TEENAGE DAUGHTER IS SO DITZY

Dear Coleen

I don’t know what to do about my 17-year-old daughter.

She’s so ditzy, doesn’t seem to have a care in the world and is totally unreliable.

I’ve lost count of the things I’ve asked her to do and she’s forgotten.

She doesn’t show up to things and she lets people down all the time.

Just recently, she forgot to pick up a neighbour’s child from school and she was actually getting paid to look after her!

She can’t understand why I get frustrated and annoyed. How on earth will she cope when she goes to university next year?

How can I get through to her that she needs to buck up her ideas?

Coleen says

She probably has a lot on her mind – schoolwork, friends, and social media! I know sometimes I talk to my 16-year-old daughter Ciara and she’s clearly not listening to me at all, especially when it’s about quite mundane things. So I think it’s partly an age thing – teenagers are pretty self-absorbed.

But, trust me, once she goes off to uni, she’ll learn by her own mistakes. It might be the best thing for her because she will have to focus more, get work in on time, buy her own food, do her own laundry and so on.

And perhaps if you started letting her off the reins a bit and gave her a bit more responsibility, she’ll become more self-reliant, especially if things go pear-shaped and she’s got no one else to blame but herself.