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I've recently come to the same conclusion, at least with my daughter. My wife and I seem to be able to exercise greater influence over my sons, but it's become clear that my daughter's peers exert vastly more influence over her than we can -- and she has unfortunately chosen a set of friends who have a very negative influence. By "negative" I don't mean "funny hairstyles", I mean hanging around with them, or even just talking to them over the phone or via computer, has pushed her into depression, self-injury, complete disregard for school, etc. Ultimately it lead to a suicide attempt, at which point we shifted from trying to be influential, supporting parents to unabashedly controlling her life. She's 13. We're attempting to intervene with medication and professional counseling to help with the depression and injury. We're also attempting to remove the negative peers from her life by removing her from school (homeschooling) and controlling who she's allowed to spend time with. It's helping, but modern technology has created some challenges. Like most geek homes, mine is filled with technology, and my kids are adept in its use. I've had to block Facebook and all of the free e-mail services on the kids' computers, but short of intensively supervising her computer usage there's effectively no way to cut off that avenue of communication with her negative friends. I finally resorted to writing a script that notifies me whenever she logs in, and then hacking the GNOME remote desktop tool so that it doesn't display a notification when I remotely connect to her desktop. Oh, we've used the low-tech solution of putting the computer in a public area of the house and paying attention, but that just means she has to pick the right moment. Knowing that I may be virtually looking over her shoulder at any moment, and there's no way she can know when that's happening, seems to have closed off that avenue. Finally. When she's at home. However, phones have proven much more difficult. We've taken her cellphone away, and the home phone has no long distance service (her problem friends happen to be outside the local calling area; she had to cast a wide net to find a group this bad), but my home office line does, and there are three other cellphones around the house, not to mention that all of her local friends and cousins have cellphones. Short of keeping all of our phones locked up and not allowing her out of the house, there's effectively no way we can keep her from getting in touch with her friends. And these friends are so important to her that there seems to be no punishment, no bribe, no consequence that will keep her from contacting them. Without modern communications technology, it's unlikely that she ever would have found this group of negative peers, and it's certain that we as her parents would be able isolate her from them. As it is, as long as she's willing to sneak behind our backs, it is effectively impossible for us to control her access to them. We can limit it significantly, of course, but unless we could watch her every minute of every day, as soon as our backs are turned she'll find a way to contact them. So far, reducing her communication with them seems to be limiting their effect on her. The anti-depressants are having an effect as well, and the therapy seems also to be helping her to understand herself and her value a little better. However, as you can imagine, the constant close supervision and tight control is also basically destroying our relationship with her, and reducing our ability to directly influence her thinking to zero. She sees us as the enemy. That saddens us greatly, but we don't see any other option. She was in a downward spiral last year and we intervened aggressively and she pulled out of it. Then she convinced us that she could handle herself if we relaxed the grip. We did, and within three months she attempted suicide (which her peers think is cool). So, this has been long and rambling, but the point is that my anecdotal experience with my daughter supports this researcher's claims. Our influence over our daughter's behavior and thinking is minimal at best, and I'm questioning whether it was ever as great as we thought it was. Our influence over her environment is substantial and we're working that influence for all it's worth. I guess we'll know in a few years if that approach worked. Well, sort of. We'll only know the results of what we do. There's no way to know what might have happened if we'd acted differently. That, of course, is the hard part of being a parent. You can only do what you think is best, and there's really no way to know if you're doing the right things, or how much what you're doing even matters. Still, you have to do the best you can. |
We only imprison a suicidal person to make death impossible for her, having in mind that the person's life is her own and that if the person could think rationally she would want to live. This is never to be done at home, though. It's done in a hospital or clinic, because it's a place that will be hated and where the person rightly won't want to return to.
I remember being in a mental hospital ward as a young adult and thoughts going from "I hate the world and I wish I was dead" to "If only I could go out in the sun and get some ice cream." This hospital had a beautiful garden outside which you could see from the barred windows and a quiosk where they sold ice cream. Man, did I enjoy that ice cream once I was allowed to go out for it! When was I finally released from the hospital (on the condition of doing therapy, which I quit soon I could, because it was humilliating) my family took me out to the cinema, to buy videogames and I had no restrictions on Internet and going out with my friends (I was not a minor anymore, so I guess it was easier for them to respect me.)
The experience was undignifying and I still have a grudge against my parents for it, since they got the necessary documents to forcefully sign me into hospital. I still love them and we talk but I prefer to live in another country. I also never completely got rid of my suicidal thoughts up to this day (over a decade after) nor did the experience scared me out to try suicide a second time. Still, it might have solved the immediate emergency then. I don't know.
The most terrible thing about hospitalization is the forced medication, which is brain damaging and useless. The mind is not ill, just wrong.
So I'm sure there is a better way to help. But whatever you do, have this in mind:
One's home should always be one's home. It should be a person's private space. It should be a welcoming place where the person longs to be in. Your daugher should have her own room, her own computer, her own things, her own friends and her freedom back. She should not be spyed upon by her own family. That will just make her paranoid. If her own family is out to get her, who isn't?
Understand that a person is motivated to live when they can be free, when they can have a good life by their own standards. So help her get a life she wants to live. listen to her. What does she like? Get her more of that.
Also, get her some Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand is great because she gets to the roots of the self-esteem problem. Teenagers that read Ayn Rand love life, and behave like they are invincible. I wish I had read her then. Your daughter is more likely to not be influenced by bad friends when she learns why she shouldn't care for what others think. The Virtue of Selfishness is brilliant. Get that one or Anthem for a starter.