[mmom]

My daughter (now 18) has had a number of "friends" we felt were bad influences on her. My husband (her step-father) and I tried to tell her we were seeing the big picture and she should distance herself from them, but she always had an "I've got to help them" attitude. She had stories of how some were neglected others abused and others depressed in need of a friend to pull them back from the edge. This may sound noble, but when we wanted to help them, intervene there was always an excuse. She would end up giving spending her clothes shopping money to them (we're talking $100-$150 at a time). She has lied to us about where she is going and with who. When I would get suspicious and go to where I thought she was supposed to be and found her not there, I went to where she was told not to go, and found her there. Recently one of her ex-boyfriends, (who she kept in contact with despite his name calling, threats and disrespect) came to our home. She is well aware there are no visitors allowed when my husband and I are not home. He was upset, helped himself to her computer and read her email to her current boyfriend and tried to kill himself in our kitchen. My daughter called 911 and gave 1st aid until the ambulance came and took him to the hospital. He had a long surgery and is recovering. She seemed to grow up after that, being more responsible, calling when she might be late, doing her chores, doing all the things she needed to do to get us to let our guards down. Then it happened. She had left high-school and is getting her GED, while her high-school was on spring break, she wanted to hang out with her female friends and sleep over. I talked to the mother of the girl she was going to stay at and felt assured she was where she said she would be. I had the twinge of "I should drive by and check", but I told myself she had grown up. She later asked if she could sleep over her new boyfriends house. I said no. She told me she was going to move out and stay with him. I left work early to come home and find her, her boyfriend and another friend packing her belongings. I begged her to reconsider. "I'm 18, I have to be on my own". I told her moving into her boyfriends house w/ his parents was not living on her own, I'd help her find a place of her own. She refused. He called his Dad to come and get him, when his Dad arrived, he told us, he didn't want her moving in, but didn't want to see her on the street. He also told me I had spoken to his wife. She was the one I had talked to when I thought I was talking to my daughter's female friend for the sleep over. She called me and lied to me. Now my daughter has been staying there for a week, we have met with the boys parents and expressed how much we want our daughter home, they said they will talk to her and tell her to come home. I can't really believe the mother after she lied to get her son's girlfriend to sleep over. We had purchased a car for our daughter (before all this happened) and have told her if she wants to keep it she needs to buy it because it was not bought for her to run away in. She is starting to pay for her own cell bills starting this month. How can I get her home or get her to realize she needs to move to her own place?

[Fr_Chuck]

You are not going to like this, but you have to cut her loose and let her fall on her own, You are not going to talk her or "make" her do anything, and you have to do the tough love and not be there every second she starts to fall to catch her. She has to sleep in a car a couple nights when there is no place to go, to end up broke and have to work and find that money does not grow on trees.