But can you drive us to the mall?
Okay. This is how my daughter is right now. I have been informed that I am too nosy and in her business. I have been giving this very much thought and I am trying to figure out if I am too nosy or just protective. This school year my daughter has been through several things that have made me this way. We started out our school year by her being told to go kill herself on her website by a very not nice girl. This girl told her to go cut herself because no one would shed a tear. She also called her ugly and emo, which she is neither, but she had a very hard time with this because she had never been spoken to like this. She had some couseling for this episode which she recovered from nicely when she realized the girl that said all of this was trash and must have some serious issues herself. She was told these things because the little evil girl liked daughter's boyfriend. Next, daughter's little boyfriend (same boy) was doing some things to raise red flags and daughter did not seem to see them. It was hard to sit back and watch, but at the point that I felt my daughter was being manipulated to the point I felt it might put her in a position she was not old enough to handle, I stepped in (examples: prentending to be his older brother online to get information out of her, forwarding his cell phone calls to her so that all of his calls go to her phone, befriending the girl that told her to go kill herself, etc.). Recently, (very recently), this same boy threated her, himself and also told her this, "what if I took a gun to school?" - She was so scared for him. Of course we reported him to the school, he was suspended, and in my opinion, that was a cry for help and I hope he gets it. This has been a lot for a teenage girl to handle in a short period of time. All of this has caused me to check on her often, curious about who she is talking to, what is going on, etc. I am not doing anything like reading notes or anything like that, but supposedly I am being nosy and driving her crazy. She is a good girl and has not given me any reason to not trust her, but I feel I cannot trust some of the kids around her. She has wonderful and great friends and I do trust them, however, I also know there are some really messed up kids out there and those are the ones that scare me. I think I am just feeling protective of her since she has been through so much already. She is strong and seems to have handle all of this wonderfully, but I guess I am scared for her. I feel like her innocence is being stripped from her and I worry about that. I also am now worried this boy might do something where as before, I thought he was just playing games with her. Am I being nosy or protective? At what point do I let go a little after we recover from this latest ordeal? And, why should we feel bad about reporting someone that lost it enough to threaten himself, her and her school?
One day I hope she can forgive me for caring. If not, oh well, I am just doing my job.
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1 comment:
Every child, every parent is different but here are a few thoughts that immediately come to mind…
Do what you can but above all, don’t second-guess yourself.
There are so many parents that distance themselves from their children because they don’t want to intrude. You want to be your daughter’s friend but your first and most important job is to be her mother. Sometimes, it can be difficult to maintain both positions and when that happens, you might have to choose between being the pal or the parent.
I don’t think there is a way to achieve perfection in child rearing. There is no one-size-fits-all answer except, if need be, to err on the side of their safety and well-being. They will understand soon enough and live long enough to thank you for the effort :)
-R
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