Haha @LovingThruBlue I'm with you. I very often have no idea what's going on :-) ... View more

@taokat sounds like a great idea. ... View more

Hi @Ives101. My daughter is a bit younger than yours (14) but suffers from anxiety. She is on a mental health plan through our local GP and sees a psychologist. Here's a few things I've learned that may help:   I notice that you said your problem is that your daughter hasn't achieved anything in life. By far the best thing that has worked for me is not placing my expectations on my daughter, which has been, and continues to be, an enormous task for me as I'm a bit of an over-achiever. I can see that my daughter has huge potential in a number of areas. She's highly intelligent but failing school. She's enormously talented as a dancer but won't do dance classes. I worry every minute of every day that she's going to regret the choices she's making but I've had to learn to let that go and just let her be who she is which for now is a young person who needs a lot of space and time to work through things. She needed to know that I respect her for who she is and since I've backed off things have got a lot better. It's still always very hard. I just judge each day as it comes and when I can see we're having a good day I push a little bit - get a bit of conversation or get her to walk the dog or clean the kitchen. Other days I have to let things go and just look for the opportunity to sit on her bed and have a 5 minute chat.   I can't urge you strongly enough to get her to talk to a professional -  a counsellor or psychologist or even just her GP. And you should speak to someone to as you need to be able to unload your stress and concerns on someone who can guide you and support you. As my daughter is younger she is happy for me to sit in on her sessions and I find they're really useful. My daugher's psychologist explained to her that whilst anxiety is very real and will impact her in a variety of ways, she must not let it disable her or use it as an excuse to not challenge herself. Keep in mind a challenge for my daughter used to be something as "simple" as getting out of bed, and somedays she didn't. Now she gets up most days and goes to school. She doesn't have a lot of friends but she mentions names of kids she's talking to. The psychologist has given her, and me, lots of different tools to work with, it has made all the difference for both of us.   Is there another adult in her life that she respects or has a good relationship with? My daughter loves her calisthenics coach so I've recruited her to give my daughter various challenges and responsibilities. Now my daughter helps her calisthenics coach with the younger kids on a Saturday morning. Just one more excuse to get her out of bed and into life. She goes straight back to bed when she gets home but I figure that 2 hours coaching is better than nothing.   Finally, remember that anxiety, like any health issue, is tiring. My daughter legitimately needs more down time than someone who's brain isn't frantically trying to deal with daily activities. Before my daughter has even got out of bed she's completely freaked out about what lies ahead - all the 'what ifs' life might throw at her that day. By recess she's exhausted. A full day of school is a marathon. So when she does rise to any challenge I acknowledge it by giving her a lot of room to decompress afterwards.   I hope you might be able to use some of this. Good luck and hang in there. Voicing your concerns is the best place to start so you're on the right track.   ... View more

@taokat trust is everything, as is your daughter's well being, so you should do exactly what your instinct and experience with your daughter tells you to do.   It sounds as though she has worked so hard to be where she is now (and I imagine you have worked hard alongside her) and she deserves to be comfortable and happy at her tennis lessons. If talking to the boy's mother is going to make her uncomfortable, she doesn't deserve that.   We talk about power and empowerment and the opportunity to think of the bigger picture but your daughter is only 15 (well, nearly) and it sounds like this is not the right time to place a fairly heavy burden squarely on her shoulders. She did an amazing thing when she told these boys their conversation was unacceptable to her - most kids her age wouldn't have the courage to do that. The fact that she is so comfortable talking to you about it, well, for me, you just don't want to take that away right now. She sounds like the sort of person who's going to do amazing things in her life and sadly there'll probably be plenty of times she encounters ignorant bullies and no doubt she'll be the sort of person who makes huge changes in the world, for the better.   I think that perhaps this time around she just deserves a huge amount of respect for speaking out as she did, a big hug, and the chance to keep enjoying the tennis lessons. I wish I could tell her how proud I am of her for the fact that she stood up for herself but I'm sure you can do that for me. ... View more

