My heart is very heavy...no one to talk to about my 15yr.old dd...

[Love2Smile]

The OP is feeling better now. She realizes that it wasn't as bad as she thought after she typed it out and thought about it.

YES! And i'm just not making sense anymore! LOL

 

I do feel better now and more confident, just needed to come here and vent and have you guys help me work it thru.

[Love2Smile]

She sounds like a great kid! Maybe you have difficulty seeing the world from perspective other than your own. Don't borrow trouble :)

 

Barb

VERY good point! I needed that

[LibraryLover]

The OP is feeling better now. She realizes that it wasn't as bad as she thought after she typed it out and thought about it.

 

 

 

 

In my next life I am going to be a mind reader. ;)

Edited August 15, 2010 by LibraryLover

[LibraryLover]

YES! And i'm just not making sense anymore! LOL

 

I do feel better now and more confident, just needed to come here and vent and have you guys help me work it thru.

 

Next time you know to send a PM to Jean in Newcastle first. :001_smile: :lol:

 

But if you PM me as well, right off, I am going to tell you to respect your child and her interests. :)

Edited August 15, 2010 by LibraryLover

[Peela]

Sounds like she has a creative outlet and I think that counts for HEAPS because it can lead her places and it keeps her stimulated and growing- as does reading good things. I too was quite a homebody at that age (still am but I do have a rich life!)

Creativity is often something we tend to need to be alone to do, anyway.

As long as she is getting out of the house a few times a week, and doesnt seem depressed, I would't worry.

If its any help, we have the opposite problem. My dd16 is so extroverted we have just grounded her for a weekend so we can spend time with her and she can catch up on chores and tidy her room etc. She has had camps and workshops on the last few weekends. She is out there. She did a workshop all day yesterday, was taken to a ball last night, got home at 12.30 this morning, and then had to be back at the workshop at 8am this morning.

She also doesnt especially love her schoolwork. But she does love her art and playing with photography on Photoshop. Somedays if I am not watching, she will sit literally for hours and hours on end at her computer, doing first her Media Studies course, then her other online subjects, then she will jsut move onto playing with her photos and uploading them and then to Facebook where she then discusses them with the people in them...and by 9pm I realise she has had a productive day but its all been in front of the computer and she has barely moved. So I feel like a bad mum for that sometimes.

[Halcyon]

I have a daughter who is in school and she also has no friends and no interests. She IS depressed and takes medication for it. We told her that she MUST pick an extra-curricular for the year or we will pick one for her.

 

I would suggest that you stop letting her watch tv and play video games. For a lot of people, it's a lot easier to sit on their rears and be passively entertained than it is to actually put forth some effort to do something. Were it me, I would tell dd that there was a ban (or very strict limits, such as no more than an hour a day, but preferably a ban) on screen time until she found something to do with herself.

 

Be a little more open and creative and I am quite certain you can find more than nudity and gay pride in SF. It's a huge city.

 

Tara

 

 

:iagree:

[texasmama]

No homeschool groups, but we do go to Church and she volunteers at our local SPCA. She loves animals. I think I am just overy worried and questioning myself as a parent lately...

 

This sounds great for an introverted type of girl. If she is not depressed or unhappy and is getting out in the world some to do the things you describe, she sounds just fine. You can limit the video games/computer games - it probably isn't great to spend too much time in front of a screen, but it does sound like she has outside interests.

 

I wonder if you are struggling with some of your own hopes/dreams/expectations for her and/or if she is a child very different from yourself personality-wise so you have difficulty understanding her. Once you can identify the cause of your anxiety (take it to the end and ask yourself what you think this means for her in five or ten years), I think you can address it. Perhaps she needs more outside activities and a bit of a push/encouragement to get there...or perhaps you need to wrap your mind around the type of personality she has and learn to accept this.:grouphug:

[mrsrevmeg]

Give the girl a break. She's a bit traumatised at the moment, didn't you notice? Sometimes we need to take responsibility for running badly worded sentences through our own internal translators and assuming that's what the person meant.

