lets add some female perspective.
the bitch switch, as you so plesently called it, is acurate. teenage girls have it hard. its not like the boys, who get to go hit people under the guise of sports. you end up under all this pressure to fit in, be a girl, and do this or do that. and NOBODY seems to want you to do the same as anyone else. parents become hard to talk to. you feel like they can't possible understand.
ESPECIALLY when daddys going on and on about what you can and can not do.
so tip one. don't lay down the law with an iron fist. your just going to end up in a screaming match. and yeah, she most likely will lose, but then she will be a martyer for teenage girls every where and you'll start losing control. she's also not going to want to talk to you, so your going to have to make an effort to get her to want to talk to you. which means when she intentionally pushes those buttons (and she will, god knows i did) STAY COOL and be rational. Dad needs to be someone that she can go to, even if she is in trouble and made a mistake. be calm, sense it out and work with her.
BTW, this is my dad. we only EVER had one knock down drag out fight when i was a teen. and by the time we had that fight, i respected him so much that i NEVER wanted to disappoint him again. i was and still am closer to him then my mother, because i could talk to my dad about anything (including stuff that most girls don't talk about with dad) the reason i could talk to him was because he never got pissed at me or yelled at me even when i was being stupid. instead, he encouraged me to talk it out with him, until i relized for myself that i was being stupid.
you got to understand whats going on at school. no matter how many friends she has or how popular she is, the social stuff is enough to drive anyone nutts. middle school is the worst. by about 11th and 12th grade they start to figure out the diffrence between friends and other folks, but until then its the cliques and fitting in.
now this goes two ways.
one: she is going to try to fit in. she is going to insist on wearing certain close, talking on the phone to certain people and is going to get embroiled and a WHO LOTTA DRAMA. the plus side is that she is going to learn how to survive socially and she'll manage to find friends and have lots of neat things to do. the downside is that whats cool is whats cool and thats what she's going to want to do, even if your budget and your opinions say diffrent. my only advise, (and this is because i wasn't one of these girls) is to keep her talking at home and make sure she knows the diffrence between whats superficial and whats important.
or
two: she is going to reject the 'mainstream' and be 'original'. now, every school has about five or six main cliques for these kids. a couple, if she goes in those directions, are going to make life easier for you (usually the 'nerds' and 'the good girls'). but the other ones are going to be a pain (especially if you can't learn to tolerate them) which includes the artist type groups and the wilder groups. oen thing you got to remember is just because her frineds are doing it doesn't mean she's doing it (and i'm just talking in genral about whatever that group is doing). once again, keep in mind the diffrence between superficial and important. for example: BLUE HAIR = superficial, SEX = important. get it?
now, whats important. ANSWER HER QUESTIONS. even if its stuff you don't really want to talk about. yes, like sex. and tell her the freaking truth, because if she doens't get it from you, SHE WILL GET IT FROM HER FRIENDS. and i would think that you would know quite a bit more about that particular subject then her friends. don't just tell her don't do it. thats not answers. and besides, then if she does do it (and you have absolutly no control over this, so don't even bother with the fairy tale that you do) she most likely WILL get hurt. or sick. or pregnant. so tell her the truth, tell her, if she does do it to be safe, and HOW TO BE SAFE, and tell her that you would really rather that she wait until she's older and more experianced in life, and that if her friends are pressuring her that she doesn't need to listin.
now if this is making you go 'ahh hell no, i ain't tell her a thing', you give her the ultimateium, NO SEX, but she doesn't listin to you. and she goes out with some friends, gets pressured and ends up doing the nasty on some punks backseat, without a condem. so she ends up, hurting both physically and emotionally, pregnant and with an STD. and she sure is hell ain't going to talk to daddy about it. so were does she go? not to the docter, he'll tell dad, not to mom, she'll tell dad, not to the school conseler, they'll tell dad. instead she may ignore and keep going down that bad path. or she may try to deal with it on her own, and maybe she'll get lucky, but most likely she won't. congragulations, daddy. your baby girl is alone, hurt and has no were to go all because you couldn't be reasonable.
but if you tell her the truth plus that extra bit about you wanting her to be older, she'll definatly listin to the first part, and most likely will heed the second part. you want an example. my parents gave me the facts of life as soon as i had questions. i talked to my dad about sex as a teenager. i am still a virgin and i am going to stay that way until i feel its right.
and at the very least, if she doesn't wait, at least she'll be safe. which is all you can really do at that point.
drugs: see above, but interject the whole, its illiegal and i'd rather you didn't do it at all.
finally. teenage girls are emotional timebombs. remember when your wife was pregnant and all those hormones made her a little crazy? teenage girls are getting those same hormones at a slightly smaller level for the first time as a steady diet for several years. things settle down eventually, as you complete maturing and learn to deal with it, but for that time period, its a pain in the neck. girls begin puberty at about 10/11 on average, and complete the process around 24/25. yep, we start earlier then the boys and we go later.
so remember that when she is screaming and crying and going "i hate you" she (usually) doesn't actually mean it, and is often just wanting you to give her some attention. give her some attention. i dont' mean a full blown pity party every time, but dads shoulder is usually the best spot when you need to cry it out.
any questions?