Audrie and Daisy - a Netflix original. I watched this and it was just a really confronting reminder that we've still got a long way to go in educating parents and children about sexual violence. It's an eye opener about the power of social media. Rated M. I'd definitely recommend watching it first before watching it with your teens and I'd say it's best for Year 9 upwards but I also believe that as soon as sex, drugs and drink are a part of your child's world, and sadly at my daughters' school this was Year 7, you should be aware of how the kids are operating and you should be trying to have open and frank conversations with your kids, however uncomfortable.   Hope this link works (might have to cut and paste into your browser and you'd need to be a netflix subscriber): https://www.netflix.com/search?q=Audrey%20and%20&jbv=80097321&jbp=0&jbr=0   From Wikipedia: Audrie & Daisy is an American documentary film about three cases of rape. The documentary includes the stories of two American high school students, Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman. At the time of the sexual assaults, Pott was 15 and Coleman was 14 years old. After the assaults, the victims and their families were subjected to abuse and cyberbullying. The documentary follows their outcomes through time, social media, court documents and police investigations. The film directors Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, a husband-and-wife team who have teenage children of their own, had been fascinated by the role of social media in teenage lives and were attracted to the subject of the Daisy Coleman story as "a modern-day 'Scarlet Letter' story".[1] ... View more

@motherbear to your note about talking to the parents of the child - We own a business in a small community and we employ some of the local teens. It was brought to my attention by more than one employee that another employee, a Year 12 in the local private school was taking and possibly (pretty sure) supplying drugs to his "friends". We've known him and his family for 13 years. So I rang his mum and took a deep breath. I made sure to set my personal feelings aside and just present the facts at hand. I also made it very clear there was absolutely no judgement on my part, that kids sometimes get themselves into situations they don't understand but we're in a small community and I would just feel terrible if something happened to him, or worse, to someone he sold drugs to. I didn't say too much and I didn't tell the mother what I thought she should do about it. Once I'd told her what I knew I redirected the conversation to how our sons are doing generally at school (as both our boys are in year 12 at the same school) so we chatted a bit about how difficult parenting teens through their final year of school can be, balancing work and parenting, deciding on unis, etc etc etc.    In this instance the mother was really grateful but interestingly/disappointingly nothing changed. I agree, by talking to the parent of the boy you'll get a better insight into what you're dealing with and whether your daughter should be around this boy any more. As a result of my conversation I've been able to have great conversations with my son about his awareness of drugs and that's been really positive for us. ... View more

@taokat that is just awful but your daughter sounds like one amazing young woman for having the courage to tell him it was not OK to talk like that. I agree with @Ngaio-RO that a word to the instructor is in order, if nothing more than to have the instructor a little more clued in to what's going on at the lesson.   I also wonder if you have watched 'Audrey & Daisy' - a documentary on Netflix about two girls who were raped, both by boys in their social circle and both with terribly tragic outcomes (I wouldn't watch this with your daughter until you've watched it yourself, but I have talked to my 14 year old twin daughters, & 17 year old son, extensively about it and will watch it with them). The saddest thing that struck me was the complacency of many of the kids (and the adults) in the documentary who not only denied that what occurred was rape but then also shamed and intimidated the girls.   I feel so strongly that we parents need to do something differently to educate both other parents and kids about sexual intimidation. I wonder if you think you're in a position to have this frank discussion with your daughter - that the way this boy made her feel may be the way he makes another person feel, who doesn't have a parent like you that they can turn to for advice but might instead be coerced into a situation they can no longer control.   In the 'Audrey and Daisy' doco one of the girls did eventally met others who had similar experience and they worked together to get back some of the power that was taken away from them not just through the rape but more so through the intimidation and ridicule of those who didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation or were in denial about their involvement.   This has been on my mind since watching the doco and your post just reminds me it is not going away. I'm sure @Ngaio-RO is far more qualified to speak on this topic than I am. My response is pure passion and concern that there is an unconscious complacency in our community about "rape talk". It's a bit like racism. We think we're outraged about sexual harrassment and assault but we seem to have fairly loose definitions of what that is. I hope your daughter is OK, this must have been extremely unsettling for her. She seems to be a very level headed person, which no doubts she gets from you. Good luck with this one. I will be interested to hear how it turns out. ... View more

@Ngaio-RO @taokat @spaceman @taokat I'm so interested in what you said. I was just piecing together an idea in my head. I don't know if it works or not but...   I wonder about the 'buddy' system where the older students mentor and look out for the younger ones. It's in so many primary schools but rarely in high school.   Does this give a student someone to talk to, someone who's nearly an adult by the time they're in Yr 11 or 12 but at the same time someone closer to their own age who is more relatable? Does it also give some sense of ownership of the bullying policy to the students as they have to help each other face up to the idea that bullying does really exist? All the workshops and discussions teachers have with students, all the "don't be a bully" conversations don't have as much impact as having to actually deal with bullying in a hands-on manner.    As you point out @taokat quite often the teachers ignore it or if they do speak to the parent the parent often denies it's an issue, and I think a lot of bullies operate knowing this safety net exists. Would they be so quick to bully if they knew the situation was going to be dealt with by their peers? And as they got older and became the mentor to a younger student might they begin to realise the weight of their own actions and if nothing else at least gain better insight into the impact of bullying and become an adult who doesn't bully?   My son had an awful time on the bus in Year 8, with a boy in his year level forcing him to sit with the junior school students then taunting him for doing so. If one of the older kids had simply stepped in and policed where the kids sit the problem would have been solved. There was a bus captain but it's often a token position. It seemed the older kids were oblivious - they didn't know my son so it wasn't their concern.   My fear is that it could become a bit "lord of the flies" so there would need to be clear steps that the students took when an incident of bullying was reported to them, but if schools had cross-year mentor groups where younger and older students worked together, under the guidance of the principal or senior staff, then the bullies will realise they actually have to deal with their peers if they cross the line.   Still just a thought...     ... View more

