Ask Covenant House

Ask Covenant House question - kids checking in appropriately

michelle — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:18:20 -0700

How unreasonable is it for a parent to ask a child to check in with the parents to say where they are going after school, and to ask for the phone number of the place where a child is going in the evening, and to ask to speak to the parent who is supposed to be home when the child is going to a party? I am being told I make her look like a bad kid because I'm always checking up on her, but I'm not comfortable that she won't be in an unsafe situation, and I want to make sure the places she's going are safe and that the parents ARE home. She is 15.

RESPONSE:

Not unreasonable at all! Reasonable request indeed...but let's look at the bigger issue...

What you want is to know your kid is going to safe place. What your kid wants is to not be embarrassed.

Where can you compromise?

Can you agree to limits that your daughter can have a say in? Be creative, what other ways can you get the info you want without causing embarrassment? Can you negotiate?

As with any negotiation, there is giving and taking on both sides....be flexible and say you want the same from her....this will give your daughter a sense of control....and that is a good thing.

Don't go in expecting to "win" the negotiation...so go high and expect to "lose" down to a level you can live with.....

Ask Covenant House - teenager withdrawing

michelle — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:18:09 -0800

We are very concerned about our 16 year old son and haven't heard you talk on the radio about this subject. Our son over the last year or so has been withdrawing from us as well as his friends. He won't have friends over any more and only sees one friend outside of school. Luckily they have an activity they do together twice a week or I fear he wouldn't see any of his peers. He stay is the basement most of the time or in his room. He prefers to play video games over everything else. I'm not sure where to go with our concerns.

RESPONSE:

If you get a sense that your son is depressed, talk to your family doctor and get a referral to a psychiatrist. If he is struggling with depression, counselling and/or medication may be an option. A certain amount of depression is common amongst teenagers but the bottom line is that you are uncomfortable with how your son is withdrawing and this needs to be addressed.

It is somewhat common for teenagers to withdraw a bit from their parents, however this change seems to be dramatic enough to cause you concern. The first thing we suggest is to try to engage with your son to get a better idea of what is going on with him. This probably won't be easy and will take some focus and creativity on your part. Does his one friend come over to the house for any reason? If not, invite the friend over for dinner and make it as non-threatening as possible (pizza in front of the TV?). It is great that he has that one activity - what is it - can you participate or support it in some way?

You can take an interest in his video game playing but know that the video game playing and withdrawal are simply "symptoms" and they are not the problem. This is simple sounding advice, but, teenagers generally withdraw to "avoid" something. If you can tease out what he is avoiding, you will be able to join him "where he is at".

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Ask Covenant House

michelle — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:55:03 -0800

Each month our crisis shelter manager appears on CKNW's The Christy Clark Show to discuss parenting teenagers. Many different topics are covered and we can't get to all the questions from callers, so we welcome your questions and will do our best to answer them quickly. To submit a question go to Ask Covenant House. We will pick the most popular questions/themes and the answers will be posted on the blog.