How do you cope with learning a so-called “friend” has only been using you? That's hard enough to deal with as an adult, but over the past week it's become a major life lesson for my youngest, who isn't quite a teenager at this point. While it’s been painful for her, she also knows she’ll be more cautious about the company she keeps in the future. And yet, I still caught her last evening trying to join a networking site even though she isn't even close to their minimum age for membership (she fudged her year of birth and the moment I caught her, I e-mailed them that she's the age she REALLY is, which ended that immediately). So I guess there'll be some testing of the waters by this wiser than she ought to be tweener--in addition to, regrettably, some fiscal repercussions for us.
This is child #4, and I remind you that my day job is working with other children, so my take is simply this: She’s learned a painful lesson, she’s learned it well, she’s angry at herself for maintaining this friendly connection as long as she has, and she now feels foolish. But there's no doubt she has learned that it always pays to question the dubious actions of your peers, particularly when they entreat you to lie, cheat, or steal on their behalf.
We’ve tried not to be too hard on her, yet we've firmly reinforced some things to make her understand she has some responsibility in the matter, mostly for allowing this peer to have what seems to have been unfettered access to such items as the phone and the computer; to the point we're considering docking her minimal allowance until the excess is paid off. Not sure we'll DO that, but the thought has crossed our minds.
Ah...parenthood! :P "What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive..."
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