Dear 21st Century Dad, my sixteen-year old daughter got expelled from the remainder of the school year. I begged a friend with some pull to get her into an independent learning program. Four hours school per day was too much for her! I used to pay her to do chores. Not any more. I have to redo everything she says she’s done. So maybe she should work for a living? No way. She’s not interested in a job. She says she earns her own money so that form of control is lost too.
Dear Ragged Around The Edges,
Sounds like we need to put the Quality Control issues on the back burner and put the heat on where she gets her money. No money, no job at sixteen? The real issue to explore is her suspicious finances. Do you know where she is getting her money?
If she hasn’t asked for money in a week, don’t worry. Most teenagers will help their destitute friends for at least a week in the form of housing, food and money. Past that, the hosting parents well begin the interrogation and the even Good Samaritan teenager might become a little less supportive when Mom and Dad’s money has stipulations on it.
Sometimes a boyfriend may have a MacFastFood job and take on a supportive role. It’s ok to be inquisitive if our daughter has had a long-term relationship with her boyfriend. We know his last name and we may even be on a first name basis with his mother. Why not explain the scenario to her? Tell her we have no idea how our daughter is supporting herself. We’ll find out soon enough if their Johnny is footing the whole relationship bill. Remember, two sixteen year olds at a movie costs between sixteen to twenty five bucks. Then there’s popcorn. That’s four hours work at the MacFastFood.
Is it time to do a personal and a house inventory? Have our diamond rings have taken a hike? Has money been disappearing from our purse? Do we have the same number of bottles in our liquor supply? Is there still a hint of potatoes in the Vodka or has she replaced it with water? Is there still a chair in the living room to sit down upon? Ragged around the edges, let’s consider the results of our inventory before we have a discussion with our daughter.
Based upon these findings, we may want to do a self-inventory (always a good place to start!). Are we setting our daughter up to fail? If there’s a real problem with theft of house articles, do we continue to stock up the liquor cabinet? Do we keep a lock on the cabinet? Do we inventory the cabinet to stop wrongful incriminations? Do we keep our cash and cards on our body, or in a secure place?
If your daughter is guilty, remember, a thief in our midst is no different from a thief on the other side of the door.
Are we taking all precautions necessary to avoid temptations, to prevent the subsequent accusations, recriminations and sometime mistakes that follow?
Is our daughter doing drugs? Are we aware of any sexual exploitation of teens occurring in your community? Would we be able to recognize if sexual exploitation is concern for her?
How’s this for a 21st Century concern? Friends with benefits are teens whom our daughter consorts with to get money by selling them portions of a bottle of liquor, prescription drugs or to provide sexual favour. Are we calling our daughter a prostitute?
No.
Groups of 21st Century Teens have a different conception of sex than we do. Giving oral sex or offering anal intercourse is not genital sex, so it’s not necessarily having sex.
Here’s the primary discourse we will have with our daughter. Determine that our daughter’s safety and our own self care are top of the list topics. As part of our self care program, we can take a course on how to speak from our heart instead of from our fearful and reactionary guts. Then we can consider how we are going to keep our cool when we explore the notion of sexuality with our daughter.
Google:
1. Amazon.com: How to Deal With Your Acting up Teenager: Practical ...
2. http://home.earthlink.net/~hopefull/i-statem.htm
3. http://changingminds.org/techniques/assertiveness
/standing_up_for_rights.htm
4. Taking The Pledge , Ed Bradley Reports On Abstinence-Only Programs ...
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