This bugs me about K....

[indigo]

She NEVER tells anyone (except us) what she wants. The current case...

She's in this very cool camp this week. It's a "rock band" camp. They get a few kids who play instruments together, and they write a song or two. Then they rehearse, perform, and make a CD. At the end of the summer I think they compete against other bands in a battle of the bands type thing.

So I signed her up as a bass player. She brought her bass. She is a very good bass player.

While they are fooling around with song ideas, she played a little piece on piano that she had made up. Everyone liked it and decided to use it for the main part of the song. The camp counselor said, "Hey, you play piano too. Cool, you can play piano."

This is a totally normal exchange among musicians. No problem. Except that she came home and wrote in her myspace how she's stuck playing piano and she hates piano and really wants to play the bass.

But did she tell the counselor anything? No.

So then I had to get it out of her that she was upset without tipping my hand about the myspace. She knows I read it (friending me was a condition of signing up) but doesn't know how religiously I read it.

Later last night I asked her how she felt about playing piano at the camp and she said she hated it. So dh, being more direct than me perhaps, said, "Tomorrow you tell them that you want to play the bass. You're a bass player. Period."

His point is that we paid a good amount of money and the bass is her instrument.

She responded, "ok."

Don't know if she'll do it or not. I know it's not unique to her to not say her piece. (There's also an issue with the drummer, a girl that she's carpooling with, but I'll leave that out because it's not relevant. But it's a similar situation and her mom called the camp to fix it. I support her doing that - her dd is only 12 and is painfully shy - but I think K can and should handle this herself.)

(Note: it's not that there are two kids there who want to play the bass. The counselor played the bass yesterday, and the piano part is not so hard that the counselor couldn't play that instead.)

Anyone else have a young teen who won't speak up in these situations? It's not just in new situations that this comes up, either. It's everywhere.

[Cat]

Don't have a teen yet - but it wouldn't suprise me if DD ended up like that.

The first thing I'd think about is whether she is the kind of kid who needs time to process things. For my DD, normal social interactions for games or deciding things go by too quickly. By the time she's formulated her well-thought-out response, the discussion has moved way past where she is. (I think she'll really like online interaction when she gets to the age where she types well). For her, I'll focus on the fact that you can speak up later. In a situation like K's, I would coach her to come in and say, I thought about it last night, and I really prefer to play the bass. But I'm happy for you to use my piano composition if you want to play it on the piano. In that situation, L wouldn't really KNOW whether she wanted to play the piano or not until the situation had already been resolved - even though when she knows it, she knows that she hates it. What I'm trying to say (and doing a bad job of) is that the intensity of the later feeling doesn't make the knowledge come any sooner (Which is what you might otherwise expect).

Right now, we are lucky in that we (and everyone in a 2 mile radius) tends to know what L. thinks once she figures it out - so we don't have to guess later. But she still makes decisions very slowly, so that it can be maddening to try to get her to make a decision if it isn't somethings she's prepared for and given lots of time to decide.

Just as an added joy to the mix, L also weights her decisions with more emotions than I do - she woul'dn't just prefer to play the bass (as I might in that situation), she'd LOATHE playing the piano.

Otherwise - if it isn't reaction speed, could she be worried about hurting people's feelings, dashing their expectations? I know you've talked about the terrrific social situation of her former school - could part of that have left her feeling that in a group decision situation, she should do the thing that makes it seem like most people will be happiest? That can be a really good thing - as it might have been here if there were in fact 2 bass players. If that's the case, then maybe work with her to figure out how to look at the variables and decide when it is good to make sure that she gets what she wants rather than going into compromise mode?

Or it could be a combination of the 2. (Of course, it could easily by neither of them - but I thought I'd at least offer some thoughts based on my own DD's behavior).

Hope you can figure it out - it sounds like the sort of thing that will be important to her to be able to figure out. She's so lucky to have you noticing and working on issues like this with her.

-Cat

[gfrach]

C tends to be that way. I tell him that being clear about his wants and needs and his boundaries is very important--it's really helpful to himself and the people around him. If he's sitting around unhappy because he hasn't spoken up, then he has no one to blame but himself because if he doesn't clearly tell people what he wants how can they know?? And then if he acts angry or upset they will have no clue what's going on because he simply hasn't communicated his needs well.

He's still 11, so who knows how this will play out. He is still quite the pushover for other kids, but hopefully this message will percolate in his brain and someday he will suddenly be more assertive. :-)

[indigo]

Thanks for writing that out. I think it's a combination of the two...and I never thought of either one! When she was a really little kid her first response was always negative. Even if it was something she'd like. If I said, "Do you want to get ice cream" she'd say "no." I can't count the number of times we took that "no" at face value and an opportunity passed and then she was crying because she really did want to go.

So I think that this is similar in that she needs time to make a decision. When she was a little kid her way of dealing with that need was to say no. Now it's to go along with things.

I think that your way of wording it, "I thought it over last night" is way more diplomatic than dh's suggestion. LOL. I wish I had thought of it! But fact is, she's incapable of being rude to anyone (except for us) so I'm sure she'll say it nicely if she says it at all.

