Do you cut your "good kid" slack?

[Anonymous]

DD is going to be sixteen in September and a junior in high school. She is #1 in her class now in a very competitive private school and does on pointe ballet every day after school for two-three hours and four hours on Saturday. She is seemingly very mature for her age (perhaps due to the fact that her Dad passed away when she was six) and has never really screwed up. I trust her. For example, when she asked to stay home from school one day (when she said she wouldn't miss anything important) to finish her term paper I let her and she did finish her term paper. She hasn't had a curfew, per se, as she generally tells me how long the event would last and when she would be home. Maybe once or twice she was out later than I would have liked but it was for things like a prom or star-gazing. I like all of her friends that I have met. She is already on the pill for medical reasons.

I am always available to talk and guide her. However beyond that, I really don't think I need to impose any rules on her now or when she starts to drive.

Am I nuts? Of course I will step in if I see her going off the rails in anyway but until then...

[Anonymous]

Sorry. I don't see any "slack" here.

[Anonymous]

I would reiterate safety rules and expectations when driving. Not in a "lay down the law" approach but in a discussion.

I have one here (thankfully) who is pretty easy too. He's only 14 but we give him more leeway than his brother had. His brother had and still has no sense of responsibility. He's 24 and still screws up on a regular basis and then wonders why his life is tough.

With the 14 year old, we have some good discussions over breakfast. He does well in school, his teachers all praise how mature he is, and he makes good decisions with sometimes little guidance. Some kids don't need a bunch of imposed rules.

[Anonymous]

Cough...humble brag.

Sounds like a great kid OP. Jist post a brag thread. You did a good job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cough...humble brag.

Sounds like a great kid OP. Jist post a brag thread. You did a good job.

Oh please - just stop. OP here and I did very little in raising her and was a mess after my husband died.

I am so tired of anytime someone posts details upfront of being accused of a "humble brag".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I am always available to talk and guide her. However beyond that, I really don't think I need to impose any rules on her now or when she starts to drive.

I wouldn't impose rules on her when she starts to drive, but I would certainly discuss rules, with the goal of coming up with rules that you and she both agree on. The stakes for driving are so high (great expense if you're lucky, dead bodies if you're not) that I would never just hand over the keys to an inexperienced teenager driver, no matter how responsible she might be in everything else. You don't want her to have to learn from personal experience that something (driving when you're really tired, or not looking right again before turning right on red across a crosswalk, or misjudging the speed of oncoming traffic when you're turning left) is a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would reiterate safety rules and expectations when driving. Not in a "lay down the law" approach but in a discussion.

I have one here (thankfully) who is pretty easy too. He's only 14 but we give him more leeway than his brother had. His brother had and still has no sense of responsibility. He's 24 and still screws up on a regular basis and then wonders why his life is tough.

With the 14 year old, we have some good discussions over breakfast. He does well in school, his teachers all praise how mature he is, and he makes good decisions with sometimes little guidance. Some kids don't need a bunch of imposed rules.

I agree with this advice.

With a kid like yours, OP, who sounds a lot like mine, the key thing to me is ensuring that she's not more stressed than you realize. Kids who are high achievers and very good at both academics and a demanding outside pursuit sometimes are tougher on themselves than we can see, and can feel a bit of pressure - mostly from inside themselves -- to be "perfect" all the time, since they know how much the adults around them value their discipline and responsibility and good choices. They also can be very good at hiding any stress they feel.

So just keep those lines of communication open with your kid and check in proactively at times. Don't wait for her to come to you; go to her at times and see if she needs a break from something, because she might not always ask (but bravo to her for asking for that day off school to do...schoolwork!). Just be sure she doesn't feel that she has to continue doing certain things "because that's what I do and who I am" when if she were told, "It's actually OK to take a break from X if you want, and that is an option," she might welcome it. My own kid was involved in a school-year academic competition that she did for several years in a row and loved, but this past school year, I just let her know, "Hey, if you want to take a year off this activity, it really is OK to take a break." She did, because she knew she would have some harder classes at school this year than last year, and it was the right thing to do. If I hadn't just put the idea out there she likely would have felt she had to sign up again, especially as her dad and I are participants in running these events so it's part of our family's life, not just her life. My daughter dances too, OP, and like yours has many ballet classes each week, but I do check in with her to see how things are going and how she's feeling about dance overall.

