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It's every parent's nightmare: one day (although the change most likely takes place over a period of months) your son or daughter appears in the lounge bedecked in lace gloves, heavy make-up and confrontational black clothing. Before this they appeared moderately colourful like any other of their peers. You thought that you could discuss anything with them, give or take a few tantrums. If there was an underlying 'problem' you thought that you would have some inkling of it and now the ink has taken over...

Your child is Goth - what's to be done?

It's a terrible shame that an act of self-expression should be taken as a harbinger of doom. We all read the scary newspaper articles on the terrible things that these vampirish teens get up to and conveniently forget that these account for only a minority, and a minority that happens to sell more papers. Far more dangerous are those youngsters who only see the despair in darkness and not the beauty of it and the very acceptance of the human condition that the state of Gothicism denotes. It is an act of bravery in a cowardly world, with firm roots in intelligent literature and music.

Your gothic child recognises that the days of being afraid of the dark are over, and it is time to embrace that darkness and deal with it in a way that is far healthier than repressing it. Don't be afraid: instead take polaroids and torment them with them when they are older.

Learn more about this author, Suzanne Donald.
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