The group dynamics thing is part of it too (maybe the lesser part.) She really is a very good team player. I think it's probably a very hard skill to learn how to tell when to go along with the group and when not to.

Thanks!

[mirage1]

In that situation, L wouldn't really KNOW whether she wanted to play the piano or not until the situation had already been resolved - even though when she knows it, she knows that she hates it. What I'm trying to say (and doing a bad job of) is that the intensity of the later feeling doesn't make the knowledge come any sooner (Which is what you might otherwise expect). This is very much me, too. I think IRL I can get caught up in the social interaction and behaving well in that situation and completely forget to check in with how I'm feeling about any particular aspect of it. Or at least, that used to be the case until I figured out ways to say what I was really thinking (I could swear it was the How to Talk books that helped me with that!).

I hope K's able to speak up today!

[indigo]

C tends to be that way. I tell him that being clear about his wants and needs and his boundaries is very important--it's really helpful to himself and the people around him. If he's sitting around unhappy because he hasn't spoken up, then he has no one to blame but himself because if he doesn't clearly tell people what he wants how can they know?? And then if he acts angry or upset they will have no clue what's going on because he simply hasn't communicated his needs well.

He's still 11, so who knows how this will play out. He is still quite the pushover for other kids, but hopefully this message will percolate in his brain and someday he will suddenly be more assertive. :-)

yes, it's a very important message! It's funny too, with my two kids, because my C is totally clear about his needs, at least as far as he understands them! Everyone knows HIS opinion!!

[Sue]

Hmmm....Do you think it's embarrassment, or that she doesn't want to disappoint anyone? If it's the the first one, it may be something she outgrows. If it's the latter, maybe you can use this as a teaching opportunity.

It is very good to learn early on that over 85% of the time when you say no there isn't any more than minor disappointment. And if you are actively looking for an alternative that goes down even more!

LOL! I have people say to me "You never say no." Which is totally untrue. I just say "I would love to, but I can't, maybe you could..." (like the sandwich, yes, no, yes all anyone remembers is yes) I even did it in High school, when kids were asking me to make bad choices. "Have a beer" "Sounds like fun, but I won't be drinking, but I can drive you home if you need me to."

[indigo]

This is very much me, too. I think IRL I can get caught up in the social interaction and behaving well in that situation and completely forget to check in with how I'm feeling about any particular aspect of it. Or at least, that used to be the case until I figured out ways to say what I was really thinking (I could swear it was the How to Talk books that helped me with that!).

I hope K's able to speak up today!

That totally makes sense. K is probably focusing on the social interaction and not on what her reaction is. The reaction comes later.

[indigo]

Hmmm....Do you think it's embarrassment, or that she doesn't want to disappoint anyone? If it's the the first one, it may be something she outgrows. If it's the latter, maybe you can use this as a teaching opportunity.

It is very good to learn early on that over 85% of the time when you say no there isn't any more than minor disappointment. And if you are actively looking for an alternative that goes down even more!

LOL! I have people say to me "You never say no." Which is totally untrue. I just say "I would love to, but I can't, maybe you could..." (like the sandwich, yes, no, yes all anyone remembers is yes) I even did it in High school, when kids were asking me to make bad choices. "Have a beer" "Sounds like fun, but I won't be drinking, but I can drive you home if you need me to."

I think you have something here: that it helps to have ways of saying "no" that don't sound harsh.

[gfrach]

Yeah, my sister was much more assertive than I was growing up--I do think there is just some personality aspect to it.

And it is hard when it's all happening to figure out what you want and speak it--I think especially as a teenager.

(Funny story--once when I was telling C the whole boundaries spiel I mentioned that I was never taught this growing up and it took me a long time to figure it out. He was so aghast and asked *why* no one ever taught me. I was actually afraid he was going to take it up with my mom!)

[Cat]

[QUOTE=Sue;44083 I just say "I would love to, but I can't, maybe you could..." (like the sandwich, yes, no, yes all anyone remembers is yes) I even did it in High school, when kids were asking me to make bad choices. "Have a beer" "Sounds like fun, but I won't be drinking, but I can drive you home if you need me to."[/QUOTE]

And it's one that I don't focus on nearly enough.

I love this thread. Typing out my own answer helped me clarify things in my head, and reading the responses have been great food for thought. This is the sort of message that makes me realize that I can't imagine how much harder my parenting journey would be if I didn't have YAAPS.

[indigo]

She did it! She told the counselor she wanted to play the bass. He said, "Aw, man, but you sound so good on piano," but she held her ground. So yay!

[Cat]

[QUOTE=indigo;44227]She did it!/[QUOTE]

[gfrach]

Good for her!

[mirage1]

She did it! She told the counselor she wanted to play the bass. He said, "Aw, man, but you sound so good on piano," but she held her ground. So yay!Hurray for K! (nt)

[Storymama]

Good for her! nt

[Sue]

Yay! ~nt