Answered questions(8)
13 year old creative introvert!
My 13 year old son has a problem with self confidence and self esteem. He has always been shy but he is a lovely person and a great artist and a true pleasure to be around for anyone that takes the time to get to know him. I watch him with his classmates at school and he just lets them walk all over him and he never stands up for himself. It is so hard for me to sit back and watch but I don’t think having him mom wading in to fight his battles for him is going to help him in the long run. How can I get him to be more assertive and confident with his friends at school? He wants to fit in so badly so he just lets people treat him very poorly just so he’ll have a group to belong to. I tell him that real friends don’t make you do things you don’t want to do but I know my words probably don't carry the same weight as his need to fit in with his peers. I am worried that he is going to get involved with dangerous things like drugs since he seems like he’ll go along with anything just to fit in.
Read answer →Huffing Highs
I came home from work sick yesterday and found my son in his room huffing glue. I was shocked! He is only 13. We had a long talk about how dangerous it was to do this. He said he didn’t know how dangerous it was and that he had only done it a few times over the last few months. He says he will not do it anymore. I think he was pretty scared to learn about the brain damage that huffing causes. We looked it up on the internet together so he could see that it wasn’t just his dad that said it was dangerous. I am a single dad and I am not sure what to do now. I am going to enroll him in an after school program so he does not have so much free time everyday before I get home from work. I think this is when he gets into trouble. I am worried that he has been huffing more than he has admitted he was. I do not know if he has an addiction or not. Should I take him to a doctor or psychiatrist to find out if he has an addiction? I am not sure who the person is that I am supposed to go to for help in this kind of situation.
Read answer →Teens on Facebook
My 13 year old daughter forgot to log out of her facebook account and when I got on the computer I couldn’t help myself but take a look. I know it was an invasion of her privacy but I just did it anyway. I know that 13 year olds are way too grown up these days but I was shocked at the stuff these kids were talking about, about marijuana and drinking and sex and posting provocative pictures. My daughter had posted some shots of herself in her bedroom that were obviously supposed to be sexy shots of her in her underwear. It is very hard to see this. I have not told her that I snooped through her account but I am very worried about this. Is this normal behavior for a 13 year old girl? What should I do about this?
Read answer →My son is stuck!
My son lives at home. He dropped out of college last year and he works an overnight gas station job and otherwise sleeps and sits at home playing video games and I think smoking a lot of pot. I am so frustrated with his apathy because he is a very smart guy he could do anything but seems to be choosing to just do nothing. My wife says it’s just a phase he is going through and that eventually he will get bored with this life and decide for himself to move on to something better and that if we try to force the issue before he’s ready it will just end up like the last time he failed out of college. I am starting to worry that he will never choose to do anything more than he is doing right now unless we force the issue. How do I make someone who doesn’t want to care about the future care about the future? Kicking him out of the house is totally not an option from my wife’s perspective.
Read answer →12 year-old drug use
How worried should I be if I saw one of my 12 year old son’s good friends smoking a joint behind the mall? I was shocked to see this and I thought we had at least a couple more years before these kids would be exposed to drugs and alcohol. My son swears he has never done drugs and he says he didn’t know that his friend was using drugs. I have a feeling I am not getting the whole story. What should I do? I want to forbid my son to see this other boy, I want to make my son take a drug test, I want to yell at this boy’s parents – but everything seems wrong. I don’t know what to do to protect my son.
Read answer →Not a fairytale
My niece lives with me. She is 14 and her parents were killed in a car crash 4 years ago. I was happy at the time to take her in and raise her as my own but I must admit that it has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. She is now having a lot of behavior issues at school. She is hanging with a very bad crowd and she is experimenting with smoking and drugs and drinking. She was caught shoplifting before Christmas and the police brought her home a month before that suspecting her of an act of vandalism that they couldn’t prove she committed. I have 2 kids of my own aged 8 and 11. I am worried that she is a bad influence for them. Because she is older I have higher expectations for my niece than for my children but she interprets that as a double standard, as if she is Cinderella and we are the mean family that makes her work while we play. She thinks we treat her differently than we do the other kids but it really just isn’t true. I am not sure what to do with her and I am thinking about some type of boarding school for kids with conduct problems. If she was my own kid I think this would be an easy decision to make. She needs an intervention and she needs it now and the path she is on right now in this home and at this school with these friends she has is not a good one at all. But since she already feels on some level that she isn’t a real part of our family I am worried that she will feel like we are sending her away because we don’t want her anymore and that instead of making things better, this is going to cause her to get worse. She has had a really hard time and I want her to succeed in life. I also really do love her like one of my own. How do I get her out of this bad situation she is in without making her feel like we are pushing her away?
Read answer →Out of Control Teenage Son
I can't control my 15 year old son and I don't know what do. He won't come home some nights and he doesn't answer my phone calls and then he is vague about where he has been. I ground him and he just doesn't come home again. I take away all his privileges and he doesn't care, he just goes out. I stop his allowance and he always seems to have lot of money that I don't know where he gets. He won't talk to me and the only thing I can think to do is the thing I never want to do which is kick him out of the house! How do I make this situation better. My wife and I are at the end of our rope and we just do not know what to do.
Read answer →Seductive Teen-Daughter
I am in a very difficult situation. My 14 year old daughter is flirting heavily with my new boyfriend and wearing inappropriate clothing around the house when he is over. She denies doing it but it is very awkward for him and for me. I think that she does it to get back at me for disciplining her for recent problems she has had like shoplifting and drinking in the park with her friends. I find it disgusting of course that she acts like this but I do not know how upset or worried I should be. Is this normal behavior for a girl her age.
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