PARENTS WHO CARE ABOUT THEIR KIDS
Kids will listen to the advice of strangers more often than they will listen to their own parents. Especially if the parents stuck the kid with some crappy therapist or psychologist.
Cheryl wrote:
I saw you on the TODAY SHOW this morning and liked your approach. I found your website and think your advice for my daughter might be on point. As I write this, this is my perspective as her mom, so I realize it is once removed. But this is causing so many problems in her life, I am seeking help outside of the therapist she has seen off and on.
She had her first relationship with an alpha male boy last year and he broke up with her the end of last school year. He broke up saying they were too entangled and he needed space. During the next few days, she did very well, grieved, and started to move along. He saw that and talked with her and that is when it seemed, the real hook went in, and she has been trying to “work” something out with him since then. They don’t date but they are in the same circle and see each other a lot. This year they are trying to be friends, and, at times, I thought it was working to do that. But now I am thinking it isn’t helping her out to see him but she does see him. As her father and I see it, our daughter wants to keep a connection with this boy so badly, that she will do just about anything, no we don’t believe they have had sex all the way but have played around, but by anything I mean, compromise who she is just to be with him, to keep a connection by phone calls, etc., with him. With this connection, she says she then feels OK, that he understands her better than any other friends. So not talking with him, fighting with him, equals disaster. And she is in a terrible mood until they get back to talking.
How this is further affecting her is it has pulled her energy down, she is in the middle of college decisions, he got in a school she wanted to get into and didn’t so she’s crying about that, she is smart, has had many offers from other colleges plus scholar and financial offers but just wants to get into this one school and we are now appealing, so nothing else seems to have her attention and focus unless it somehow involves him. Not to paint a totally black picture she has kept her grades up enough to get honors. She gets depressed, she sleeps quite a bit, when she could be out enjoying life as a free 18 year old, she is not going to dance classes-she is a dance major and needs to keep improving her skills, so her entanglement with this has caused the reverse. We discussed this last night and she used many of the words the women in the video before your interview with Al used…begging for getting anything, needing to be with someone to feel connected, to feel happy, feeling good only with that person, etc..
HOW can we help her? What can we do? We are concerned about her battling this at a vulnerable time of leaving home.
I answered:
Dear Mommy Dearest, kidding ;)
I wish I had had parents that cared about me the way you do about your daughter. Ok, you know that she will take advice from strangers more often than she will you because, after all, you're the "parents". That said, is there anyway you could get her to email me?
You tell her this: What she does now will affect her entire future. However, the future to an 18 year old is 3 weeks. Tell her I do relationship advice for celebrities in Us Weekly and all sorts of other people. Tell her that I can help her 'change" any man. Which is true but I have to get her hooked first so that she'll listen to me and realize this guy is not what she needs anyway. What I'll do is tell her to do certain things [no, I don't mean sexual in anyway] to get his attention. Once she sees he's a push over she'll be turned off and get back to focusing on the things that matter; school and the next cute boy. I want to explain to her how guys are and what her guy is REALLY thinking and saying by his actions. I'm NOT the guy that bashes men to get his point across, instead I explain that guys are the way we are and it's in understanding us--however counter intuitive to women--that you see the light. Tell her my advice is from the source and that I've done to her what this guy is doing and I can tell her how to figure him out. Remember, don't force it on her...girls her age are as tough as nails. Just tell her I know what he's thinking ;) And, trust me, I do. I helped a brilliant girl at Dartmouth "beat" the star hockey player bad boy into buying her stuff from Tiffanys and wanting to introduce her to his parents. In the end she dumped him. Your daughter just wants what she can't have: it's romantic, dramatic, and tumultuous. We'll break her of that and turn her into a Angelina Joli...well, maybe not with all the foreign adoption problems.
Let me know.
