Hi folks. Sorry for the lack of anything this week. It's been a tough week. One kid has a deep concussion and the other needs one... I terminated her digital life this week and sent out lots of warnings about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Lots of other things all blew up this week as well. Ug. Anyways, I'll start writing again asap.
14 comments:
Oh my! Parenting is never easy. I hope everything gets back in order for you soon.
Thanks. It's been an exhausting week.
"This is why lions eat their young."
-the late Phil Harris, formerly of 'Deadliest Catch'
Andrew, I think I just had a thought of you imprisoned in a medieval dungeon and imitating Katherine Hepburn.
"Why, hello..."
I was wondering what was going on, though it all makes sense now (as well as makes me glad that I've only got cats to look after). Hope things settle down soon and that the injured daughter feels better and the bratty one gets straightened out soon!
Parenting is a minefield these days and I am glad my days of raising kids are over. Sorry you're having such a tough week and I hope the kid with the concussion heals quickly and completely. The situation with the other kid sounds all too familiar. I raised my own daughter that was pretty similar in behavior. There were days when I sure one of us was not going to live to tell the story, but eventually she grew up. I can't say she isn't sort of high maintenance these days, but she's married with a toddler and one on the way. There is light at the end of the tunnel if you can hang in there. Praying you can.
Thanks for the support everyone.
Thanks Stacy! High maintenance is definitely a good word for it. This one has a knack for trouble. This time, she discovered that certain 17+ year old boys love to text about sex and offer "weed" to 13 year old girls online. There were over 40 of them. That, plus sneaking out and not being there in the morning, started the week off nicely. I spent the week trying to figure out how to isolate her from the male half of the human race.
Stacy, Adding insult to injury, not only am I dealing with this, but I'm being inundated with "advice." Most of it is total crap and basically just insulting. For example, you hear a lot of "You need to punish her." Do you really think I haven't tried that?
And when you tell them you do punish, you get "Well, you need to be harder." And the ever popular, "If it were me, she'd never see the light of day again." Good thinking... and how do I do that exactly?
This all offered from total ignorance with no knowledge what we've done or what works, offered with no specifics, and offered with no clue as to what is possible or not. One person suggested I make her walk to school... four miles, over a super dangerous major road, past the homes of the boys who are the problem. Good thinking there!
It reminds me of weight loss advice. I have an acquaintance who is trying very hard to lose weight. She very strict about her diet, but gets similarly asinine advice: "eat less." Oh, is that all? Gee, hadn't thought of that! Some will say, "exercise more," without any realization that she runs four marathons a year and practices religiously for them.
I'm not sure why people think they should offer idiotic advice at times like this, but it's very annoying.
I've heard every one of those comments you've mentioned. I even had one counselor I was paying to help her tell me to unground her after she was caught riding on the console of a truck doing 70 in a 25mph zone by the state police. She was underage so they called us. The counselor's reason? It gave her too much time to think. Uh, that was kind of the point. I stopped giving that quack my money on the spot. But yeah, my daughter was a little older than yours, but still underage when she was texting older guys, lying to us about where she was, etc. I had so many sleepless nights waiting for "that" phone call that thankfully never came. I have zero advice to give you except make sure you and your wife are on the same page when it comes to how you handle it because the girl will play the two of you something awful. There's no magic formula, no one therapy or medicine or anything that changed things. God, how I wish there had been. It was the worst 5 or 6 years of my life. The one bit of advice I will give you one bit of advice and I know it will be hard to follow, but don't deal with her in the heat of the moment when something happens. Give both of you a timeout and talk to her when you are calm and tell her over and over you love her. She might reject it now, but she'll remember later. And one other thing I did that killed me was tell her if she ever found herself in a bad situation she could call me to come and rescue her from it with no punishment. (I didn't tell her that we WOULD talk about it the next day.) She did call once or twice.
Thanks, Stacy. We try to remember those things. And we do try to not make decisions until we calm down. The problem is, as I see it, that she wants something her mother and father are not really capable of giving her, and unless they do, this is only going to get worse (As the song said, "looking for love in all the wrong places"). So I fear this is just the beginning.
As an aside, I think what you did about the bad situations is actually very smart. I don't want her getting into trouble, but I definitely don't want her being afraid to call for help when she finds it.
Thanks again! :)
Andrew; First, as far as the time goes, it doesn't matter if you take off a week or a month or whatever, your life and your family come first. We all understand that and we'll all be here when you get back.
Second, as far as all that bad advice goes, remember what Raylan told Tim when Arloe died. "Never say anything unless you know it's gonna help." We all should look more to Raylan Givens for life advice, the world would be a better place.
Best hopes for your children and the sanity of you and your wife.
GypsyTyger
Prayers for you and your family, AP, notably the daughter with the concussion. Closed head injuries scary, scary things, hope she's better soon.
Andrew,
As a father of two teenage girls I sympathize. Not much I can say but good luck. Hopefully everything gets better soon.
Thanks again for the support folks!
GypsyTyger, Mr. Givens was a smart man!
Thanks, EP! She's a good deal better. She's still light sensitive -- even after a week of doing nothing and sitting in the quasi dark, but she's improving a lot.
Anthony, Thanks! I appreciate that. This is one of those things far beyond the child rearing manual.
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