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[Jookiba]

Originally Posted by Rainbowy

You may want to discuss with your daughter how this boyfreind treats her and whether he is willing to go to bat for her safety. Given the fact that it is wrong to sneak out and all that, even so, My DH says he would have been the one sneeking out, he said he as the man would not have wanted her to risk getting grounded AND would not have wanted her to be unsafe. Something your daughter might want to consider. My husband would walk through fire for me or our childrens safety. I married him because I saw how much he was willing to give for others. That is the kind of Man a girl should want to marry, not one who would let her walk 4 miles alone in the dead of night.

According to her, it was her idea. She wanted to go over there instead of him coming over here because of her brother, even though he was involved in the cover-up lies.

[Angileyze1]

I feel your pain. I have a DS 14 and a DD 16. Luckily, I am a former Marine and my husband is currently in the National Guard but is past Army. My kids don't exactly live in fear, but from day 1 we have been VERY strict and they have been CLOSELY watched. My DS will tell you that they've done things sneaky, but to do anything like that, they KNOW they'd be done for. We also have had a very active church life. I've also kept them involved in MANY different activities so that they have SO VERY LITTLE free time to themselves as possible. (Cheerleading, swim teams, boyscouts, drama, we did it all) Even after that, at 13 my DS came home with a hickey!!!! We had him by the shirt off the floor for a minute after that. It's been pretty quiet since then, (plus, the little trampy thing moved) Funny though, I've BEEN your daughter. That was ME as a teenager. I DID the whole sneaking out in the middle of the night. At 13, I was caught skipping school to be with a much older guy. All I can do now is send love and pixies your way until this phase passes.

[Huntermom]

I'd glad to hear you've been so careful about your own life. I represent many teens and it's pretty common to hear do as I say, not as I do.

One thing I wonder about is what happened to make your DD change her attitude towards school? I really don't buy the "it's hormonal" explanation. Can you think back to anything that may have changed? Both in and out of school? Was the change gradual or abrupt? I would set up a meeting with you, your DD and the school before school starts. The school should be helping you figure out why your gifted student lost interest in school. I would also look into options for her like private school (there are tons of scholarships) if she is still a sophomore. One other option may be to see if she can go to a community college for some classes.
It may put her in a more academically oriented situation and out of the high school drama. And if you have friends or relatives with trustworthy kids living at college, I might let her spend a little time with them at school. She can see what is ahead if she commits to school.

Again, my thoughts are with you.

Diane

[pflamingo]

How about tying her social life to her grades? Let her earn back her social privileges - supervised, of course - by bringing up her grades. Do you only get a grade report once a term from her school or do they have a system where you can get more frequent reports? I send home weekly grade reports to my students' parents, so they know immediately when there is a problem. I've also worked with them on the class behavior business - some have asked me to call them the same day a problem occurs - even a small one, like being too chatty in class. I do it and they can deal with it right away. I would hope DD's teachers would be cooperative about this, especially if you explained to them what's going on (not in gory details, just the basics). As soon as you see behavior and grades start to improve, give her back a few privileges - small ones at first, then bigger as she continues to improve. And she must follow your rules as far as who she sees, when, and where, or all bets are off and she's back to square one. It's a way of bringing up her grades, and giving her a chance to earn back your trust. I agree that banning the boy altogether just makes him more desirable. Seeing him can be the final carrot - I repeat, supervised, of course - when her grades are back to what you expect from her. Maybe by the time this happens, she'll have wised up and either realized she doesn't need a BF to validate her worth or found a more responsible guy.

[Rainbowy]

Originally Posted by Huntermom

One thing I wonder about is what happened to make your DD change her attitude towards school? I really don't buy the "it's hormonal" explanation. Can you think back to anything that may have changed? Both in and out of school? Was the change gradual or abrupt? I would set up a meeting with you, your DD and the school before school starts. The school should be helping you figure out why your gifted student lost interest in school. I would also look into options for her like private school (there are tons of scholarships) if she is still a sophomore. One other option may be to see if she can go to a community college for some classes.
It may put her in a more academically oriented situation and out of the high school drama. And if you have friends or relatives with trustworthy kids living at college, I might let her spend a little time with them at school. She can see what is ahead if she commits to school. Diane

I think that Diane has some good advice there! She is right. As a teacher, and as a former hormonal teen, I think this is a great idea. But I also think she may need some sort of counseling where she can talk openly about her feelings and desires. I went through such a hard time in high school, I was one of the few girls who was a virgin and open about my desire to remain so. Mind you, my body had other desires entirely! It was really hard,because I did date and had many boyfreinds, and the fact that I would not compromise my beliefs was a factor in the demise of many of those relationships. The really bad experience was when I was a junior and I had more date requests than ever. I was really funt to have a lot of guys asking me out, but then It felt weird,and I did some checking around and found out there was a "bounty" so to speack, on me. They were actually trying to win a bet, whoever got me first! It was aweful, I did not date again the rest of high school. Instead I got straight A's and got depressed. Thankfully I had a really great teacher, who had noticed how things were going and went a long way toward keeping me going till graduation. So I think, since you can't count on a teacher, she could use someone annonymous to talk to. It is so hard, if not impossible to talk to your parents about how your body feeels, how strong those desires are, it can drive you crazy. I may not have acted on it, but believe me a good portion of my time at school or anywhere was spent "lusting" over the idea of sex. I had experienced enough to know how much I wanted it and my brain would not let it go nor would my body. It had nothing to do with fitting in, or my self image, it was purely hormonal. It is only by the grace of God that I reamained intact for my husband! Now I know it was not the newness of sex, that spawned such a drive, just my personal hormones. It would have been so helpfull to have someone to talk bluntly with about that part of my life.

Sorry Jook for going on and on. But I want your daughter to be blessed and live a happy life. You are such a caring mom, but sometimes, its too hard for us daughters to talk to our moms about these things. Don't be discouraged if she needs to talk to another.
I hope I didn't polute the forum,
sheri