AskHal

Now that my daughter is in her teens, she is developing a whole new set of friends and frankly, they scare me a little! I don’t know them very well, but they look like an intimidating bunch and to be honest, I’m afraid that she will become a part of this bad crowd. What should I do?

Here’s a question for you. Why do you think she chose those friends? The answer: because you hate them. The more you react to the body piercings and tattoos, the more of them you’ll start to see around your house. It is in the nature of teenagers to try and press all of the buttons we have and we actually help them do this by handing over our remote controls. There’s a great story by Edwin Friedman of a baby bird whose parents nudge him out of the nest. He is the last of 10 and the parents are really ready for him to leave. As they encourage him to fly, he refuses, saying, “I’ll be darned if I’m going to flap my wings just because they want me to.” Even though he really wants to fly, he stubbornly refuses just to spite his parents. It’s not until they leave the nest that he tries flying for himself.

What would it look like if you took the time to get to know these friends? Try to see in them what your daughter does. Maybe they are fiercely loyal. Perhaps they make her laugh. Whatever the case, the one thing you can do to ensure that these friendships will continue is to be diametrically opposed to them. If they genuinely are a bad influence on your daughter, the last thing you want is to drive her away from you and towards them.