Hi @spaceman. You pose a really interesting question and I've been sitting here for the last 15 minutes trying to say something useful and insightful but I have nothing. Which makes me really sad. My son experienced a bout of bullying in Year 8. Nothing too drastic - just the smallest kid and an easy target. He got through it, but it definitely impacted his learning and his mental health for a period of time and the school was not interested at all, which I found really difficult.   I do know what he found most frustrating was that there was a lot of 'anti-bullying' discussion and policy at the school and, particularly in Year 9 they school had a program aimed at getting the students to think about their actions, to look out for bullying and to support their classmates. All good in theory but as my son pointed out, the bullies often don't know they're bullies (the ones like your son dealt with who simply think they're just having a bit of harmless fun) so they don't actually reflect on or take anything away from the workshops, and the timid kids, like my son, find the workshops and discussions confronting and try to fly under the radar, for fear of further ridicule. This was my son's feedback at the time.   I do know lots of communication at our end helped my son through and is helping my daughters deal with the seemingly endless dramas of Year 9. Picking up on small signals such as being unusually quiet at the end of the day helps. I often let them decompress a bit in the car but will then say: "you seem a bit flat, are you OK?" and leave it at that. They may not chat until dinner or even later but they'll usually open up at some point and we just navigate each situation together. I find it's really important to note the good days as well, so we can have excited, upbeat conversations which means they're more willing to also chat about the not so good days.    Anyway, I definitely agree with you that it would be good if there was a policy or system within the school that could deal with bullying in a more effective way. My son's in Year 12 now and I'm going to ask him, and my 14 year old daughters, your question. I'll be back to this post if we come up with anything interesting.     ... View more

Hi @Ngaio-RO. I love this conversation. We used to have a "best thing worst thing" dinner time talk about our day when the kids were younger and now they often start a conversation with "what's the best thing that happened to you today?". We also had a "one thing you learnt today that you didn't know when you woke up this morning" which often resulted in very funny conversations.   Anyway.... I'm grateful for: 1. My daughter, who suffers from anxiety and often refuses to go to school, went today without fuss, even though I could see she didn't want to; 2. The rain which means I can take "water the garden" off my to do list this week; 3. Cricket season finishing with a win at the Grand Final so my son is proud of his efforts and I don't have to drive him to the matches until the next season starts ;-) ... View more

Hi @Graeme. I'm new here and most probably not at all qualified to make much of a response but I just wanted to see how you're doing. The part of your update that really struck me is that you're really beating yourself up, saying your son hates you and is happy that you're not a part of his life. By the sounds of your update he's definitely angry about something right now but I 100% agree with @Ngaio-RO that a) there's every chance he'll come back into your life and b) you need a support base and someone you can talk to, to help you get some further perspective so you can manage your own stress and self-esteem.   Two anecdotes that come to mind:   1. My dad gave me an ultimatum when I was 18 and I moved out of home. We had some tumultuous years to say the least. Years later someone asked him about this and he said: "I kicked her out because I knew that she knew I loved her, she could always come back, she just overstepped the boundaries and needed to work out for herself how to be a part of our family". Perhaps your son is doing something similar? He knows you love him and he loves you but he's got to figure out how for himself how to deal with his family, the divorce, his depression, the conflict between you and your ex... it sounds like a tough gig for a 19 year old.   2. We've been having some financial difficulty this past year and the stress really got on top of me at Xmas when I was vomiting every morning for about a week. I just didn't want to get out of bed and I started to shut down. But with three kids, a business to run and an MBA to finish I didn't have a lot of choice. So I started walking every morning - a 1 hour walk with the dog - and this let me clear my head as well as making me physically fitter and ready for the day. I even chat to the dog like she's my therapist. Now I try to not focus on the 'big picture' or what might be, but just plan the day ahead and deal with what I can control right now. I wondered whether breaking your situation down into more manageable chunks, rather than beating yourself up over the past or contemplating the future, might help you through this phase of your relationship with your son?   Anyway, you most certainly sound like someone who is striving to be a great parent and a great person and I'm sure your son will see this in you again. I hope in the mean time this forum can be one place you can debrief as @Ngaio-RO suggests.   Good luck with it all. ... View more

