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Dear Jean: I am the mom of a terrific
15 year old daughter (I'll call her Deidre is truly a wonderful person. She's smart (with a GPA of 3.8), she's involved in school and dance. I really like her friends. We have what I feel is a pretty good relationship, and we're able to talk about important topics pretty freely. Sounds perfect, right? But of course noone is, and I'm trying not to expect it from her, although it's very hard. Anyway, beginning in December, she started "going out with" a 17 year old boy. (She's a freshman, he's a junior.) She is not allowed to "date" him alone, but we have allowed her to go out with him with groups of friends. My husband and I both do not approve of this relationship for several reasons. First, we feel that the age difference is too great. I think this might not bother me so much if I felt more comfortable about him as a person. On each occasion when I have met him, he has hardly spoken to me (or my husband.) Deidre had to suggest to him that he should shake our hands when he met us. He is very shy and anti-social. I have asked my daughter to bring him over to our house so that I can get the opportunity to know him better. She has only done this once, and during that visit, he hardly spoke and wouldn't make eye contact. Two nights ago, my husband and I both had to be gone for the night on business. My husband left after Deidre had come home from school. She had a dance class that evening with transportation from another mom in our pre-arranged carpool. We agreed to allow her to stay home alone for the night. She was to come home from dance, do her homework, go to bed and get up for school the next morning. My husband was coming home that afternoon. When we called the house to check on her after the dance class she didn't answer the phone. I called the car-pool mom. She told me that Deidre had called her to tell her she was sick and not going to dance. (The car-pool mom knew we weren't home - in fact she had offered to let Deidre stay with her for the night, but Deidre had pleaded with us to trust her for one night alone.) I called several of her friends' houses, including her boyfriend's house. I finally spoke with her boyfriend's dad who told me she had been there and his wife was just driving her home. When she arrived home, I spoke with her and she told me her boyfriend was in jail. The story is that some kids had asked him to go pick up a baseball bat they left at the scene of a fight, where they used it to beat another kid. He retrieved the bat and then was stopped by the police and arrested. She said she was invited by his parents to come over and talk with them and talk with him via phone from the jail. I hardly knew what to say! Of course after recovering from my initial fear, I became angry. I am now experiencing all kinds of emotions; ranging from fear, to anger to sadness. Mostly though, I'm afraid for her. If this is the kind of guy she chooses to associate with, what might happen to her if she's in the wrong place at the wrong time? She has lied to me on a couple of other occasions in situations related to her boyfriend (such as telling me she was coming home on the bus when he drove her although she was not permitted to be driving with him.) Most of these have been relatively small things, and I think she was rebelling against my rules. At this point, my tendency is to forbid her from seeing him. I'm not sure if that's the right thing, or even if it's possible. I think she'll probably defy me and drive the wedge that is coming between us even deeper. When I even suggest that she shouldn't see him anymore, she becomes hysterical and threatens to run away. My husband and I have discussed taking away some of the recent privileges that she has earned (i.e making her curfew earlier, not allowing him to drive her to school...) I just don't know what else to do to keep her safe. I have read your responses to other mail on your website and think you are very insightful. I appreciate any suggestions you can make for our situation. Sincerely, Jean responds: Argh. It's so terribly hard
to see your kid involved with a The fundamental condition of parenting an adolescent is so frightening and painful: YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT THEY DO! True, you can INFLUENCE them--even, if they'll LET you, GUIDE them, by setting up limits, with attendant consequences for stepping over the line. But you cannot control them! They know this--and they think that you are trying to run their lives, when you try to exert a control that you don't have, and they then are often driven to defy you, to prove (if only to themselves) that you DON'T run their lives. The lying is part of this--they lie partly because they prove, thereby, that you don't know everything that they're doing, and this puts a distance between them and you. There is a need to put a little distance between their self and you--to prove they're NOT YOU, to prove they're growing up and becoming "their own person." Try not to panic about this boyfriend. (Easy for me to say! But panic will convince your daughter that you are not fit to guide her--she will feel that you are coming from your own fear, and not necessarily from a sober consideration of her best interests.) You don't really know if he's a bad guy. Frankly, your description makes me think he may be mildly impaired in some way--some kind of depressive state or social disability of some kind? Tender-hearted adolescent girls are often drawn to boys they have to kind of take care of. My guess is that this is what is drawing your daughter, not an attraction to his "badness," so to speak. A girl feels very powerful when she can "understand" a kid whom others reject and with whom, therefore, she can form a special bond. She went over to his house at the invitation of his parents... what tender-hearted girl would not go to a boyfriend in trouble--especially one who's (allegedly) been taken advantage of--when his parents call for her? You can, at least, feel proud of her instincts to help someone in trouble, her loyalty. Had this event not occurred you don't know that she would have behaved differently from what you hoped and expected from her. The only way I ever know out of these things is for parents to latch onto the friend in question. You need to show respect to your daughter by respecting her choice at this time-- she's not bad or wrong or crazy or stupid-- so there's something in this relationship for her, and you need to try to understand what it is. (And I don't mean, "What could you POSSIBLY see in him?", but rather, an approach like, "So I admit that so-and-so is not very appealing to me, but obviously, you like him very much. I'd really like to understand why. There must be something about him that is wonderful, something that doesn't necessarily show up in the circumstances in which we see him.") Try talking to her about his social ineptness--she sees it, as you've noted--what does she think it is? Would it help if you took the initiative in greeting him? What can you do to make him feel more comfortable? Etc. In other words, you have to be willing to give the relationship its best shot... which doesn't mean you can't still set limits around driving with him, or whatever--temporary limits, you could say, until you know more about him--or going out in groups, or keeping certain hours, etc. (But be sure you have a way of enforcing such limits!) But you have to tell her that you KNOW you cannot control her behavior and that, frankly, in most areas of her life, you feel no need or desire to--let her know how proud you are of her in every area of her life. And that, even with the boy friend, though you can admit you don't really like him so far and worry a lot about the jail thing, you're sure she has her reasons for choosing him, and you're interested, therefore, in knowing him better. Try to listen more than talk--listen to what she feels, thinks about this boy--what she thinks happened vis-a-vis the bat incident, her feelings and thoughts on the night you were gone and the parents called her up--what she went through in making the decision she did. I hope this is enough to give you the idea of the only approach I know of that has a chance to stand up against the powerful feelings of adolescents vis-a-vis friends (let alone "boyfriend/girlfriend"). Good luck! Jean. Disclaimer: Ms. Walbridge's
response to your question is intended to be educational and informative.
It is not a substitute for face to face consultation or psychotherapy
with a mental health professional. |
Deidre), but am beginning to have some issues with trust and
rebellion due to her relationship with a 17 year old boyfriend.