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Teens need a space where they can share their thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment or exposure.
And parents play a key role in creating that space at home, showing they can be trusted with personal opinions and deep, complex emotions. Reddit user Fun-Tomorrow1710 recently shared a story that highlights just how fragile these bonds can be. In the post, the dad describes ongoing tension in his family and blames his wife for repeatedly exposing their daughter’s private life to friends and relatives.
The gossip has ruined their household, and now everyone keeps their distance, with the daughter confiding only in her dad while her mother feels increasingly shut out.
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Parents can help their teens navigate crushes and relationships, but only if they’ve earned their kid’s trust
Image credits: DC Studio / freepik (not the actual photo)
This dad is fed up with his wife constantly spilling their daughter’s secrets as if they were scenes from a sitcom
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: vgstockstudio / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Fun-Tomorrow1710
The way parents get along with their teens will affect their later lives as well
Image credits: prostooleh / Freepik (not the actual photo)
We don’t know everything about the mother, so we can give her the benefit of the doubt. Her oversharing might be due to a very human need—the desire to feel connected, supported, and seen.
Plus, while adolescence has always been complicated, a lot of changes—social media; an uncertain and increasingly unsafe-feeling world; radical shifts in gender, workplace, and family structure; and more—have happened since she was a teen, and the woman might not fully understand how her daughter’s environment is different from the one she had when she was her age.
But these nuances don’t diminish her agency. She is still a mother who needs to be the best version of herself for her daughter. “Having healthy relationships within the family is important for healthy … development, both in terms of maintaining secure attachment and modeling future intimate relationships,” psychiatrist Grant Hilary Brenner explained.
“In order for this to happen, adolescents have to feel safe enough, even when embarrassed or scared of punishment, to approach parents. Families in which parent-child relations are disrupted put adolescents at future risk for a variety of problems, including emotional abuse in adult relationships.”
A 2022 study employed latent class analysis to examine 332 adolescents’ strategies for managing information shared with their parents, focusing on disclosure, secrecy, and lying. The study identified three distinct patterns:
Communicators (36%): These teens frequently disclosed information to both parents, perceived high levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, and had autonomous reasons for disclosure.
Reserved (37%): This group disclosed information to mothers but less frequently to fathers, indicating a selective approach to sharing.
Deceptive (27%): The teenagers in this category often kept secrets and lied to both parents, reported low levels of parental involvement and autonomy support, and had less autonomous reasons for disclosure.
The researchers also discovered the deceptive class were more likely to engage in problematic alcohol use.
So by pushing her daughter away from honest conversations, the mom is jeopardizing more than their relationship.
People who read the dad’s post don’t blame him and think the mom needs to take full responsibility
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What do you think ?
Trillian 2 months ago
The wife doesn't sound like a mother but rather like a teenaged school bully. Who tattles out things like that and then "cries and locks herself in the bathroom"?
🇺🇦 🇵🇸 TribbleThinking 2 months ago
The dad doesn't need to worry about the silent treatment from the soon to his ex-wife. The wife, on the other hand, needs to worry about the upcoming lifetime of silent treatment and permanent absence from her daughter! *this post is by from an experienced decades absent daughter*
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UpupaEpops 2 months ago
For any underage pandas lurking around here: if your bank account was opened by a parent/guardian, once you turn 18/21 depending on your country, you need to go to the bank and ask to be switched over to an adult account AND have the parent's/guardian's access to your account revoked. This process *isn't* automatic, you need to do it yourself and most likely in person. Love, Aunty Panda, who had to find this out the hard way.
LtKernelPanic 2 months ago
Yup. Learned that one the hard way. Parents name were on my account from when I was a kid. Dad went into debt and my account got vacuumed out a week before I was to move across the country. Mom's still on the one I opened to replace that one 20 years ago because I can trust her.
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Trillian 2 months ago
The wife doesn't sound like a mother but rather like a teenaged school bully. Who tattles out things like that and then "cries and locks herself in the bathroom"?
🇺🇦 🇵🇸 TribbleThinking 2 months ago
The dad doesn't need to worry about the silent treatment from the soon to his ex-wife. The wife, on the other hand, needs to worry about the upcoming lifetime of silent treatment and permanent absence from her daughter! *this post is by from an experienced decades absent daughter*
Load More Replies... UpupaEpops 2 months ago
For any underage pandas lurking around here: if your bank account was opened by a parent/guardian, once you turn 18/21 depending on your country, you need to go to the bank and ask to be switched over to an adult account AND have the parent's/guardian's access to your account revoked. This process *isn't* automatic, you need to do it yourself and most likely in person. Love, Aunty Panda, who had to find this out the hard way.
LtKernelPanic 2 months ago
Yup. Learned that one the hard way. Parents name were on my account from when I was a kid. Dad went into debt and my account got vacuumed out a week before I was to move across the country. Mom's still on the one I opened to replace that one 20 years ago because I can trust her.
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