Reply to 13 year old DD wants triple ear piercing

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "13 year old DD wants triple ear piercing"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are the parent. What you say, goes. At least for a couple more years.

Have problems with authority?[/quote]

NP. 4 kids, ages 22, 20, 12, and 3. I would "allow" this no problem, but that is because I have a fundamentally different outlook. I don't believe that I ethically should have any authority or control over my child's body once they have the ability to make and communicate informed decisions, absent a clear immediate safety threat.

As long as it is legal, my kids never had to ask permission to do anything to their bodies unless they needed me to facilitate it or pay for it. In the latter two cases, they weren't asking to do something to their own body so much as they were coordinating schedules and making sure it was in the budget.

Since piercings and tattoos required parental permission, they would have to "ask" me for that. My response would be/was something like "are you making an informed decision now or do you need some time first to consider any risks?" That is my general first response to most requests for permission to do anything  unless permission is a function of logistics. That question generally leads to a short discussion that allows me to understand their thinking and help point out other things they should consider. I feel strongly that I need to parent this way because I don't believe it is ethical to control anyone, including kids, but do believe it's my job as a patent to teach my children how to make sound, risk-aware decisions.

Risk-aware informed consent in this case would include having a medical professional's opinion on health risks, a check of their school's  (and employer's if applicable) regulations, some knowledge of whether and how the decision could be reversed (more thought should logically go into permanent decisions, while very temporary choices can be more impulsive), understanding the tattoo or piercing process itself, and an unfortunate but necessary brief consideration of potential social repercussions.

As long as they were aware or all of the above and still wanted to proceed, it would be (and was in the case of some piercings DD22, DD20, DD12 and a small tattoo as well for DD20) something for which I would have no problem giving the required permission.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics