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DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014
YOUR FAVORITE
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IDEAS
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HOLIDAY
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The 2013 Mini Holiday
GIFT GUIDE
DECEMBER2013/JANUARY2014 THE PREMIER PARENTING MAGAZINE FOR CENTRAL ALABAMA
FREE
DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014
10
YOUR FAVORITE
KIDS' DOCS FOR 2013
IDEAS
HOLIDAY 28 FOR NEW
TRADITIONS
Ho-Ho Hanukkah! How to Balance Hanukkah and Christmas
The 2013 Mini Holiday
GIFT GUIDE
34 30
departments
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30 Birmingham Parent’s Mini
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Holiday Gift Guide 2013
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Parenting with Dr. Friedman December/January Pull Out Calendar December/January Calendar of Events Ask the Specialist: How Can Injuries Be Prevented During High Intensity Workouts? Death by Children: The Wrap Artist
You want to protect the environment? Make the box a shape a man can wrap.
BIRMINGHAM PARENT ANNOUNCES
YOUR FAVORITE KIDS’ DOCS 2013
Editor’s Note Happy Holidays from Birmingham Parent!
38 32 New Holiday Traditions to Start This Year!
14 Making the Most Out of a Visit to the Pediatrician
34 Ho-Ho Hanukkah!
How to Balance Hanukkah and Christmas Celebrations
ON OUR COVER: Mariah, age 8, of Birmingham, is ready to celebrate the Holidays. Photo by D Love Photography, wwwdlovephotography.com, 205-902-5357.
6 | birminghamparent | december 2013 / january 2014
parenting
Parenting with Dr. Friedman My 16-year-old daughter is dating a nice-looking young man from her high school. He often comes to our house to pick her up. I am a 40-something year-old divorced mom who is dating men my own age but I am not attached to any one man at this time. I am a naturally outgoing person and I chat with my daughter’s friend when he is here waiting for my daughter to get ready. She tends to run late and is typically putting on her makeup for 20 minutes after he arrives ready to leave. The problem is that my daughter is accusing me of flirting with her boyfriend. What is behind this and how should I handle it?
Q:
There seems to be some role confusion in your family. Somehow, you and your daughter have become peers instead of parent and child. You seem to be competing as equals and treading on each other’s turf. Divorce, in some ways, places a parent back in adolescence. While divorce does not cause the loss of the maturity and experience gained through age, it does throw an adult back to the stage of mate selection. Along with this come the flirtatious behavior, the focus on appearance, and the insecurities that this process involves. Your daughter is creating the time you have with her boyfriend by not being ready to leave when he comes. If she is concerned about your spending time with her boyfriend, she can
A:
choose to be ready when he arrives. On your part, you can avoid any appearance of competition by not dressing as a teen around her boyfriend and by being a bit less enthusiastic in your conversation with her date. If there is a problem of impropriety or competition, you can recognize your needs and work to fill them with your peers rather than with your daughter›s. The former is likely to be successful in meeting your needs, if not immediately but eventually. The latter is doomed to fail. Competition as peers creates many problems in parent-child relations. If you are her peer, you have no authority over her. If she sees you as lacking maturity, she will not respect your opinion. Teenagers do not automatically take orders from adults. They evaluate the correctness and fairness
of the rules. If you give up your parenting role in the dating realm, you will lose it in all areas of parenting. Yet it is not uncommon for middleaged parents to see themselves as they were when they were young and on some level to view themselves as still being teenagers. Most adults don’t change their self-concept about appearance and stamina as rapidly as the reality of the aging process changes them. Competition between mother and daughter over a date is not a healthy parent/child relationship. Both you and your daughter need to make some changes. She needs to be ready when her date arrives. You need to pull back from relating to her friends and to find company among your peers. You are still your daughter›s mother, not her peer.
Vivian K. Friedman Ph. D. is a child and family psychologist at UAB, Department of Psychiatry. Send questions for response in this column to Viviankf@gmail.com. No personal replies are sent.
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