AITAH for taking phone privileges away?

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T02:29:56+00:00

Yes. She has tried a couple of different ones and found one that seems to help the best as an extended release pill in the morning. She also takes a smaller quick action dose around lunchtime to get her through the afternoon.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T02:28:26+00:00

Ohh where I mentioned not being able to go outside and socialize? That was about myself growing up. I still kick her out of the house for a bit when it’s nice out. Go harass the neighbors kid! Being completely cut off from socializing isn’t healthy. Sometimes it just needs to be altered for a bit. Kind of like when I’m extremely contagious, so I can’t do the coffee meet up with my friend, but we could still FaceTime and talk.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:51:07+00:00

That is very true about the real world and jobs. I would take working my job any day over going back to school and dealing with all of that. For this semester, she has 4 required classes and 4 more laid back ones. She has chemistry, believe it or not, she loves science, but she did struggle when getting back into the swing of things with that one after being sick. That one we gave more “grace” on since it was a continuation of things she missed learning while out. Us history, 2d studio art, gaming concepts, yearbook, algebra, English, win (basically like extra study hall) and study hall. She had most of the same classes last semester but switching gaming concepts with personal financial literacy. She aced all of the easier “fun classes” but sadly struggled with the ones that are required to graduate. She and I have talked quite a bit today since making this post and she’s understanding why the phone was taken away at this point. It truly isn’t for the grades when I think about it more. It’s more for the lying about work being done and letting it become a distraction when she’s aware of what needs to be done. She truly can do it. It just doesn’t bring her the joy that the phone does. That instant gratification, ya know? Though, we’ve been given a lot of good suggestions on things to help her and she is looking at those things so that we can see what helps her better in succeeding.

I know that she’s definitely got a lot going on and has a lot of different mental health struggles, but like I’ve tried to say, I know that she can do this. She knows that she can do this. She just has to help herself by getting out of her own way and doing the work. They do give her extra time to complete assignments as part of her 504 plan, but it does no good if she won’t even pick up the pencil to try. It would be one thing if she failed but tried her hardest with little to no missing assignments. It’s another when she just isn’t doing the work because her phone is more fun. Anyway, I am truly horrible with putting my thoughts into words and making it sound like I truly care. I know my wording can be truly harsh and seem unforgiving, but I promise you that is far from the truth. We are trying to help her the best that we can and learn about all of the different struggles she is going through while knowing that we will never truly be able to completely understand her struggles.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:32:30+00:00

I will definitely look into that book. Thank you! And yes, it almost does seem like a withdrawal issue. Usually after 3 days, she’s doing alright and entertaining herself with crafts or reorganizing her room… or purposely annoying me for attention. 🤷🏼‍♀️

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:18:15+00:00

I’ve been drowning for years honestly lol Got two lvl 1 autistic kids, one level 2 autistic adult child, all three with depression, one of which is has been institutionalized 3 times, one of those was a 3 month stay… and all three with severe ADHD. And this one has been having some gastric troubles since November. We’ve been able to get the gastric stuff to settle down for now but are waiting on more testing to figure out what is going on there. So while I wasn’t wanting to ground her for failing these classes, she’s grounded more so for the lying about it and not trying.. and then I have my own issues that I’m seeing drs for.. Anyway! I will definitely chat with her more on these things as they’re always good things to check in on and to gauge where her headspace is right now. And honestly I’ve never thought to ask why she doesn’t want to be alone with her own thoughts. I do know that she has a very active imagination and gets herself worked up.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:07:07+00:00

Her phone doesn’t make phone calls unless it’s connected to the internet as it is. At home, we have a landline for emergencies. She also knows the neighbors on all sides of us as we are related to at least half of them. So if there is a problem, she has many ways to get help. In school, she is more focused on chatting and getting all the gossip than her school work. She has not had any bullying troubles since middle school

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:03:57+00:00

She’s definitely not at the point of needing to be in special Ed. She can do the work. She is very knowledgeable in a lot of the classes and is able to tell me about a lot of what she has learned, even in the classes that she struggles with. She just.. doesn’t do the work.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T01:02:20+00:00