I know one family where the parents kept signing up the daughter for a sport over and over and the girl didn't have the heart to tell them that while she had loved it as a younger kid, she really did not like it any more and didn't want to continue. The mom later said the girl felt that "I have to do it because mom and dad expect me to do it" until she finally got old enough to assert herself and say, "I really would like to stop." That is one case that made me start asking my kid from time to time how things are going with her continuing activities and how she feels about them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would reiterate safety rules and expectations when driving. Not in a "lay down the law" approach but in a discussion.

I have one here (thankfully) who is pretty easy too. He's only 14 but we give him more leeway than his brother had. His brother had and still has no sense of responsibility. He's 24 and still screws up on a regular basis and then wonders why his life is tough.

With the 14 year old, we have some good discussions over breakfast. He does well in school, his teachers all praise how mature he is, and he makes good decisions with sometimes little guidance. Some kids don't need a bunch of imposed rules.

I agree with this advice.

With a kid like yours, OP, who sounds a lot like mine, the key thing to me is ensuring that she's not more stressed than you realize. Kids who are high achievers and very good at both academics and a demanding outside pursuit sometimes are tougher on themselves than we can see, and can feel a bit of pressure - mostly from inside themselves -- to be "perfect" all the time, since they know how much the adults around them value their discipline and responsibility and good choices. They also can be very good at hiding any stress they feel.

So just keep those lines of communication open with your kid and check in proactively at times. Don't wait for her to come to you; go to her at times and see if she needs a break from something, because she might not always ask (but bravo to her for asking for that day off school to do...schoolwork!). Just be sure she doesn't feel that she has to continue doing certain things "because that's what I do and who I am" when if she were told, "It's actually OK to take a break from X if you want, and that is an option," she might welcome it. My own kid was involved in a school-year academic competition that she did for several years in a row and loved, but this past school year, I just let her know, "Hey, if you want to take a year off this activity, it really is OK to take a break." She did, because she knew she would have some harder classes at school this year than last year, and it was the right thing to do. If I hadn't just put the idea out there she likely would have felt she had to sign up again, especially as her dad and I are participants in running these events so it's part of our family's life, not just her life. My daughter dances too, OP, and like yours has many ballet classes each week, but I do check in with her to see how things are going and how she's feeling about dance overall.

I know one family where the parents kept signing up the daughter for a sport over and over and the girl didn't have the heart to tell them that while she had loved it as a younger kid, she really did not like it any more and didn't want to continue. The mom later said the girl felt that "I have to do it because mom and dad expect me to do it" until she finally got old enough to assert herself and say, "I really would like to stop." That is one case that made me start asking my kid from time to time how things are going with her continuing activities and how she feels about them.

Thank you to both PPs - excellent advice. I do need to check in with her more on how she is feeling about school and ballet. She hasn't been stressed but I know that the next two years are going to be more stressful with college prep and testing.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Yes. You do cut your good kid slack and let them self-regulate as much as possible. My DD is like yours and she needs very little guidance and virtually no restrictions. My DS was NOT like her and needed a lot of strict rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cough...humble brag.

Sounds like a great kid OP. Jist post a brag thread. You did a good job.

Oh please - just stop. OP here and I did very little in raising her and was a mess after my husband died.

I am so tired of anytime someone posts details upfront of being accused of a "humble brag".

details: she's a great student.
humble brag: she's #1 in her class at a very competitive private school

details: she dances around 15 hours a week.
humble brag: on pointe.

Sorry about your husband.

[Anonymous]

She should have rules in terms of chores. Cooking dinner weekly, taking out the trash, folding laundry, etc.

[Anonymous]

First, I think it's fine to let a kid that mature miss school to catch up on school work. Many adults do that, too.

I think your biggest concern should be that your kid is too perfect - to the point that anything less than perfect causes her stress. How will she cope if her grades drop so she's #2 in her class? What will happen if she goes to college (Ivy League, no doubt) and earns less than straight A's? Before she goes off to college, make sure you let her know that she'll be fine if she's not always the top student. There have been so many issues with students at top schools having mental breakdowns and suicide attempts because they could not handle the environment.

[Anonymous]

Isn't it "en pointe"?

[Anonymous]

feels like a humble brag, but I'll bite. Why don't you ask her what she things are reasonable curfews and other rules or expectations around the house and go from there?

[Anonymous]

PP sorry, I should have read through. Fair enough and I am also very sorry about your husband.