Q.My husband and I were both in the military when he left me with a 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter.
The kids didn't see their dad for the next four years and he rarely contacted them after that except for birthdays and holidays. As a single parent, I pretty much dedicated myself to the kids until I met and married a very caring and fun man last year.
Both kids are motivated, churchgoing honor students and do extracurricular activities (JROTC and college courses) and I am proud of them. My son is no problem but my daughter, now 15, tries my patience.
A year and a half ago, I came home early one day and she and her boyfriend were at the house in a compromising position. And two months ago, my husband came home and found the new boyfriend in her bedroom closet. At first she lied, saying that her boyfriend was down the street but had left his shoes at the doorway.
Both times, I talked to her about pregnancy and trusting her but she doesn't talk with me very often unless she wants something. Tonight she wanted to hang out at the mall with her boyfriend, but I wouldn't let her go so she sulked all evening, even though I said she could invite her friends over to watch videos or play games.
Since she's a December baby, she's younger than her classmates and wants to do what they do. Her best friend is a nice gal, but she wears short skirts and tight sweaters and has no common sense. My daughter acts just as ditsy when she's with her although I know she's quite intelligent.
I finally told her that she could live with her dad but his wife treats her badly so I don't think she will. I am at wits' end.
A.Adolescence tries the patience of most parents, because teenagers are trying to figure out who they are and also because parenting has changed so much in the past 30 years. While some of these changes have been good, others are not.
As families got smaller, many parents started spending as much time, energy and money on their one or two children as they used to spend on four or five and they raised some expectations and lowered others. Somehow today's children are supposed to be successful in every subject and every sport, but they don't have to do many chores.
This has created child-centered families and made teens sassier and more demanding than they've ever been and more self-indulgent and sulky, too.
It's time to tighten the rules.
Your daughter will gravitate to a more sheltered crowd if you don't let her go out on school nights, run around with friends whose parents are more permissive than you are or have boys at the house when you're not home.
Just be sympathetic when you say no and let her vent for a few minutes without saying a word. She won't hear your reasons unless you listen to her reasons first.
Your daughter should also do chores, wash her own clothes, cook dinner for the family once a week and reconcile your checkbook every month: skills she will need in a few years. Above all, she should help others. Encourage her to join a teen volunteer group at church, play board games with hospitalized teenagers or with old people at a nursing home or help refurbish a home during Christmas in April -- a great project for the whole family.
The more your daughter gives to others, the more she will appreciate her own good fortune and the less she will criticize you.
She will also behave better if you tell her how proud you are of her, how much you love her and how your love will never disappear, no matter what she does. A child treats others with kindness or disdain depending on how she feels about herself.
And please, take her to a gynecologist to learn about contraception as well as abstinence, and to make sure she hasn't contracted a sexually transmitted disease. It's all very well to trust your daughter, but most 15-year-olds don't tell their parents if they're having sex, and some of them don't use protection.
Finally, give your daughter a copy of "Like It Is," a teen sex guide by E. James Lieberman and Karen Lieberman Troccoli (McFarland, $25). Some of it may be over her head, but the advice is good, the facts are clear and the warnings about early sex may be more compelling than yours.
Questions? Send them to advice@margueritekelly.comor to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.
