daughters's trust?
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daughters's trust?
| Fri, 07-20-2007 - 10:49am |
I have a 16 year old daughter, she is a wonderful kid! She, however, is perhaps the most private person I have ever dealt with. I totally respect her privacy, and treasure the (very) few moments that she confides in me. I understand that she is pulling away from us and trying to establish her own identity, but sometimes it just gets aggravating and I get concerned. I am not worried about what she does with her friends, most of them are from a religious youth group that she is involved with, and their impact on her has been pretty positive. Anyway, we just received our cell phone bill and found that she has been texting a boy that she met on a recent retreat, over 700 messages in all!(We have unlimited texting on our plan). She has made absolutely no mention of this kid, and I am sure that it is all innocent,he lives in another state, honestly the way I found out was from my older daughter. I also found out from one of her friends moms that he will be down here next weekend to attend a grad party that they are both going to, he is staying at their house, and she mentioned that my daughter must be excited to see him, and I was like "huh?". I am not terribly concerned about the texting, however, I don't understand her need to keep this all so hush hush. I am not sure whether to confront her on the messaging or just keep quiet. I do not want to break her trust or have her think I am invading her space, but on the other hand, do I deserve to know whats going on? I remember my parents finding notes when I was a teenager, and being so angry that they read them, I do not want her to feel the same way towards me. Thank you for reading this post, it may sound silly, but any and all advice would be so apprecited. It can be really difficult navigating the teenage waters!

i agree, keep it casual. might just drop the mention of someone saying she must be excited to see him. ask about him. but also tell her exactly what you told us, she's private and that you cherish the things she tells you. ask her how she feels. if she's excited, be excited for her. she might be a bit leery of spreading the word and it sounding like a bf?
best wishes
sallie
However, we have a 17 year old son who is dating a girl who lives about 45 miles away. He won't stay off the phone! We have had to put restrictions on talk time and phone use, because it is long distance. Although they met on a church youth group outing, she seems to come from a home without rules. He also wants to live without rules.
Three weeks ago he decided that he was leaving to go live with she and her mom. sister, sisters boyfriend...WOW! Was that ever a trip.
I would never read the texts, however I would ask at the right time who is using so much text time. I would also mention that it isn't a problem, per se, due to unlimited texting. But that it is a concern because of the amount of time spent.
Stepson has cell phone which he pays for so his calls are restricted to that #, texting lasts throughout the night at times. This does concern me in that he is tired the next day. He has a summer job, with his dad, so he is not working at full potential. He also has an ATTITUDE that won't stop. Most likely due to lack of sleep. School will start soon and he has to work very hard in order to gain enough credits to graduate this year. He has failed to reach potential for the past 3 years and must take extra classes to make up those credits. I can only hope that thngs work out, I am afraid that if he fails to get through he will just give up.
I am very close to both my daughters, both talk to me when they will talk to no one else. The oldest (19) has even told her boyfriend that I am her BEST friend and there are times when she needs to just talk to Mom. So he will have to wait it out and get over it. She does not talk to her father because he doesn't like her boyfriend and every time he begins to yell at her about spending time with the boyfriend and not him. She moved out of he fathers house last month because of it and now lives with her boyfriend.
We went through a time when she was very private also, then she opened back up. It was about the time she turned 16. Normal? Maybe, maybe not. Will ot get better? probably.
Has she always been this way? It might be that she thinks your too old to understand how she feels. Not that you are, but you are the mom not the friend down the street. Is there anyone who she talks to about things? Maybe a sibling, aunt, uncle, friends parent? If so talk to them and maybe between you you can get through the fog without invading her world.
Your first two sentences said it all. She's a wonderful kid and very private. Perhaps even she's not sure what the relationship means yet, so let her go at her own pace.
Regarding the text messages...those can really add up. By the time they each text a sentence and then respond, and then respond, and then respond....well, you get the picture. That's why we have unlimited TM too. My girls use TM about 99% of the time and only talk on the phone probably 1% of the time...:>)
We have unlimited texting, dd had so many text messages over the amt. that she had on her contract that she owed up $32.00 one month. Just happened that it was time that they could get new phones and needed them, so they bought themselves new phones, she pays for most of the extra for texting and now we have unlimited. She was costing us money even though she was paying that extra, because she would text me and it cost me everytime she sent me one and then I had to reply. So now this works out great. 700 sounds like a lot to us, but as someone else said, they really build up fast.
Good luck,
Kristie