How do parents of young teens deal with a kid's dysfunctional relationship?
I'm not a parent, but I am responsible for my grandmother, who, due to stroke damage, is emotionally and cognitively about 13. (I'm thankful I don't have the hormonal storms.) I'm hoping that there's parenting advice that I can model from.
My grandmother has a boyfriend who is in her life only by phone. (They live in different states now; there are other issues that move it from just ill-advised to actively dysfunctional, but I don't want to get into those details now and they're complications that make it not like a teen relationship.) He's about her age, but is cognitively fine. He's becoming not helpful -- he doesn't seem to realize how much damage the stroke did, and encourages behaviors that are usually just unhelpful, but too frequently, actively harmful. (He tells her that she should be allowed sweets -- she's a diabetic; that she doesn't need her walker -- she falls frequently; that he'll come and take her away -- he can't.)
The closest analogy I've got is that this feels like one of those intense teenage romances that go horribly bad. It's got a lot of the hallmarks -- the intensity and obsession, the rebellion, the "you're not the boss of me" arguments and the "I Think We're Alone Now" desire to run away. It's also got some emotionally manipulative elements and it feels like a relationship with an age imbalance. The boyfriend feels like a high school senior; emotionally, my grandmother really does feel like she's in middle school. (We're not even talking about the consent issues, but yes, there would be consent issues if they lived in the same state.)
The thing is, I can make him "go away" since their relationship is entirely by phone and I have control of her phone. (Also of her physical and financial well-being.) I can block his number. If I was a parent of a teenager in a risky relationship, would that be a good idea? If not, what is? Talking about it isn't working -- it's making it worse. I don't have children, and while I watched a lot of my friends go through this rebellious stage when I was a teenager (25 years ago), I had an entirely different form of rebellion, so I never went through this.