrespectful in our home, and always has been. (although to other adults she has perfect manners) she started college a year ago and failed 3 out of 4 classes. She came home during christmas break and begged her dad and I not to send her back to school, but swore to us that she tried very hard but found her classes were too hard and the teachers were bad. She is a professional at making things up to support her laziness. (we didn't buy it and we were very disappointed at her efforts) after she moved back from college in December, she did a 3 day a week internship in our town and the hours were from 10-4. it was very easy work and many days she was sent home early. She ended that job after 3 months, (a worker at the internship told me she was very lazy while there) so we told her she needed to find another job asap. It took us shutting off her cell phone and 2 1/2 months before my husband finally found her a 2 day a week job hostessing for $17.00 an hour. She has worked maybe 8 days this summer. She smokes weed every single day and we have come to find out she started using cocaine. She promised us she wouldn't do it ever again but failed the first drug test we gave her 6 days after we confronted her. A fight ensued and we kicked her out of the house. She packed her bags and when she left the house after a nasty fight with her dad, she told me she would sell her body and steal to make money to survive. She was back in the house 36 hours later with a heartfelt apology. It was 24 hours after that that she became extremely disrespectful and rude once again. She tells us she wants to be a rap singer and I believe the music she has constantly playing in her ears is influencing her better judgement. She is rude, disrespectful, and angry, and I now think there is a possibility she has a mood disorder. I have no idea what to do with her but I am very scared for her and our family life is out of control. I am also worried she will corrupt her younger brother who is a very good kid but impressionable! Please help with advice.

Tell her she gets a job... follows a set of house rules YOU lay down... and she follows ALL of them. Charger her rent (even if you put it into an account you might give her later if she grows up and starts acting responsible) or tell her you will evict her from YOUR house and no amount of begging and pleading will get her back in since has lied about it before.

Time for tough love... if it takes her eating out of trash cans for a few weeks... she's going to learn until she pays her own way... COMPLETELY, she doesn't get to do what she wants, when she wants to do it.

She's done this because she's gotten away with doing it until now. The day she turned 18, she could have been sent packing and you as a parent are NOT obligated to keep supporting a lazy, arrogant and mishaving child... (yeah she's 19 but acts like a child).

My parents would have done anything for me....but they would NOT have tollerated ANY of what she has put you through.

I understand this is your kid and it's hard to be tough on them but you are really not doing her any favors by allowing this. You are showing her that she can do what she wants and never have to answer for it. It is time that you make her realize that the world isn't all take and no give. You are enabling this behavior and you need to change that.

Set rules. Set boundaries. Make her get and keep a job. Make her contribute to the household. make sure she understands that if this behavior continues, she will need to find her own way and live somewhere else...and then you need to stick to that. She is not going to just change on her own while you are allowing her to do whatever she wants. She is an adult now and it is time for her to start acting like an adult with some responsibility.

19 is very young, and maybe you were in too big of a rush to insist she head off to college on her own. I assume that her bad behavior as you have described her, 'My daughter is extremely lazy, rude, and disrespectful in our home, and always has been', has been a long standing problem in your home.

I'd like to know what have you done. Teaching her a lesson with 'tough love' and tossing her out of the house, in my opinion, was a desperate attempt to have her come to her senses, settle down, and not be the kid you describe, even though she's 'always been' like this. What did you hope to accomplish, and do you have any insight as to why this didn't work out so well?

Has anything ever worked out well with her?

You say a drug test shows cocaine use, and she smokes weed every day. After discovering that, she's kicked out of the house, only to return, and nothing changes. Why isn't she in rehab? Counselling? Therapy of some sort? Has she ever been? Who have you talked to about her drug use, and what to do about it. Where does she get the money to buy the drugs.

To me it seems as though you have lumped all the problems you've ever had with this kid, which have been problems for many years, and have no idea what to do now to turn her around. It would be helpful if you yourself, got a little help in understanding why life is falling apart, and you are at your wits end. Speak to a counselor who can address drug issues and resulting family problems to start with. Until she is off the drugs, nothing will make sense to you, or to her. I hope that you can get her into treatment and not have to resort to throwing her out again.

If any behavior is going to be undone, and change is to happen, it has to start with you.