Tuesday, August 31, 2010

My biggest fear....

You hear all too often how teenagers or young adults go out partying and get drunk and sometimes end up in a fatal situations.



Just on Friday as I was at work, I read about Nicole John, the daughter of US ambassador to Thailand Eric John, and her fatal night of drinking.


It's stuff like this that scares me as a parent and teaching my daughter the importance of being safe and not doing certain things and about following the rules. As much as teenagers like to experiment and do things, especially if their friend's are doing it, it may lead to a situation that can cost them their lives.....and that scares me to death!

This is something that I think about all the time. What choices my daughter will make when she is a teenager. What kind of friend's she will choose to influence her. What kind of teenager she will be, in general. Will she follow the rules? Will she listen to my husband or I? Will she ask for advise from her parents? Will she even like alcohol? We are always having this talk with her now. We don't believe in sugar-coating anything, but doing it on a level for her age.
If she is out drinking and one of her friends gets into a car to drive home, we have always told her to call us. She won't be in trouble. We will be happy and relieved that she will have made a wise decision of calling us so that she will get home safely....no matter what time of night it is. We just want her to be safe.

We also talk to her about the consequences drinking and drugs has on people. Just for the simple fact that there are people in our lives being affected by it. Although, we have removed ourselves from it, at the same time. These are things we have decided to discuss so that our daughter understands the consequences and will hopefully make a smart decision if the situation arises.

Our daughter seems to have a good head on her shoulder and seems to understand and not like the bad things in life that people sometimes chooses. I just hope and pray that we are doing a good job in teaching her and getting her to understand that life is precious and we need to make good, healthy choices so that we can enjoy this life. Keeping her on the right track being influenced by positive, good spirited people is so important to me and I pray we are achieving this!

My heart hurts for the John family. I can only imagine what they are going through. I just pray I never have to deal with such a gut wrenching, horrible tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with them!


2 comments:

Akum said...

This is a tragedy! Seriously teenage years are the most important part of ones life. i too took some wrong choices as a young angry teenager which i regret till now

Denise said...

This scares me too! When I watch Intervention on tv - I literally get anxiety - hoping and praying neither of my girls turn out like that. It's horrible. It's sad. I wish no parent ever ever ever had to go through it!