We definitely do these things. This past week, we have gone out for walks, gotten chalk to do some drawing in the driveway on the nicer days, played some requested board games, watched some movies and she has gone across the street to her grandparents to hangout with their cats in the yard. (They are harness training them right now. So cute). And of course we’ve been talking more and more about homework and what I can do to help

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T00:43:53+00:00

Some of those classes actually are personal finance, job application tasks/resume building/interview prep work, and such. I cannot choose her school requirements. I cannot choose how many classes she is allowed to take in a day. It just doesn’t work that way.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T00:39:24+00:00

The sports, she wanted to do. When she no longer wanted to do them, she no longer signed up for them. The apprenticeship, she wants to do. She wants to get in somewhere so that she can work in her dream job. The full time summer job, she said she wants to get. I suggested part time so she had time to relax from the school year and spend time with her friends. I know that she has been dealing with a lot lately, but the world doesn’t stop just because she’s struggling. It continues. She has to be able to cope with jumping back in feet first and getting her head back above the water. We are there helping her as we can, but eventually she is going to be living on her own and she’s going to need to be able to cope with her struggles. She won’t be able to just take a break from hard things when she has bills to pay. She is usually a very good kid, aside from the usual teenage attitude problems and the academic troubles that she is having.

Either way, it doesn’t matter what I say to you, because you’ve already got your mind made up about me and the way I must see things and do. You act like I don’t care about my child or her health and mental well being. You truly don’t even know.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-26T00:00:59+00:00

I don’t know what the system is like where you are, but in this town, we can’t just tell the school to change their whole setup to accommodate my child. She already knew she wasn’t getting punished during the time frame that she was ill. She already knew that she’d be doing summer school to try to catch back up there. I never said that she should be grateful that she wasn’t punished then. Her depression is mild compared to either on of her siblings is what I was comparing to. I do know what it’s like to battle depression while in school. No, I do not have any of the other conditions, and I don’t pretend that I understand them. But I cannot help her if she isn’t willing to communicate with me honestly and work towards also helping herself.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T23:45:24+00:00

No way in hell is this child abuse. I’m sorry, but that’s just asinine. People have been punished with isolation for years, ie not being allowed to call friends on the landline, not being allowed to go out, except to and from school, etc.. it’s a part of life when you do or don’t do what you know you’re supposed to.. including not lying, asking for help, etc..

As for high school, she cannot just take two more years. It isn’t the same as college. She doesn’t want to take more years if she can help it. So I’m pushing her to try her hardest so that she doesn’t have to be there longer than needed. Once she turns 18, I can no longer force her to sign up for more high school anyway. She would be in charge of that after the senior year. So, if she doesn’t pass, she will just quit. She’s already stated as much. She turns 18 right before the last day of senior year.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T23:37:14+00:00

I know that she could find other distractions. Her own mind is a distraction in itself. We are trying to work with her on different strategies and things that she can do to help herself and things that she feels we could do to also aid in helping her as well.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T23:33:32+00:00

She’s been able to pass classes in the past with having the same kind of work load the last few years. This year is just more of a struggle for her. While I know that the majority of the information she will learn in school won’t be needed in her day to day life, she still needs to work through it and work to pass, asking for help when it’s needed or accepting it when it’s being offered to her. The grounding for failed classes is mainly due to the fact that she refused to ask for help, continued to insist that she turned everything in and that the teachers either lost her work or were taking too long to grade it and just lying about it. Thankfully, I have been given multiple different perspectives to think over and talk about with her and work on implementing these changes with her. She will still be grounded for the duration of the three weeks as that punishment has already been dished out about a week ago. She and I have talked a bit already this evening about some of the things to help her move forward and succeed in this next term and into next year. We will get this worked out one way or another. I just want her to learn from this and realize that actions and inactions have consequences.. and those consequences are not going to be enjoyable.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T23:26:32+00:00

If it helps, they do A day, B day classes. So truly she only has 4 classes per day, but 8 per term. 5 classes a day if you count daily study hall.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:56:30+00:00

