Interesting Discussion with my Teenager

In Utah and in Idaho, kids can take a period out of their high school day for an off campus religious course called release time seminary.  My oldest has loved it so far and the kids take a very active part of the course including doing what is called a "devotional" which is a spiritual message to share with the class.

The teenager was telling me about a recent devotional which stresses the importance of being an individual and not letting other people change who you are.  Then she looked at me and asked "Why are you and dad always trying to change me?"

Whoa.

Well that opened a door for some serious dialog. 

Here's a beautiful, smart teenager that doesn't understand social skills.  It was a light bulb moment for me in understanding her confusion on what we, as her parents see as valuable help.  So I let her know that we weren't trying to change who she really is, but sometimes in some situations, you need to act a certain way and that's what we're trying to help her with.

We talked a bit and I strongly suspect that we'll be having this conversation again because it is hard to understand.  I mean, when you truly don't have that innate sense of social cues, when you laugh to hard in the wrong places, when it's been a struggle to even understand how to take turns in a conversation and how to stay on topic, how do you understand something so abstract?

She has come so far and I don't think she even realizes how far she's come.  I think that might be part of the problem in understanding this.  Not knowing how socially awkward she's been, she doesn't have anything to compare herself too.

I do need to make sure we keep a balance.  I need to let her know when she's done something especially well just as much as I need to correct behavior that is socially unacceptable.

Social skills are so hard to define too.  Oh sure you can explain what people do and don't do but you can't explain why things are a certain way.  I wonder if that is part of our misunderstanding today.   Of course this still doesn't help me in explaining this all to my daughter.

So in true fashion, I cut to the chase.  I reminded her that I like to hang around in my underwear, but I certainly don't go to the library like that.

I think it did the trick.