Taking on soneone else's teenager, 3 years on.

Its know just over 3 years ago when we took in a lodger. Nichola's best friend was having a hard time at home, she phoned me to tell me she had walked out. She was 16.

When we took her in it was hard to adjust at first, having someone there for a visit is easy having someone stay permantly out of the blue isn't. We had to adjust as she did, we had to make new rules. Make sure we know who is taking a shower, if someone is upstairs to shout and make sure its OK to come up, to be aware of each others privacy.

My oldest had left so we had a spare room, we had plans as both our girls are grown so we could now do a little more of what we wanted. We had plans to change the bedroom into a changing room for Nichola, somewhere for her to put her massive collection of make up and clothes. To give her a little more space.

We were looking forward to a more quieter life as my oldest as you know had her problems growing up, she had now grown and learned to control them. She is now a independent young lady that we are very proud of. @jlou she is now on here if you want go meet her. We thought things were going to get calmer for us. think again.

Demi Is still with us she is 19 now and has no plans to leave as she is enjoying being part of a family and loving her own little room that she never had. We treat her as our own, let her have her space but also exoept her to interact with us which was hard for her as she had shut herself of to people. Getting her to talk to us about any problems she was having was hard as she was so used to having too deal with them herself.

She has still cut herself away from her parents but is building a relationship with her younger brother, they speak on the phone quite a bit, we have invited him around but there parents won't let him as we are the bad guys for taking there daughter away, they still won't admit there's a problem that they need to resolve not us. If my daughter walked out out my house in the dark after a row I would be straight after her.

The last 3 years have gone over quite quickly with no major problems, we all get along and have a laugh. Demi is now maturing into a young lady but still has her childish days as all of us do. She has changed quite a bit and smiles a lot more. Hopefully one day she can put the past behind her and look to the future, with med going through the same sort of childhood I know she has a fight on her hands.