My (47M) daughter is 14F and naturally in the midst of her teenage angst years. After 20 years of marriage, I split with her mother last year, and she has been adjusting to shared custody. It's amicable from a co-parenting perspective, and my daughter and I have always been close. I'm trying to get some pointers and advice on how I can make my (new) home feel as good and comfortable as the home she grew up in (where her mom still lives). I know that it's natural for the a child to not feel as "at home" in a new place. Plus, her older brother and sister are both off to college, so she is the only child still in the house. Lots of changes. I am fortunate to have a nice house, but it is still not "home." I've taken her shopping to try to get all the clothes and items she would need to have two sets of everything. I've got her room looking and feeling as much like her other room as possible. And whenever I ask what I can do to make it better, she sort of just shrugs her shoulders and gives the teenagery response, "I dunno." When she's with me on weekends at my place, she stays over and we spend time together. But, during the school week, she'd rather stay in "her room" (at the other house) because she says it's just easier. And since we live only a few minutes apart, the days during the week she's with me after school, she has dinner and we hang out, but she then prefers to go back to the other house to sleep and get ready for school the next day at her mom's place. To a large extent, I totally understand where she's coming from. At her age she can articulate her desires and we don't need to have a custody fight to try to get her to stay at my place more often.

What have you guys done to help make your teenage daughter feel better about staying over at you place? I don't have girlfriends over. It's clean. I have food. I cook. Etc. I think it just doesn't "feel like home" for her. I've asked her numerous times, "How can I make my home better for you? What toiletiries do you need? How about clothes, etc. etc.?" And I get no answers. And her mom isn't wanting to help. Divorced dads, can you weigh in? Thanks.