Jean selects one parent question and one
question from a teen/preteen to respond to each week. The selected
questions and Jean's responses are posted on this page.
"My 13 year old daughter will be a high school
freshman next fall. I'm worried about her riding in cars with teenage
drivers..." ( Parent
Q&A )
"okay...
i am 14 years old... i have
a friend who is 14 and she has been cutting
herself..." (
Teen Q&A
)
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Dear
Jean, My 13 year old daughter will be a high school
freshman next fall. I'm worried about her riding in cars with
teenage drivers. She's a social kid who will, undoubtedly, get
offers for rides home, rides to the mall, "car dates," etc....
I'd like to set up some guidelines before the issue comes up.
So, what is a sensible family policy regarding riding in cars
with other teenagers? Thanks for your help!
Jean
responds: Hi, Thanks for
writing to parentingadolescents.com. Normally, I suggest
parents save rule-making or limit-setting for
situations in which behavior has proven problematic.
For instance, instead of making rules in advance
about when your child needs to be in at night, you wait to see
whether they come in at a reasonable hour. The first time
they stay out too late for your comfort, you tell them that it
was too late, in your view, and that you need to talk with
them about it. You don't give them a consequence for that
behavior the first time--because they had no warning that it
wasn't acceptable. But then in a negotiation with them, you
set a limit around the time they are to be in and design consequences
for their stepping over the line.
There are some issues, though, like sex
and drugs/booze--and maybe like driving/riding in cars--that
are important for parents to talk to their kids about in a
proactive way. In other words, in these areas, you bring up
the subject yourself, probably again and again, in
different contexts, so that you are sure your kids understand
your values and your sense of what's at risk for them in these
areas. are sure your kids understand your values and your
sense of what's at risk for them.
Maybe riding in cars
is an important enough issue for you to bring up proactively;
the only reason for my 'maybe' is that you don't want to
set her up to use riding in cars with teen drivers as a
way to act out her need not to follow your rules. In
other words, you don't want to be in a situation where you're
saying, "Now this is something that I don't want you ever to
do," thus drawing her attention to a quick and easy way to
show that she's not you and that you don't run her life!
Nonetheless, I think you can talk to her about the statistics regarding accident
rates as these relate to more than
one teen driving/riding in a car, to see if she's aware of
these. (Find these by clicking on the underlined text
above.) It would be logical also to explore the driving laws
in your State; in some States, it's illegal for teens to drive
with another teen in the car before the driver reaches a
certain age (this is called a graduated
driver's license program and is recommended by many safety
and insurance organizations).
After exploring these sources of information, you
can formulate what your policy is--or, and this is
probably better, the two of you together can look at these
statistics and then negotiate what the limit will be for her.
In this instance, because it hasn't been a problem (yet), I
wouldn't even mention consequences because that presumes she
will step over the line. What you need to be aware of is that
she MAY end up exceeding the limit you set/violating the
policy, and if and when she does, then you give her a
'freebie' for the first violation and at that time discuss
consequences for a next time.
With teens you're always walking the
line between respecting their need for autonomy and their need
for reasonable limits to help them stay alive through their
teen years, while not stimulating rebellion. It's not easy!
Hope I've given you food for thought.
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. [Click for
printer-friendly Q&A.]
PARENTS/SITE VISITORS: Do you feel you want to respond to this parent? Send us e-mail ; we'll consider posting your answer on a separate page.
okay... i am 14 years old... i have a friend who is 14
and she has been cutting herself... and idk what to do. i cry
and pray everynight that she doesn't kill herself. she has
always had a bad life but to result to this i dunno. its
really sad to see her do that. and i dunno if i should tell a
adult..... im really scared for her....
Jean responds: Hi, I can hear that you really care about your
friend, and that says something good about you. But often it's
hard to know how to help someone you care about. Here are some
thoughts:
How about telling your friend how worried you
are about her. Perhaps you could share with her that you
feel she has to get help. If there's a counselor or social
worker in your school, or even a school nurse, she could ask
one of them for help--or talk to any adult she trusts at
school. If she absolutely refuses to ask for help, and will
not talk to her parents either, then I think you could tell
her that you feel like you need to tell someone in order to be
acting as a good friend. If she threatens never to talk to you
again if you do that, you could tell her
that you hope she would change her mind about that, but that
sometimes, even if it means losing someone's friendship, you
have to try to act in their best interests. Then you could go
ahead and talk to someone like the counselor/social worker/or
nurse at your school. If you're afraid that she may increase
her efforts to hurt herself in the face of knowing that you're
going to talk to an adult about the situation, then I think
you have to go ahead and talk go someone without giving her
advance warning, and try to process it with her later.
This is a heavy burden for you to carry, and it
may help you also to talk to someone as well. Good luck, and
good for you for
caring.
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.