 

I didn't hear hate. I heard an overwhelmed, frightened mamma expressing discomfort about those activities that go against her morals, and a feeling of helplessness that she hasn't found anything else more suitable available for her and her family.

 

Rosie

 

:iagree:

[Love2Smile]

I wonder if you are struggling with some of your own hopes/dreams/expectations for her and/or if she is a child very different from yourself personality-wise so you have difficulty understanding her. Once you can identify the cause of your anxiety (take it to the end and ask yourself what you think this means for her in five or ten years), I think you can address it. Perhaps she needs more outside activities and a bit of a push/encouragement to get there...or perhaps you need to wrap your mind around the type of personality she has and learn to accept this.:grouphug:

I think this is what it is. I was so very different than her, but looking back I see I "did" get into a lot of trouble/situations I do NOT want her into. My parents had no idea what I was up to, so I would rather her be the way she is for sure! I love her so much! She is a very sweet, naive girl.

[Carol in Cal.]

I don't know exactly where you are in the SF Bay Area, but there are several Classical Conversations groups around the Bay, and those tend to be Christian and fairly conservative.

 

Video is taught at the Campbell Community Center in San Jose by a very talented man.

 

Doing a lot of reading at the high school level seems par for the course to me.

 

BASIC--Bay Area Schools in Christ is a Christian but not any particular kind of Christian homeschooling group in the Peninsula area--lots of high schoolers homeschooling in that group. It's a lot more varied than SELAH, which tends to be mostly non-denominational Christians using Abeka.

 

PM me if you want more details about any of this.

[SamanthaBea]

I am probably generally classified as a tree-hugging,liberal type of person, but I live in the reddest part of an already extremely red state. But you know what? Even though my beliefs/politics/worldview (however you want to phrase it) differ from most of my neighbors, I usually have no problem getting along with them. There is certainly more that brings us together than separates us.

 

Try not to look at the groups and labels and just get to know individual people. I'm not implying that you should alter your own personal beliefs, but just don't make assumptions about the others in your community. Everyone has family problems, stresses about work, and all the normal day-to-day issues every human faces. There are bad people and good people to be found in every group.

 

As to your dd prefering to stay home. I think that many times introverted people get treated like they have some sort of terrible disorder. If she is otherwise well adjusted, I don't think that being a homebody is such a bad thing. We aren't all social butterflies! It's certainly better than striving to be the next shallow, drunken, pantyless Paris Hilton wannabe.

[Scotia]

You might want to look into this group. http://www.highschoolwithoutborders.com/ Also with her interests in digital technology she would likely be interested in Zeum. They have many internships including a current opening as an Educational intern.

[DawnM]

You and I are in exactly oppositite ends of where we want to be. We moved to NC from Los Angeles and I would move back to CA, ANYWHERE, in a heartbeat, but DH's job is good and secure here. He does make less than he did in LA, but it does go further as well.

 

I thrive on the differences in folks. In CA I was considered conservative. In NC I seem to be considered liberal. Go figure! :tongue_smilie: I have always just considered myself a moderate. But I like talking to both "sides" and hearing others' perspectives. I don't get as much of that here and I miss it.

 

Ok, didn't mean to go off on that.....but do want to let you know that there are many, many homeschool groups in the Bay area. I have several friends in diff. areas of San Fran who hs and are part of groups.

 

Dawn

 

You hit the nail on the head! I do hate where I live! But unfortunately and I guess this is a good thing, but husband has a very secure high paying job which he has been at for 25 years and is well liked and saught after in his career! For us to keep me at home however, we did have to buy a house for "only" 800,000 instead of in the millions! LOL I laugh and im not trying to be sarcastic really I'm not, i'd leave California in a heartbeat if we could, it's just that darned wonderful job he has and he'd never earn the same amount of money in any other state for what he does.

[fairfarmhand]

I'd limit the media and get her involved in good books, cooking, sewing, gardening. etc... If she's a homebody, then she's a homebody..and there's nothing wrong with that, but you definitely want her to be a well rounded person and have interests outside of TV and video games.

