Every day I am more and more surprised at how fast my daughter grows. It seems that the last time I looked, she was eight years old. She now she goes for the fifteen. I am so proud of the young woman she is becoming. She is an excellent student and a good athlete and she wants to go far in life. So when she displays interests or behaviors that are really quite common for children her age, she surprises me and I find myself unable to process her feelings.

It seems that many of her friends are moving from standard ear piercings to other forms of body jewelry. I’ve seen a girl with a drink and another with an eyebrow ring. While my daughter’s coach won’t approve of these forms of adornment, she still craves other, more questionable body jewelry.

Where her father and I struggle is with the idea of ​​restraining her from something that she obviously thinks is important. Wouldn’t that seem like a punishment for a girl who excels and excels at almost everything she does? It would be easier to say “no” to body jewelry if she was a bad student or if they had to constantly talk about her behavior or attitude. That is not the case here.

On the other hand, we are not parents to be friends. Parenting is parenting, and sometimes that means sticking to the rules you think will serve your child’s best long-term interests, like body jewelry. If this sounds like something you are experiencing, I encourage you to talk openly and honestly with your child about her concerns. They need to know why you don’t support the idea, so they don’t think you don’t care about their interests or that they don’t live up to other expectations. If you just say “no!” arbitrary without explanation, your good boy could rebel.