What would you do if your rather spoiled teenage daughter....?

[keltimes]

First, I would have to laugh. That's pretty damn good and not something that I would've thought of--on-line parenting lessons. Kudos for thinking of it.
All of us parents screw up sooner or later. We all go through these years hoping and praying that we don't do any permanent damage. I read this list and I think to myself that if this was my daughters list of complaints against me then maybe it would be time to take her on a field trip to the local group home. There are 100's of 1,000s of children out their that don't have a computer, wear hand me downs, whose parents are have to shop at the Salvation Army or ask for donations from local churches. I would have to say that the simple fact that she has a clothing "budget" and a wardrobe to inspect at all makes her pretty damn lucky. I would have to say that in asking my daughter to be respectful to me and to school personnel is what I call a "gimme"--as in expecting that of my daughter is automatic. I expect for her to obey the rules in school as much, if not more, than she does the house rules. The corporal punishment thing--well I certainly don't agree with beating a child, but if one of my teenage boys was disresptful to me, told me to shut up, or cussed at me--well they would know as they said that they were getting a slap in the mouth for it.--and they aren't so old that they won't catch a well deserved spanking from time to time.
I don't believe in making threats--only promises. "If you do that, this is what is going to happen" and if he decides to do it anyway, I follow through with what I said I was going to do.
Really sucks about the boarding school, but it kind of sounds like "Daddy" is thinking that maybe a stricter, more structured environment would do you some good. And I'm sure to you that it feels a bit like you are being banished, like maybe he is sending you away because he just doesn't care enough to fight it out with you. While that is a possibility--some people are not as connected to their kids as others are--it could well be that he just simply doesn't know what else to do with you. Fighting with your kids can be tiring and draining. Lord knows that there have been times I had to tell my kids to just leave me alone, and that they really needed to get away from me and it wasn't because I didn't care--it was because I was afraid of me--I was THAT angry that I needed them to stay away from me until I knew that I could handle the situation without going off the deep end.