[Dina in Oklahoma]

"Give the girl a break. She's a bit traumatised at the moment, didn't you notice? Sometimes we need to take responsibility for running badly worded sentences through our own internal translators and assuming that's what the person meant.

 

I didn't hear hate. I heard an overwhelmed, frightened mamma expressing discomfort about those activities that go against her morals, and a feeling of helplessness that she hasn't found anything else more suitable available for her and her family."

 

Rosie

__________________

 

 

Rosie, I love you! I really wish you didn't live on the other side of the world from me.:lol:

 

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree:

Edited August 16, 2010 by Dina in Oklahoma

[Love2Smile]

I am probably generally classified as a tree-hugging,liberal type of person, but I live in the reddest part of an already extremely red state. But you know what? Even though my beliefs/politics/worldview (however you want to phrase it) differ from most of my neighbors, I usually have no problem getting along with them. There is certainly more that brings us together than separates us.

 

Try not to look at the groups and labels and just get to know individual people. I'm not implying that you should alter your own personal beliefs, but just don't make assumptions about the others in your community. Everyone has family problems, stresses about work, and all the normal day-to-day issues every human faces. There are bad people and good people to be found in every group.

 

As to your dd prefering to stay home. I think that many times introverted people get treated like they have some sort of terrible disorder. If she is otherwise well adjusted, I don't think that being a homebody is such a bad thing. We aren't all social butterflies! It's certainly better than striving to be the next shallow, drunken, pantyless Paris Hilton wannabe.

Thanks for this, I do appreciate your input!

[Love2Smile]

Today was the first day of my younger dd's competitve gymnastics competitions...Usually I have to drag older dd to them because she hates them and they last all day.

 

Guess what? She worked/volunteered FOUR hours at the snack bar handling money, taking orders and talking to people very friendly and confident.

 

This may sound small, but for her it was BIG! And I was so proud of BOTH of my girls today! Just proved to me she has the ability and capability of being "out there"

 

It was a great day all around for us!

[justamouse]

I was the same way at her age. total introvert and my utter BLISS (and still is) is staying home for days on end reading. Doing NOTHING. If you want to give me the best present in the whole wide world, leave me alone in a room with a stack of books.

 

She'll be fine.

[KidsHappen]

You hit the nail on the head! I do hate where I live! But unfortunately and I guess this is a good thing, but husband has a very secure high paying job which he has been at for 25 years and is well liked and saught after in his career! For us to keep me at home however, we did have to buy a house for "only" 800,000 instead of in the millions! LOL I laugh and im not trying to be sarcastic really I'm not, i'd leave California in a heartbeat if we could, it's just that darned wonderful job he has and he'd never earn the same amount of money in any other state for what he does.

 

You do have to consider ratio of income to housing costs. My hubby has taken jobs that paid less money because the cost of living was less and therefore we were able to maintain the same lifestyle. Of course, you may have difficulty selling a house that expensive in this economy.

[KidsHappen]

I prefer to stay at home and am quite content to do so. Unfortunately, my family is trying to prevent me from becoming a hermit (my goal) so they are constantly trying to drag me out of the house because they think that is what is best for me. Granted your dd is still a child and therefore you have some say in what she does but consider that her life may be working for her. She might be happy with things the way they are.

 

I do agree that eventually she will have to buckle down and do a certain minimum of school work by the time she is 18 but it doesn't have to happen on a conventional time schedule. Each of my dd had a year where they were not terribly motivated to do school work. I let it ride because I knew that eventually they would go at it again with renewed vigor which they did, one graduating a year early in spite of a year off.

[Peela]

Today was the first day of my younger dd's competitve gymnastics competitions...Usually I have to drag older dd to them because she hates them and they last all day.

 

Guess what? She worked/volunteered FOUR hours at the snack bar handling money, taking orders and talking to people very friendly and confident.

 

This may sound small, but for her it was BIG! And I was so proud of BOTH of my girls today! Just proved to me she has the ability and capability of being "out there"

 

It was a great day all around for us!

 

That must really make you feel better- that she can actually hold her own in a social and service situation. See, you are not doing such a bad job after all :) I am happy for you all !