Lies for sympathy
I am so tired of my 15yo SD always playing the victim. Everything is ALWAYS someone else's fault. Right now her grades are dropping and it's supposedly because of me and the teachers. She blames the teachers because they don't grade things 'correctly' and they don't explain things the right way.
It's also my fault somehow. I just got a phone call from my MIL asking why I am demanding my SD to have straight As. I didn't know what she was talking about so she sent me screen shots of the text dialogue between her and SD. SD was whining to my MIL saying that she can't handle the pressure that me and my SO are putting on her and that she'll lose everything if she's not perfect and it's my fault.
Let me back this up. It's her first year of high school and my SO wanted to let SD go at her own pace. Low and behold her grades were shit for the first semester. She would forget to turn assignments in, wouldn't study for tests, fake being sick, and it was never her fault. My SO and I had a long discussion about her phone, privileges, and her grades. During the first semester we would take her phone away at 8pm and she could have it back in the morning. As an incentive, we told her for the second semester if she could pull a 3.9-4.0 GPA then she could keep her phone all night. If it was a 3.0-3.8, then things stay the same and phone goes away at 8pm. If it drops under a 3.0, then the phone doesn't go to school because obviously she can't focus with it in her possession.
So now it's only been a few weeks into the new semester and she's already failing two of her classes. We'll follow through on the consequences when she gets back from her mom's for the weekend. I just can't believe she's playing the victim card right now! We gave her an opportunity to earn her phone but it's obvious she can't handle it and then she goes and tells my MIL that I'm this slave driver who only wants perfection. I cleared it up with my MIL but I'm just furious. My SO is asleep right now and I know we'll talk about this over the weekend. I just really needed to vent. I'm seriously considering disengaging because I honestly don't know how much finger pointing I can take without coming unglued on her and growing horns and becoming that evil step mother.
She's 15- the hormones are
She's 15- the hormones are swimming around and she has exams. I am so glad the phones weren't around when my kids were teens. Finger pointing doesn't help- has DH been in contact with school? There may be more going on- peers loom large in these kids's lives so it maybe has less to do with you than you think. I would encourage DH to set up communications with school where you can work together to ease the pressure on all of you. Then if that doesn't work then disengagement is an option, yes.
Tell MIL a good “B” would be
Tell MIL a good “B” would be ok with you
Maybe it's time to change the
Maybe it's time to change the incentives. It could be that she's overwhelmed and anxious about school/grades. Perhaps you reward effort - 100% assignment completion, 100% attendance, appropriate time spent on homework, instead of GPA. I also agree that her father should contact the school and probably meet with the teachers whose classes are being failed.
She's a teenager - it probably does seem to her like you're expecting perfection. It sounds like she's not putting in the effort, so changing the incentives might help, or at least remove the perfection whining. Good luck; I know from being a rotten teen myself that those years are rough on parents of all kinds.
Disengage, stop stressing
Disengage, stop stressing about the little snot, simply tell DH it's his problem now, you are not going to be blamed for anything and he should straighten her out,
Even after disengagement everything will still be your fault, and DH will do nothing about it, took mine 14 years to do something about it, and he eventually told his daughter the truth about her mother lol, if I did not gave her certain documents he still would not have told her the truth.
disengage now
Let your dh handle her consequences. My sd started with small negative attention getting lies that led to her sleeping with 5 people at the age of 14, a false rape accusation at school, and then finally a suicide threat and hospitalization. Tell him to get her into counselling asap. we are still dealing with this kind of crap and she is now 17. most recently, she asked for a set of throwing knives for her birthday and stated she was still maybe suicidal. ugh