what would you do ?

hello everyone,
this is a father looking for advice !
last week my daughter went to the local swimming pool with friends from school, nothing wrong with that i hear you say..........
but when we went to pick her up another child told us she had love bites all over her........when i heard this my temper started to rage, when she came out and got in the car i was that angry i couldnt speak to her.
i found that i couldnt speak to her for at least 30 minutes, (my little girl had love bites)
i have grounded her from the computer and stopped her going to swimming, but im not sure , am i being to hard on her ???? what would you do ?
my daughter is 13.

Wow, that is a hard thing for a parent to have to hear, and to think about happening to their baby girl.

Maybe this is a good time to sit down and have a nice, calm conversation about what happened and why she thinks it's ok to have gone through this??? Mind you the emphasis is on CALM...lol. I know it's not easy, but you will get absolutely nowhere if you don't stay calm. And that would ruin the whole idea behind it.

I think your daughter needs to know that you love her very much and you worry about her and the decisions she is making in her life. Maybe you could explain to her that you want her to feel safe, you want her to feel respect for herself and that you respect her. I think that would give her something to think about.

I know that kids experiment all the time. It's the way they learn and grow. We as parents, need to help them set boundries. Their brains are not developed enough yet to look at the big picture.

Maybe what is needed is more parental/adult supervision with the swimming. The same goes for the internet/computer. Could you and the other parents share the supervision thing on a rotating basis maybe?

I wish you strength and calmness!

Hugssssssss
Jean

have you had a chance to talk to her yet?
calmly ask her if she knows what the other person was doing, explain that this is not acceptable behaviour for anyone so young.
Good luck hun

I would flip out too, she has to know where the boundaries are, otherwise she might go too far and regret it. It's good that you are strict, but be careful not to be hurtful with what you say, let her know exactly why you think it is a big deal... Talk to her about it... she needs to know your views and values etc...

"Love bites" other wise known as hickeys can happen without even experimenting with necking and so on. One of the things that was popular when I was between the ages of 10 - 18 was "indian burns" - pinching and rubbing the skin to make a fake hicky. and also self sucking my mouth, with straws and so on on the skin to create hickys.

Your daughter may not nave done anything wrong.

When my child at 9 years old came home from playing outside with his friends with what looked like a love bite I sat him down and told him that sucking on the skin and creating love bites is basically breaking the blood vessels under the skin and I would rather he not damage his skin that way. he told me that a friend had one and so he allowed his friend to pinch his neck so that he would have a hicky too. but now that he knows doing that makes him bleed under his skin and is what a hicky is he would not do it again.

That's good advice myself... the awful truth!!!

Wow, I think I would have reacted the same way you did!! Afterall, she's only 13!!
When you feel you are calm enough, then you need to sit down and have a long talk with her and explain to her why this is wrong and how it hurt you.
I hope you can find the right words, so you both will be able to move on past this.

Good Luck,
Linda

Thanks

I wasnt going to explain it to him this way but his therapist was here in the house at the time for a home visit for family therapy (besides being his individual therapist she was also our DHS appointed therapist for family therapy for my son and I.) Anyway she spoke up and told me to go ahead and tell him what hickeys were. He had had sex education with his therapeutic school where his therapist worked with him and I and the school and she said if he didn't have the full truth from her and I he would get it from older children who were sexually active at the school or even here in the complex. or in public school when he was ready to reenter public school.

My mom taught us that they were dissrespectful of the other person.

thank you all for your advice and i will try to keep calm with her later and have a quiet chat with her , i just hope i dont lose it again and start shouting.
i think she knows about them causeing blood under the skin but i will tell her again just in case.
thank you ((((((((((everyone)))))))))))

you're such a caring dad dec......

For one she is really young to be getting into that type of stuff, set a rule like no love stuff until 17 or so. She really should be having fun being a kid. A problem today is that kids think they have to take after people on TV whom set bad examples and will not win in the long run.

I wish you all the best... Parenting isn't easy...

Its not always because of children imitating tv. Children start going through puberty at the ages as young as 5-10 now. and with those hormonal changes comes the natural sexual urges of what feels good to the children and so on. mentally they may be too young for sex and making out and so on but biologically they are not too young which is why many schools now have sex education classes going in the lower grades of K-2 and sometimes 3rd of good touch and bad touch and in sometimes 3 but usually starting in 4th grade the sex ed classes include the reproductive organs, the pros and cons of having sex and birth control and so on.

I got a call from my sons kindergarten teacher one day because My son at age 5 had his unexpected erection and release during school and he needed a change of clothes. I took him to our family doctor who explained things a bit to him and then at age 8 he had complete sex ed class in school.

Its not just movies and kids copying movies, music and books. most of the time its because of natural biological course of life.

Sometimes I think of how things changed since I was a kid is that biologically things are reverting back to the laura ingalls wilder days where children as young as 12 and 13 were getting married some because of a baby on the way or has been born.

Childrens bodys are just back at that time frame where they are maturing at ages 8-10 instead of 16-18.

that's it im setting a few rules for her ....
1. no boyfriends till she's at least 30
2. no swimming unless the pool is empty
3. only go out side with a parent
4. no watching tv after 4pm
5. no putty cat dolls music

that will do till i think of some more, (lol)
convent school !!!!!!!! mmmm never thought of that !!!!!

Hey! I think you're on to something now LOL

Good to see you have your sense of humor about it! That will help A LOT!

You know? It never ceases to amaze me when parents are shocked to find their children beginning to experiment with their sexuality at this age.

What were you feeling / doing at that age? Why should it be any different for your children?

I understand that kids are way more susceptible to outside pressures to experiment these days, but please, 13 is not an unusual age for a girl to start having those feelings. Remember, females mature faster at this age. She probably has already started mentruating, and if that is the case, then her body has already begun the phase where experimentation will be on her mind ALOT! Girls are not so different from boys in that respect.

Be open and honest always. And, good luck! You'll need it! Raising a teenage girl is not gonna be easy!

AS

I didn't hear you investigating the truth of what the other child said before you reacted, or anything about whether a boy or a girl had made the marks (or one's self, like myself says, we use to suck on our own arms at that age, have a contest to see who could make the largest mark, or the most even). Unfortunate choice of words it seems to me for the 13 year old friend. Could be she was jealous of your daughter or wishing attention of some sort from her own parent, etc.

It does sound like she needs extra guidance and encouragement to keep herself chaste, and to respect her body more, and cause others to also? Yes, there are topics parents forget when they have that talk, which should begin early, and continue building through marriage imo!

Please do talk WITH her...not at her... then, if you make new rules, be sure to write them down, and ALSO agree to the consequences for breaking the rules. If you keep her in on this, then it won't be you who is the ogre, but her choice for breaking a rule or keeping it..and she will already know the consequence. It's a good way to help them learn how the real world operates too, imo. Good wishes!