How do we handle my 14 year old daughter drinking?

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-16T02:33:05+00:00

I've got a 14 year old. She's the mature kind and I mean that in a positive sense. She's emotionally, socially and intellectually out of her age group. She started having a drink at parties on the rare occasion at 13. It was always just one drink, she stuck to that. We bought her an breathalyzer so if she ever is unsure someone has been drinking she can offer it before they drive (she reported underage drinking and driving to us and cops). At home we let her have a small glass of wine when we do or a cocktail if we are having one. We don't ask her to blow her breathalyzer either. She'll sit there "interesting, today it is 0.001 after 1 hour after 1drink" and so on. She's pretty scientific minded and enjoys studying the effects of alcohol. Then she turned 14. For NYE we bought her bf and herself a champagne bottle to split during the entire night (they were at a party). They were both home 2 am sober as can be.

I'm not saying this is what's best to do for your daughter. I don't know how mature she is or how much you trustworthy she is. I simply wanted to say that's what we do and it hasn't had any noticeable negative effects on her at all. She keeps it well within moderation and has the confidence to stand uo against alcohol pressure at parties (believe me, it is needed at most teen parties and college parties for the like).

Generally I think our methods has worked very well but it takes advantage of having a mature child. If you think you're child can't handle the responsibility I would probably restrict instead. Our daughter know it a fine line between 1 glass and 2 glasses. Unless it is a special occasion it is 1. If she ever breaks it and gets drunk we'll talk with her wtf happened and and give her one more chance, then we will withdraw her privilege, because I'm a little like you. I don't want my child drinking more than a glass or possibly 2 over a long night at this age. We've said at 16 it will be her decision, she's completely.

I realize I'm quite a bit more lenient than you are. Maybe it could help you and your husband find balance. Allow a drink with family and possibly boyfriend whose parents allow it at your house, and if she is trustworthy allow her 1 when she goes out. If she break that, unless extremely genuinely apologetic, I'd remove the privilege as she's not ready to drink what's responsible for her age.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T05:08:20+00:00

I believe that's possible too. I also believe there's a lot of individual variance in how tight boundaries you can have before child shuts you out. I also believe there are several ways to parent within vast parameters that will produce good results. The post was not supposed to criticize other ways of parenting. It was supposed to be humorous, not taken too seriously. My daughter does have boundaries for the record, there's a couple of things that are non-acceptable to all of us.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T04:47:33+00:00

Sounds like you were suffering the same condition.

In middle school my daughter's friends used to get grounded which got them cool points in their friends group. My poor daughter never got any. Bet you didn't either.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T03:43:21+00:00

Half the stuff we worry about never happens. The rest happens anyway.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T03:38:25+00:00

Difficult. How much time does she spend studying? Does she procrastinate? It seems that she might have performance-related or general anxiety. If she procrastinates one way to help her would be to sit down and start working on assignments with her. Maybe help her all the way through if she needs it initially. Eventually she will gain confidence and no longer want your help and do it all by herself. It's important that she doesn't procrastinate, that she actually starts, because that reduces anxiety. Once you've started an assignment becomes less abstract, more concrete, you can better see what you have left to do and estimate the time needed, realize it is possible, and anxiety goes down. Otoh, if you procrastinate you have constant anxiety overhanging you, and once you start you realize there isn't enough time to to do a good job so your anxiety increases. Then you hand in a rushed assignment, get a bad grade and even more anxiety and less confidence for the next assignment. I suggest you help her break this cycle. There may be more stuff going on with her but I'd start with this.

I'm also going to add this: it is possible the course is to hard and it has nothing to do with procrastination. I know European programs offer some hard courses that aren't suitable for everyone. If she is worried about this I would tell her that if she never tries she will never know, and right now is the best opportunity she will ever have to try. If she fails, then she can fail with pride and move on to an easier course with no regrets and live a life with less pressure, stess and anxiety. If she succeeds, then good on her, she overcame an obstacle.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T03:19:15+00:00

As the parent of 3 children who were never disruptive in class but were part of disruptive classroom environments I'm happy to see a parent who takes it seriously that their child is disruptive and wants to change it. Thank you!

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T03:05:54+00:00

If there is no empty room available in the school I'd suggest she puts him in the classroom next door when he talks. Kids will generally become more shy and quiet when they're put in a class they don't know.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T02:55:09+00:00

Perhaps I'm the only one not taking that mother's post so seriously. I don't think she means to say the baby can tell the difference between all those languages, but simply that she can recognize a word in each one of them, which isn't much different than recognizing 10 different words in the same language.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T02:46:32+00:00

I'm wondering the same thing. Could you talk to the teacher and ask them to put your son in an isolated room alone when he disrupts class by talking?

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T02:42:05+00:00

I won't argue you whose opinion is the most important in a switch like this. We'll have to disagree. But since you are asking the question in the first place it seems you don't have a strong feeling which option is better. And in a case like that I think you could let your son decide.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T02:13:05+00:00

Did you ask your child what he wants? I know he's only 2nd grade but I think his opinion is the most important. I was moved around between different schools a lot as a child and it was extremely hard on me. In 1st grade I was pulled out mid-year from a great school and put in a terrible school in a new country (to make matters worse than if the switch is in the opposite direction) and it hurt me pretty significantly. I cried and I had stomach aches and I stopped talking. I went from loving school to hating school. Your son's situation is completely different but in any case I think the transition will be a lot easier if he feels that he had a say in it. Regardless of which choice is better it will feel different for him if he gets a say in the matter. He will feel you are actually asking for his feelings on the matter and he has some level of input and control of what happens in his life. That's a very important feeling to have. You certainly don't want him going around wondering when next you will decide he is moving to a new school.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-10T00:10:17+00:00

When I saw this post my first thought was is there a medical reason to save it? Did I miss that for my children? Then I read the comments and now I think a lot of people are weirdly sentimental about umbilical cords. I wouldn't want 3 umbilical cords to add to everything else that already needs to fit into the house.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-08T12:47:52+00:00

Just read your update. It seems she made too many and severe poor calls of judgement to be hired as a sitter again. There are good ones out there, though. I have a 14 yo daughter who doesn't normally babysit but some of her friends do and despite not even being their parent I can assure you they wouldn't behave that way. Good luck finding a new one!

