I thought something was seriously wrong with my 12 year old 7th grade daughter. She tells me EVERYTHING about everyone in her school AND about their siblings problems too. At times I even get tidbits on how "so in so" has the worlds worst parents or someone's dad drinks too much or someone else has had a boy do this and that to them and everyone thinks they are a slut now. This is a common occurence in my house. I thought it was just my kid being overly dramatic and high strung. But no, apparently it is totally normal. Unfortunately for us parents, our girls are going to be drama filled and emphatic in their language and over the top. I used to tell my daughter to crawl out of my butt as she would follow me around the house jibber jabbering about someone's elses life at school, as if I cared. This got much laughter but the fact still remained that I really didn't care!

So I decided, how do we get them to realize that we care about them and how they FEEL about something but could care less about the MANY insignificant things that they are telling us about people we don't even know.

So I began to NOT bend over and give my daughter a landing pad when she is too close and began to "listen" and "edit". I show her that I care by listening and asking questions that lead her to think about whether it's vital information that she, and more especially I need to know. I've also pointed out that as I do care about her and want her to have friends, when she tells me these "awful" things about the kids in her class, it's probably not a good idea to ask me if they can come over that Friday night. It's not going to happen if they are THAT terrible. Which I tell her and explain that I am only going off her words.
I think that for our girls, when they tell us moms everything it's really a compliment. I know that my daughter values my opinion and only wants to see if I have the same feelings as she does, OR that she is unsure of what to feel and is searching for what is right to feel about things by voicing her thoughts about the drama at school, looking for my reaction to see if her thoughts were right or not.
I suppose it's perfectly normal for these things to occur in our girls. The funny thing is, I sit and listen to her and think, "Was I that bad? Did I do this to my mother?"
It's a crazy time, pre-teens/teens. Parents should be given medals for having the energy to listen to and deal with our children's opinions of hot topics. It takes a special kind of parent to try to sort out why your daughters friends brother's cousin had sex in a movie theater when he was 10. It's crazy making what our kids come up with, but hey, at least they have an active imagination. I say we encourage them to put that to work in something productive. Or for the time being, in a journal so that next week when another horrendous event takes place in the life of something distantly connected to our child, they will have somewhere to jot it down.

Learn more about this author, Becky Mcvicker.
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