Parenting Teenagers (12-18) Support Group
This community is focused on the joys, challenges and concerns faced by parents of teenagers (12 to 18 year olds). The major areas of child development include: physical development, perception and sensory development, communication and language development, cognitive development, emotional development and social development.
Please everybody's I need your help. My daughter has been through so much I was recently told by my daughter her father sexually molested her about a year ago . Of course I panicked called the cops got her pulled out of his care by the police and ministry sent back to me. There was an investigation going on by the police department but before they could bring him in to question him he committed suicide and hung himself on July 12th. My daughter was daddy girl I had no idea how to tell my baby her dad was dead . before I found out he molested her around tbe time it happened she changed drastically like a flick of a switch . She no longer wanted to be a girl anymore she wanted to dress like a boy and cut her hair short I just thought it was a phase I had no idea he molested her at the time when I found out what happened one year later it all made sense but now she wants to be a transgender she's hiding that girl inside of her because of what he did to her I'm so confused as a mom I don't know how to deal with this I feel that I'm grieving my child my daughter. She is so persistent that she wants to be a boy but when she likes a boy she blushes she lost her identity when her dad hurt her:( damn him to hell. When he left this world he took her with him. How do I get my little girl back?
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I have 3 kids. 24. 17. 15. My 17 yr old has become super defiant. He and his 15 yr old sister have on their own decision stopped going to their dads because he and his household is so toxic.My 15 yr old and myself feel like we have to tip toe around my son who is 17. And physically towers over us and out weighs us. He has become emotionally abusive and on the verge of becoming physically...
Depends on what you mean by that.
How do you get the image you had of your daughter before all of this back? You don't. She's different. You love her as she is NOW, if you don't she loses both her father and her mother.
Privately...it's a death. It's okay to grieve. But do this completely separate from your girl/son.
As for transgender, the standard is to take her to therapy, and let someone independent help her sort her feelings out. If she's felt like a boy from the time she was a young child...she may very well be transgender. She could even be transgender/gay...and have crushes on boys.
Abuse...doesn't make a person transgender. It may affect how he deals with all of this, how it all comes out, and how he thinks of himself, but it doesn't create it.
What I can tell you for 100% certainty, if she's transgender...you can't change it. How you act, how much you accept him for who he is...will have a huge impact on him going forward. Accept him and you will have a son devoted to you...reject him and he will never forget.
Based on what you've said she has told you that her dad hurt (molested) her. In her eyes this happened because she is a girl, and because of that she doesn't want to be a girl any more. That's what you said she has told you.
I think the best place to start is by understanding. She's been badly hurt (regarless of how 'severe' the molestation was, it is very damaging. ) She wants to avoid being hurt again. As hard as it is for you, I would spend a lot of time at this point just listening and accepting without trying to change her mind. How much time?? I'm not sure.. Weeks.... Months... Maybe consult a counselor about that (I'm not one).
At some point it will be necessary for her to confront two errors in her thinking. The first is that he molested her because she is/was a girl. Hopefully she will one day come to understand that he molested her because there was something wrong with him that made him willing to hurt her like that (at this point, based on what you've said, she is thinking that the flaw is hers when it was really his).
The other error in thinking, which is actually related, is that she is thinking that girls are by their nature victims. This does not need to be true. Maybe eventually expose her to strong girls and women, assertiveness training, or self defense classes.
So, does any of this guarantee that she will stop wanting to be a boy? No. There's no way to guarantee that. Basically, my advice is to focus on the effects of the abuse. When she deals with that she'll be freer to objectively (or as objectively as anyone can) assess her feelings about her gender - but don't pressure her about that, these things take time, and much love and understanding along the way.
Hang in there mom!