How can you help your teenager to navigate the intensely exciting and often murky waters of peer relationships.
We need to consider same sex relationships as well as relationships with the opposite sex. Both types of relationships can be either platonic or involve sexual attraction.
Let's consider girls and their friendships with other girls this week.
It makes sense that if you've worked at developing a fairly open and honest relationship with your daughter in the early years you are more likely to be able to maintain communication during the teen years but that is not always the case. Sometimes as much as you try to reach out they will clam up. Many might feel like you are prying but also secretly appreciate the fact that you are interested in their lives and relationships.
Girls and their girlfriends can go through ups and downs that can have an enormous impact on the well being of your daughter. Many girls are very defensive about their friendships with girls who, in your opinion, seem to be less than a desirable influence on your daughter. The fact remains that peers are more influential than you, and the opinion of peers will mostly carry more weight than yours.
Peers can be less judgemental than adults and believe it or not peers can be very positive role models for your daughters. Peers are in a better position to understand the frustrations, challenges and concerns associated with being a teenager.
On the other hand some girls can be very judgemental about the dress and behaviour of girls who do not want to conform to the current modes. The nastiness of girls towards girls can be brutal and parents need to be supportive and sensitive to their daughters without 'buying in' to the issue too much. Girls do need to learn to manage their own peer relationships. Not only Christian girls but also other girls who are non conformist regarding dress or behaviour.
Your daughter's hormones are driving a lot of her challenging behaviour. They are moving her towards independence, and that includes separation from authority, your authority. Parents have a responsibility to provide feedback to their daughters about what constitutes 'healthy' relationships and what is definitely not a healthy way to behave.
If you forbid your daughter to associate with certain friends you are wading into deep waters in my view. Adolescence is not the time for black and white, hard and fast rules. It's a time for crucial conversations and sometimes crucial confrontations. Engaging Adolescents is a course that I teach that explains what is required for the crucial confrontation that you may have to have with your daughter when you are concerned about her behaviour or the influence of certain friends.
In summary, parents are encouraged to really think about the issue they want to speak to their daughter about; to give their daughter forewarning of the fact that they want to speak to them about it; to make an appointment with their daughter and then to explain their concerns. Parents are encouraged to target the issue and then to make an agreement with their daughter which will usually involve compromise on both sides. It is a course well worth doing.
Gay relationships can be an area of enormous challenge for parents. For Christian parents whose daughters 'come out' as gay, I quote Dr Laura Berman, Assistant Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Psychiatry at Northwestern University and author, in Talking to your kids about sex. She says (p. 68,69);
If your child identifies as homosexual, the best thing that you can do is offer support and ensure that your home is a place that is loving and non judgmental. Gay and lesbian youths are more likely to commit suicide than other youths - in the United States, 30% of all completed youth suicides are related to the issue of sexual identity. Additionally , students who describe themselves as lesbian , gay, bisexual, or transgendered are much more likely to miss school because of feeling unsafe, and are also more likely to engage in drug use and other risky or damaging behaviours.
Ultimately we are all accountable to God for our behaviour. Parents are accountable to God for the way they behave when confronted with differing values or behaviour in their children.
