My 15 yo girl is driving me mad, what can I do without being harsh?

Question

She's a wonderful girl, treats us with love, is honest, a sweet heart, the kind of girl that says Mom I love you. The only problem is, for some reason, she's still immature, even naive. She trusts too much, belives too much, doesn't see danger in dangerous situations. It's easy to deceive her. Needs protection. Yesterday she and othe girls got a ride with a guy they'd never seen before! We got to know because at dinner she told us this kinda naturally, she was talking about her day and told us las naturally as she'd tell she had a math class. Even said the guy was so nice. She didn't realize how dangerous that was and got amaxed when she saw we were surpriused and worried, She looked at us astounded like asking Did I do something wrong? That night we talked a lot, I explained again with all my love why she has to change. How can I deal with this? Should I punish, I don't think so, but how to make her wiser? Interesting, when it comes to school, she's extremely responsible, straight As

Answer 1

Just talk to her about it, how you can not trust everyone and evil comes in many forms. Inevitably she also will learn the hard way - as we all did. Life sure knows how to teach lessons.

Answer 2

Strait A's mean NOTHING if your daughter has no practical skills or common sense.

In your loving way, present a bunch of situations before and ask her what she would do, and then tell her what she is doing wrong and right, and what could happen.

Maybe even set up some real scenarios with people you know just to give her an idea how scary things can actually be. BE SURE to teach her about the dangers of the internet too!!

Answer 3

I would ring the other girl's parents and find out first if they are aware it, if they are find out what they think about it. Sometimes other parents don't think like you do, I know its scary but perhaps your daughters friend thought this was ok too. I would find out more information about this guy, like was it that he was cute, did he have his stero playing loud it may be that they were attracted to him for little reasons like that. I in fact do think punishment is an option. If you explain that you give her the responsibility to come home from school on her own you expect that she will behave sensibily. Perhaps you could ground her for a short period. My daughter (13) told me she was taught about 'stranger danger' in grade 1 - surely she is aware of the dangers about getting rides with people she doesn't know. The schools re-inforce this all the time. It must be one of the things I mentioned above - these days its all about hormones and being cool.

Answer 4

Well, obviously she has been way too sheltered from the outside world. Ever sat her down & made her watch the news about girls being raped by strangers whom they trusted to give them a ride because they seemed "nice"? I'd do just that: make her watch the news. Punishment won't help. Punishment for being innocent is completely no good. At all. She hasn't come to face reality. She thinks everything is just fun & games.

Answer 5

She sounds like my 15 yr old. I'm pretty strict, so I don't let her go out. It sounds mean, but if I can't trust her, then I can't let her be on her own. I'm the one who will get saddled with the costs of a baby if she gets duped. I'm the one who will have to pay the fine because her friends said she wouldn't get into trouble. As her parent, it is my job to see that she is equipped to handle the outside world, but if she isn't aware of whats going on around her, then I'm not going to push her out into the world, so that she can get hurt. I'll wait till she has a chance before I do that.

Answer 6

You don't want your daughter to be too sheltered; however you need to make your daughter aware that life can be downright cruel and unkind. I do think you should sit down and have a long talk with her. My 19 year old brother is just like that, but its not his fault because my stepfather taught him to be naive. Most teenagers think that they are invincible and no harm can come to them. Sadly I see some teenagers become statistics because of this notion.

Answer 7

It sounds like she is really sheltered. I would advise her not to leave in any car with a strange guy. Reguardless of how nice he seems. Everybody thought ted bundy was nice too. Responsibility also comes with knowing you can't get in a car with a stranger. I would let her see all the news about girls missing and heart ache. She needs to know.

Answer 8

Sounds like she is book smart but not street wise. ;( I would recommend providing alot of supervision until she can be trusted to make smarter decisions. You can't be too careful when it comes to their safety.....it only takes one mistake.....

Don't let her go anywhere unsupervised...ie the mall, football games, movies etc. It will only take a moment for her to do something unwise if she is so naive. Punishing....I don't know...that is kind of like punishing her for trusting the world. We don't want to make her paranoid or cynical....just wiser to the ways of the world. I say just lots of open discussions and supervision.

Best of luck in surviving the teenage years...I am there myself!

Answer 9

I think that there are all kinds of videos of young ladies out there that will testify as to how dangerous it is to trust strangers...do some on line searches of girls that have had bad experiences and have her to watch them documenturaries on teens being obducted..mayby if she sees how scared those young ladies were she will reconcider ever doing this again...good luck to you I know how much we worry and how much we love them god bless you through out this ordeal

Answer 10

just teach her everything. make her watch the news or keep up with current events that have to do with these topics. she's 15; she should know better by now.