Our fourteen year old daughter has been grounded for the past week for smoking. I think she is sorry, but she is incredibly proud and does not like to admit when she has done wrong. I told her earlier this week that her grounding would be over when she could apologize and be sincere about not smoking again.
So tonight, her two best friends came back into town after a long trip. She started hinting all afternoon about talking to me, but never actually said, “can we talk?”, so then one of her friends came over and the two of them were whispering about talking to me.
Finally, J. walks into the kitchen while her friend is in the living room and slouches into the counter ready to “talk”. I said, “Don’t even think about starting this conversation with your friend in the next room.” So, she went back into the living room, whispered something to her friend, and the friend left. J. went into her room where I followed.
Me: J., you know better than to ask me stuff like that in front of your friends.
J: I was going to, but she wouldn’t leave.
Me: You should have just told her that it was time to go then.
J: But if I didn’t go with her then, she was going to go back home.
Me: Well, you could have told her to wait at Grandma’s or let her go home and called her there.
J: Silence.
Me: You’ve been hinting all afternoon about this conversation, but even now you won’t say anything. What’s going on?
J: I wrote a blog about it yesterday.
Me: That’s great, but you also spent the evening with me and Brian. Why didn’t you tell us or talk to us about it there?
J: I don’t know.
Me: You’ve had over a week to say something to us. Now it seems like you only want to say sorry because your friends are back in town, so my answer is no, you’re not going out tonight. What do you think?
J: Silence.
Me: You may actually be sorry. I hope you are, but you have let your pride get in the way and now you’re stuck here again. What did you think would happen when you said you were sorry?
J: I don’t know.
Me: You have lived with us long enough to know us now… we’re not mean, we’re not even that strict. You would have been ungrounded days ago if you’d been able to talk to us about it then.
J: Silence.
Me: You need to apologize for this and you still need to say something about smoking. I’m going to put Jacob to bed and you need to find me when you’re ready.
They’re a lot of work when they’re toddlers, but parenting a teen… wow, it’s a whole new ballgame.
