Code of Secrecy
I talked about secrets in my last blog and received a specific question about how to address the issue of secrets with teenagers. What is a parent to do when it is discovered that your teen, or a teen you know, is keeping a secret about the behavior of a friend or peer from you? How do you get your teen or your tween to share this information with you? This is such a tough call—to report what is going on to someone who can be helpful (think police, school officials, parents of the teen in question) or to keep quiet so that you don’t jeopardize the trust relationship you have with your own child telling you this type of information. I’m sure we all have reference points for this challenge—either we remember when we were teens ourselves, not sharing with mom and dad how friends were drinking over the weekend in fear of being found out as a tattletale, or have encountered this type of scenario with our own children.
