How to Reach a Rebellious Teenage Daughter:
Don't ask me. I haven't got a clue. When she isn't utterly infuriating me until I fly off the handle and say something I oughtn't, she's casually abusing me and as a matter of course expecting me to go out of my way to help her. Does anybody out there have a handle on theirs?
In 20-20 hindsight, I think of very clever, very compelling things I could say to her, but none of them ever occur to me in mid-confrontation. Sometimes, all one can do is hang on tight and refuse to give up, and also refuse to give in. That worked with my two oldest boys, who both are now over eighteen and have turned out splendidly, in my humble opinion (full disclosure: I am their father and therefore biased). How they got that way is still a mystery, though. It can't have been anything I did at a critical moment, can it? I was almost as much in the dark about what to do with them. I say almost, because at least we had the same sort of plumbing and hormonal impulses in common. In the case of my only daughter, though, I am perpetually in the twilight zone, wondering how to get off the 13th Floor.
Does anyone out there more enlightened than myself care to share their insights and advice?
Don't ask me. I haven't got a clue. When she isn't utterly infuriating me until I fly off the handle and say something I oughtn't, she's casually abusing me and as a matter of course expecting me to go out of my way to help her. Does anybody out there have a handle on theirs?
In 20-20 hindsight, I think of very clever, very compelling things I could say to her, but none of them ever occur to me in mid-confrontation. Sometimes, all one can do is hang on tight and refuse to give up, and also refuse to give in. That worked with my two oldest boys, who both are now over eighteen and have turned out splendidly, in my humble opinion (full disclosure: I am their father and therefore biased). How they got that way is still a mystery, though. It can't have been anything I did at a critical moment, can it? I was almost as much in the dark about what to do with them. I say almost, because at least we had the same sort of plumbing and hormonal impulses in common. In the case of my only daughter, though, I am perpetually in the twilight zone, wondering how to get off the 13th Floor.
Does anyone out there more enlightened than myself care to share their insights and advice?
posted by Ben Maxwell | 12:54 PM
1 Comments:
Even though I haven't got a clue, I must have done something right. My daughter is on the mend, and back to her original sweet self. Perhaps the only thing I did do right was to be there when she came around, and let her know that love was still in me for her.
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