Hi. I'm a mother of three, owner of a restaurant, compulsive uni student (just completed an MBA) and person who is passionate about youth mental health. We opened the restaurant two years ago but before that I worked as a teacher's aid and just loved connecting with the kids. I also ran a pre-school movement class (my first uni course was a BA in Dance) and was a coach with the Australian Sports Commission's 'Active After School Program', teaching dance, movement and general physical activity in after school care programs in my region. My son is in his last year of high school (that's fun!) but my twin daughters are 14 so we're really getting into the eye-rolling / you're so embarrassing phase (more fun!)   What made me laugh? I recently fell over whilst walking down a main street in town and my daughter was, no, not concerned, she was mortified. It was, apparently, REALLY embarrassing for her the poor thing. Don't worry about me or my knee. The first thing I thought of was how I had the same reaction when my mother fell, we were both probably about the same age as me and my daugher. Aaaagh. I'm turning into my mother and my daughter is just like me. Yikes. Although I guess the joke's on my daughter.   I've finally discovered the art to keeping my stress levels down is to just worry less about the small stuff. Forgot your school books? You'll get by for a day - use your initiative. Don't like what I've cooked for dinner? Don't eat, it won't hurt to miss one meal. I'm no fun/not fair/mean? I can live with that, now clean your room please.   I saw ReachOut on FB and it appealed to me. I'm enrolled to do the training and looking forward to hearing new ideas and tips on parenting.   My top tips for parents entering the teen years? Where do I start? Don't take it personally, I think that's the key. Be confident you've laid a foundation based on love cos now you may have to get tough but if they know you love them they'll eventually resign themselves to your "crazy" rules. Never assume your child "wouldn't do that". I'm really open and honest with my kids but it never ceases to amaze me how many times they do something that I think we've agreed is a bad idea - like live snapchat sessions or sewing up the hem of a school dress to the point that it's more a belt than a dress. It's amazing what a little peer pressure and a commercially produced YouTube clip will convince your angel to do. Just remember they're still young and their brains are still developing. There'll be many mistakes between now and adulthood and most of them are completely normal so don't crucify yourself when they happen.   Best thing about weekends? Well, to be honest, weekends are my busiest time as taxi driver to my three but I guess I like Saturday afternoons when we have nothing on (rare) and can just catch up. We're big on food in our house so when we have a spare Saturday afternoon it usually involves a big cook up, a good movie and lots of lying around on the couch talking about what's good and bad about life, politics, school and friends. It's a great way to touch base and see who's up to what.   Looking forward to hearing more from everyone. ... View more

Hi. Just some thoughts on getting your friend's son talking. Advice to me (my son is now 17 & twin girls 14) was to not push conversation but create situations where they open up on their own. For boys this is often when they're physically occupied so I did things like getting him to help me stack firewood (we have a fireplace!) or walk the dog. I got involved in his cricket, football and tennis (committee member, scoring, umpiring, etc) so we had small things in common and I could ask questions about things he cared about, and I knew he would know the answers to. I often deliberately don't ask questions or seek any conversation with any of my kids until I can see they're relaxed and in the mood to talk. I knock on their bedroom door, whether the door is open or shut, and ask if I can come in, or if they've got a moment to talk so they feel like I'm respecting their space and time. I will apologise if I reflect on a conversation or moment that I think I've handled badly and I try really hard not to overstate my opinion or concerns. I've found repetition or the "did you hear what I said" approach is often futile. I've actually found the less I ask the more they tell me. But I also have clear rules. I don't ask 3 times for them to come to table for dinner. Once is enough. I know they heard me and if they don't respond they miss out. I'm not a taxi service. If they want to go somewhere it needs to be prearranged, with consideration for my time. Friends are welcome but my kids will be expected to clean up if a mess is made (this may be more applicable to girls who like to bake!), e.g. put away the blow up mattress & sleeping bag or the tent if they decided to sleep outside. I've often said I judge my kids not on how they speak to me but how they speak to others. Talk to his teachers, sports coaches, other adults in his life to get some further insight on his behaviour. Maybe he's struggling with something at school or socially, maybe he's just your average teen. Hope some of that is useful. ... View more