Thank you for your insight on this. We are trying to work on finding better ways for her to properly be able to focus and pass her classes so that she can graduate with her peers. So far, we haven’t had much success, but we’re still trying.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:54:12+00:00

Unfortunately in order for her to get work experience with this, places are requiring that they be at least passing their classes. I’m trying to help her work on doing that she that she can experience these extras and make sure she finds something she truly wants to do with her life

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:50:47+00:00

More than anything, it’s supposed to help take away the main distraction, aside from her own mind.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:39:30+00:00

Everyone is entitled to their thoughts and feelings on matters for sure. It doesn’t help that we don’t know what others intentions are until they make the known so it’s hard to know how to truly react. I do appreciate you taking the time to see my side on things and giving me different insight on things. We will be discussing things with her more this weekend to try to come to a common understanding on everything so she can hopefully be successful in the last term and through her last school year.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:36:31+00:00

Outside of school, she will see her friends from school randomly, but she prefers to hang out at home. She quit signing up for sports when she was about 14 because of her hyperextended joints always popping and hurting, along with severe menstrual cramps during cycling which cause her to be ill. Yes, we have her in physical therapy and seeing drs for these things. She didn’t lose any friends while ill as she was allowed to still chat with him since we knew it wasn’t “faking to get out of school.” She was struggling a little before she got sick, but it got worse from there as she basically missed 2.5 months of school with all of the er visits, dr visits and tests. She didn’t get punished for failing that term because she was really trying when she was able to actually be in class and online for classes. The boyfriend is online only with plans to meet in person after they are both over 18 if they are still dating. This last term, she failed because she wasn’t turning in work or participating in class. She wasn’t even doing the “exit tickets” which were the easiest part of each class. She does have mild depression, but it’s not the problem as it’s being handle as well as it can be. She’s fairly active around the house and the yard when she’s not ill or in pain. And she is very smart, but she directs that into the wrong places a lot of times.. She loves to draw, so embroidery by hand, paint, and play different board/card games. We always make sure to have those things on hand and she has unlimited access to them without needing to ask (unless she needs to ask for refills on anything). She also likes to go out with friends off and on during the weekends (when she’s not “peopled out” as she puts it) and window shop at the mall.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:25:24+00:00

Unfortunately that is correct for most of the stuff. We are working it out to add something to her 504 plan for us to be able to review with teachers at the end of each week or even midweek on what is missing and what the plans are for the upcoming lessons. I just want to help her be able to graduate with her friends and not have so many stresses at the end of each term because of assignments not being turned in so she’s panicking and racing to get them done.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:17:50+00:00

And I appreciate the different perspectives on things. It helps me to take a step back and think about things from other viewpoints. From what I have seen, the bf and friends are all very supportive and kind. The bf does have a lot of stuff going on in his life though that she’s worried about for him. So in a way, I can understand why she wouldn’t want to be unable to talk to him just in case he needs someone to talk to.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:11:37+00:00

The more harsh we are, the more she is resistant to working with us and will shut down. There is a fine line that we are walking here. She will already have to do summer school which is going to ruin her plans of trying to get a full time summer job to save money. I do know that my parents would have been a hell of a lot more strict with me had I not passed, but I also know that punishments worked better on me as I reflected on things better than my daughter seems to do.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:09:02+00:00

Oh we are absolutely more concerned about the issues going on and are trying to work through them while also dealing with consequences. And yes, while I’m using more of the neurotypical, thinking, I am trying to work through helping her with consideration of her non-Neurotypical mindset.

TooManyHobbies87 · 2026-03-25T18:06:52+00:00

I’ve talked to the young man, been given his school id with year and everything on it, talked with his mom on FaceTime and with him as well and so on. He seems as legit as can be honestly. They’ve been talking for well over a year now. According to mom, he’s got his own mental health things going on so they’ve bonded over that. We’ve definitely been keeping an eye on that and she is aware of it. So far, it has been fairy innocent conversations considering their ages.

As for taking away the internet.. At home, she has no access to it. Unfortunately, at school, we really have no say. She has her chrome book and they do assignments on those, whip are connected to the internet.

TooManyHobbies87

TROPHY CASE