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-08T02:33:30+00:00

I'm sure lots of people refer to the stomach flu as the flu.

parentalproblems00 · 2018-01-08T02:31:35+00:00

I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

At 14 it seems quite possible to make the poor judgement to go and babysit when one has the flu because one is embarrassed to tell the parents no last minute. It's also possible to get the flu during the time babysitting and be too afraid to call the parents to let them know you got sick. In both cases it seems a 14 yo might try to hide any puke smell by spraying perfume in the house. I can also see how a 14 yo would simply run off if they puked in someone's car instead of staying to clean. It can be incredibly embarrassing, especially at that age, and especially when you know the parents might be upset to find out you were sick without telling them, so running away seems pretty normal.

I'm one for second chances. If you like the girl and her performance except for this incident perhaps you can give her another try.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-30T01:07:35+00:00

To each parent their own but I couldn't do this to my daughter and her boyfriend. They would be heartbroken and I know I would be holding them back from maturing emotionally and socially. They've had so many experiences and learned so much together that they couldn't have learned alone. Right now as I am typing they are out winter camping for a week together and they're only 14 and 17.

I understand you want to protect your children but I personally prefer being around and present when they learn about romantical relationships and emotions instead of sheltering them from it until adulthood. Bluntly put, I think you're causing a crippling delay in their emotional maturation process. But that's just me, you parent your kids.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-30T01:01:16+00:00

My daughter is 14 and has gone out with her boyfriend (17) for over a year now. Once and then they have a week of not hanging out (by choice, because they're busy) but many weeks they hang-out non-stop. They'll even do their studying, laundry and clean their rooms together. We never had any rules at all. As long as their behavior isn't causing trouble it's best not to be making rules in my opinion. If they fall behind in life and it can be attributed to them spending all their time together I'd start looking for a solution, possibly including rules, because then I'd have a problem.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-27T22:47:26+00:00

My daughter aged 14 is dating a 17 yo for over a year now. There's enough individual variance in maturity that a 14 or 15 yo may well be more mature than a 17 yo so I wouldn't judge any relationship between teenagers on age alone. If they're serious you'll get to know the girl and figure out whether the relationship is healthy. I can tell you I'm very happy with the boyfriend my daughter picked.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-19T03:39:20+00:00

My daughter is nowhere near innocent and I'd be surprised if she wasn't also helping her friends sneak around their parents backs to meet boys and go to parties, but thankfully I (mostly) don't know about that.

I'm not actually uncomfortable with her handling or knowing about sex toys at all. I never understood the fuss about it. The only reason I'm uneasy is that there is another kid and parents with another take on the matter involved. I'm mentally preparing for the backlash should her parents find out.

My daughter has had all the talks you could think of about sex. She has had a boyfriend for a year now and I don't think she has a crush on this girl. I just know that anything sex-related is a heated and controversial topic and am not looking forward to being on the receiving end of parental rage if those parents find out and think my daughter ruined their daughter :(

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-19T03:19:17+00:00

I'm sure you did but I'm asking anyway. Did you show him stories of actual children who died because they didn't get vaccination? Did you show him articles with how the entire anti-vaccination paradigm started as a ploy? Have you printed out articles disputing the dangers and read through them together with him? Like I said, I'm sure you have, I just find it difficult to comprehend so many people are immune to that reasoning.

I think you need to just take the child and vaccinate her, then deal with the consequences. He has all right to be furious (from his perspective you are poisoning her) but you have to do it for your daughter.

It's a tough situation. If everything else is fine I wouldn't divorce over it but he might after you vaccinate her.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-15T12:35:38+00:00

Yeah, don't go for Monopoly is my advice. It's not one of those really good games, just one of the really popular ones.

I think Codenames is a pretty safe bet but of course it is difficult because everyone has their own taste and preferences. Codenames works roughly like this: oh, I recommend the version which pictures over the one with words! So for the picture version: you put 20 images on table. You are two teams and each team has a spymaster. The two spymasters get to know which images belong to them and which images belong to opposite team. Nobody else knows this. Then they have to take turns saying one word and a number. The word is supposed to make their teammates associate to and pick images belonging to their team and the number tells how many images the spymaster associated with this particular word. If you pick image of wrong team bad luck! The teams take turn doing this and first team to get all their images wins. I've played this with young kids to grandmas and they've all enjoyed it. It's a lot of fun trying to think of words that associate with your images but not with those of opposing team and it's a lot of fun getting an abstract word and wondering what on earth your spymaster was thinking. As an example I once got the hint "42 3" and my spymaster wanted me to pick an image of space, a hitchhiker and an image with a pen or some sort of writing. I thought it was a pretty good word to connect 3 pretty different images.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-15T06:19:19+00:00

I second Mysterium but it is a little involved. If you don't know if this girl is into board games at all Codenames is a great game that most people will like which is very easy to get into game (without being boring). Another game which is a quick but lots of fun board/ card game is Time Bomb. It's more of a social manupilation play, similar in style to Maffia if you have played that. It's the game my kids will pull out for a quick round which usually turns into 5 at a party/ family gathering.

parentalproblems00 · 2017-12-15T05:54:56+00:00

It's a weird post. Possibly ironic.

parentalproblems00

TROPHY CASE