Why can't my 15 year old daughter see the positive in her life?

Question

My 15 year old daughter just came to live with me in another state. She lived with her father from age 10 to 15.

I wish that I could get her to see the positive in her life -

she has a part-time job and is making some spending money.
she is taking an ACT review class.
she is taking a tennis class
she is getting A's and B's instead of C's and D's in school.
she can walk home from school two days a week (when she does not work).
she has a cell phone and can keep in touch with her friends(she did not have one before) and can call her dad/ grandmother when she wants.
she is going back to the state where she was living before to see her friends, Dad and Grandmother.

She seems so unhappy and misses her old house, school and friends. I am trying my best to keep her busy, but feel the pressure of it also. I am always looking for activities to keep her busy.

I don't know what else to do.....I can't go back to her Dad and make the marriage that never worked work.

Answer 1

i know that feeling. i moved around every year from the time i was in 6th grade until my junior year of hs. and i was a very very depressed person.
you seem to be doing everything right. she will come around. when she goes to visit her friends.. she'll realize that they are not the same as they were when they were together. thats what happened to me. as much as i missed my old life.. i was happy to have a new one bc my friends had changed.
you need to give her a lot of time.. its very upsetting as a teenager ...
good luck :)

Answer 2

She needs time to grieve her loss, so give her that time, but she could have trouble knowing how to stop or when. Try to get her involved with group activities to find new interests and friends and seek counseling if she can't seem to move on so she can talk about why she is holding on to the past.

Answer 3

I think she's depressed. I was depressed as a teenaged girl. I had everything going for me, but was very depressed for no apparent reason. I'm not talking about "sadness", I mean actual depression, which doesn't have to have (and often doesn't have) any logical or obvious cause. Apart from the things happening in your family life, remember her hormones are probably making her experience all of her emotions as extremes, causing a bit of a downward spiral after the recent disruptions in both of your lives.
I think you are doing the right thing by giving her opportunities to keep busy, but don't forget to give her space too. You don't want her to feel as though she "must get over this now!" I know you don't want her sitting around crying in her room, but she needs to feel like she's "allowed" to do that, if that's what she needs (within reason!). I never felt that I could go to my parents (or anyone) about how I was feeling, because I felt that I was under constant pressure to "snap out of it". I was very much aware that everyone around me thought I was unjustified in feeling the way I did, but I just couldn't seem to get out of that hole. My mother must have been very anxious about me, but it felt to me like she was frustrated with me, and wanted me to change / pull myself together, which only made me feel worse, more inadequate, under more pressure, etc. She was so desperate to "help" me, but she was actually just putting more pressure on me. I knew my feelings made no sense, which didn't help!
I think it would have helped me if my mum had, rather than continually expressing that I needn't / shouldn't be upset or sad, validated how I was feeling. Instead of trying to remind me of all the reasons why I shouldn't feel that way, just acknowledge that I WAS feeling that way, and that my feelings weren't trivial, that they were real, that I was entitled to feel the way I felt, even if no-one could understand it. Then I would have felt like I could be more open with her about what I was going through. But because I always felt like my sadness was unacceptable / stressful / made no sense to her, I went through it all alone.
Many years later, as an adult, I have gone to therapy and improved a lot, and if your daughter continues to struggle emotionally I think seeing someone about it is the best thing you can do. But she needs to be assured that no-one thinks she's crazy, or that her feelings are out of place; do it in such a way that she knows you value and accept how she is feeling, and want to make sure she has help sorting through her emotions if she needs / wants it. If you do end up getting her to go talk to a professional, make sure she knows you're not handballing her to someone else - tell her you are always there for her, but that adults (perfectly sane ones!) often go see someone objective to help us sort through our emotional stuff, just like we take our car to a professional when we need help. Explain to her the value of talking to someone who is an expert in how our minds and emotions work, on top of having you there for support.
I hope this helps. I think you're right not to attempt to force your marriage to work - that wouldn't be helping your daughter or anyone. You obviously love her very much and want the best for her, and I'm sure she knows that. Other people can tell you til they're blue in the face about how valuable you are, how much you have going for you, etc, but it means nothing until you discover this for yourself. Going to therapy forced me to pay attention to myself, which can be painful for a while, but is ultimately very empowering. Going through that whole process made me realise that I am worth putting time into, just like any other important project, and I am a much stronger, wiser and happier young woman because of it.

Answer 4

Taking a few tennis classes and working a crappy minimum wage job doesn't automatically make the world peaceful and end all wars.

How could you be happy when people are starving in Iraq and Darfur?

People like you try to pretend stuff like this is not going on. WAKE UP, and get out your fantasy world.

Answer 5

I've felt that feeling before, and the thing that helped me was having nothing to do. It gave me time to think, and to realize that life is good.

Answer 6

If you ever had to move away from all your friends when you were a teenager, you'd understand