Will reverse psychology work on my daughter when she starts dating bad boys?

Don’t try to outthink your kid. It will backfire, and you’ll end up kicking yourself hard. Just treat her with respect, and be honest with her.

It might. My daughter was dating a really lovely guy. I told her I thought so. He got dumped very quickly after that. Not saying the two things are related but well, they could have been. I say nothing now.

You just have to trust her judgement and be there while she tests the dating pool. She will come to you when she needs help. If you interfere she won’t thank you.

“I intend to put baby in a corner.” LOL No. It won’t work. She is going to do what she is going to do and there isn’t anything you can do about it. But, this too shall pass.

Nah.

My guess is this where you start to see the impact of all that raising like trial runs. The good thing about trial runs is that is what they are. Now don’t be scared… Just let it happen.

Edit: I know nothing about child rearing.

Maybe, but I don’t recommend it if you don’t wish to give your daughter confusing messages. My father has used reverse psychology on me and I don’t appreciate it, although he used it for different reasons. It made me feel like I wasn’t trusted. It was highly unnecessary. He would have gotten better results if had a different attitude.

I seriously wonder whether any form of psychology is strong enough to defeat teenage hormones.

Not a good idea in my opinion. She may fall for it and think you are a bit crazy or more likely she will see through it and realise you are trying to manipulate her. Don’t try to manipulate her. Let her know how you feel in a quiet undramatic way and leave it at that.

I don’t know either of you, so i’ve no fucking clue, other than broad brush strokes.

She will expect you to act the way you have in the past with the friends she’s chosen. Have you previously tried to steer her away from friends who you didn’t like them or their families? If you’ve tried to steer her away from any that you’ve deemed unsavory, she will likely try to avoid having you know anything about the kids she has a crush on or might be “going out” with. If you’ve been able to have an open and honest relationship with her, yet still respect her to use her own judgement, she is likely to be more willing to let you know what is going on in her personal life. Does she have a history of having crushes on boys? You are assuming that she will be dating them. What if she wants to date a girl?

How old is she? My son was getting lots of attention from the girls (and yes, girls are the more aggressive pursuers in pre-teen heterosexual relationships these days) starting in the 5th and 6th grades. Some are having sexual relations at 13. I kept a log of his AIM chats (this was in the early 2000s), and when he was 14 I came a cross a chat in which he asked a female classmate if the rumor he’d heard that she could fist herself was true, and her reply was that she only did it once. At 15, when camera phones first came out, he was getting pornographic (not just naked) photos sent to him by a 14-year-old girl – the term “sexting” hadn’t been coined yet. Around the same time, I came across a conversation where a female friend (they don’t even worry about “dating”, they “hook up”) was arranging for her cousin to give her a ride to see my son so she could give him a blow job.

It was incredibly difficult for me to tell him that it was wrong, when these girls were throwing themselves at him. How was I supposed to teach a 15-year-old to say “No” when the previous President of the United States had been unable to do so? Regardless, I am glad I had a boy. I wish you luck.

I can say from personal experience that this will backfire depending on the kind of relationship you’ll have with your teenage daughter. I never conflicted with my parents as a teenager and in fact really valued their opinions. When they told me they liked my boyfriend, I just felt that much better about him.

I would say build up her self esteem instead.

I can’t imagine how taking a fundamentally dishonest approach to her social activity is going to do anything but harm. Planning a deceptive strategy toward people you haven’t yet met, before the situation has even arisen, strikes me as inviting problems of the very sort that you would probably most like to avoid.

You will do much better to treat your daughter with respect and consideration and her dates with courtesy whether you like them or not. Chances are good that she’ll see a lot of people before she’s ready to settle on one, so what you have to do is stay cool and keep the lines of communication open.

As parents, we teach our kids the best we can, and then we have to trust them. If you want her to care about what you think when things get serious, or if trouble looms, you must have her trust as well.