She tells me everything...

Hi Mark,

I have run into a situation I don't really know what to do. I have a 13-year-old daughter and for the most your program is working great. My problem is she is almost too honest with me. She tells me everything. Two weeks ago I noticed her mood was horrible, I asked her if she was smoking pot? She got cranky and 20 minutes later she brings a bud of weed out of her room and told me to get rid of it. She told me where she got it and agrees to not go over there anymore, not happy about it, but accepted it. Now I let her go to another friends for a sleepover and they went to another friends house, she was offered ecstasy? She told me she refused it and so did the girl she went over there with, but the one girl did some. Now I said well, I guess you won't be going over there anymore, I explained I am glad she told me and was proud she made a good decision, now she says well, if that is what I get every time I am honest with you, I am not going to tell you what goes on anymore! Help, I don't want her to shut down on me, but I have trusted her to say no to pot before and she did it. Am I doing the right thing? Should I be calling parents even if I really don't know them? Thanks for your program!

A.

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Hi A.,

Re: "...if that is what I get every time I am honest with you, I am not going to tell you what goes on anymore!"

We reward "telling the truth" with acknowledgment and praise - not by withholding consequences.

Please click here for more info re: lying.

Re: "Should I be calling parents even if I really don't know them?"

Absolutely. Not to chastise you, but I'm a bit surprised you asked such a question. Do NOT trust anything you daughter tells you until you can verify that it is the truth.

Oh ...by the way. I think you may have fallen for a few lines of bullshit when your daughter "acted as if" she was being totally honest with you re: the pot incident and the sleepover.

Strong-willed, out-of-control teens are experts at tricking their parents, thus you should adopt an "extend-trust-after-verification" approach in the future.

Mark

My Out-of-Control Teen