my daughter

[Unregistered]

I was wondering my child will be 18 on Christmas I have three other children and one on the way. So my question is can she move out she says she not happy and all we do is fight if she don't get her way some advice please....

[ccsmod13]

RE: my daughter

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out to the National Runaway Safeline. It sounds like there is a lot going on at home, you have a child on the way plus 4 children in total. It must be difficult for you to fight with your 17 year old on a regular basis and to hear that she is not happy at home with you and your family. We are glad that you have reached out to us in trying to figure out what is best for your daughter and your family. We are not here to give advice or tell you what to do, we are here to go over options that you might have.

We are not legal experts, but we can speak in general terms. Generally your daughter becomes an adult when she turns 18 during the Christmas time. If she were to leave before then, without your permission, then you as her legal guardian would be able to file a runaway report with the police. Running away is not a criminal offense, it is just a status offense. This means that she cannot do it because of her age, not because it is against the law. If she is found by the police then they will just bring her back with no charges on her. However, where it can become criminal is for the person she is staying with. They could be charged with harboring a runaway and the severity of that varies from state to state.

That is generally what could happen if she was to leave without your permission, however you had asked if she can move out. If you as her legal guardian give her permission to leave then she can live where you allow her to live. This could be at a friend or family members place or if you wanted to rent her an apartment that could be an option to.

It sounds like things at home have been hard for you and your daughter. It must be difficult for you to fight when she is not getting her way. Some other options might be to look into counseling and see if there is a therapist or a mediator that can help get to the root of the issue. If a counselor is not something that is appealing to you, then maybe an adult that both you and your daughter trust to mediate the situation. If you do not have one, then we offer a service like that here at NRS. It is youth initiated, so your daughter would have to call us and say that she would like to use our conferencing call service. This is where she would call us we would talk with her, we would reach out to you, and then do a three way conference call so that everyone’s voices are heard.

We hoped this helped and if you would like to discuss your situation in greater detail you can always call our hotline or contact us on our chat. You can also give your daughter our number and we can talk with her about what she thinks her options are. We look forward to hearing from either of you and we wish you the best of luck.

NRS