Parenting a wounded child

My daughter has been so wounded in her life, she is so hard to parent. Most of the time I feel completely un-equipped to be a good parent to her. First - she is a girl - a teenage girl - WITH hormones. That in and of itself is a very difficult thing. When you add the fact that she has been molested by 2 very important men in her life - it is devastating.

She came home yesterday and shared she is 'flunking' French - OK she has gone to school for a total of 4 days - how can she be flunking already!?!? Here is the problem with my dd and school though -she is very smart. Which means things come really easy to her. So when she finds something hard, she does not have the skills to buckle down and work hard to learn something.

She crawled into bed this morning and I tried lovingly to explain this to her. Yesterday she just wanted to quit French - and try Spanish - rather than to figure out a way to learn French. (She took French I two years ago so there is a year lapse between French I & French II - hence the struggling). I think she perceives getting help as a weakness too and when she is just starting back at school and worried about what people think of her, etc. - my heart is breaking.

When she feels bad about herself she goes on the attack mode and takes these huge emotional swings. Like the 'I'll just quit French because I'm struggling' - rather than trying to get any help. If you push her in that moment she just feels cornered and you can't get anything through. Hence I hope snuggling with her this morning when she is not defensive and explaining what I think the problem is - might be a better tactic.

OK - it didn't hurt that after the French conversation she asked to go to the football game on Friday night and I might have said - sure - if you talk to your French teacher and figure out a way to get tutoring or some kind of plan to get you up to speed in class. It is good to have leverage. But you can't have too much leverage - oh the tightrope of parenting a wounded teenage girl.

Pray for me!

K