Will Body Jewelry Make Your Good Kid Bad?

Every day I am more and more amazed at how fast my daughter is growing. It seems like the last time I looked, she was eight. Now she's going on fifteen. I'm so proud of the young person she's becoming. She is an excellent student and a good athlete and wants to go far in life. So when she displays interests or behaviors that are really very common to kids her age, I get shocked and find myself unable to process her feelings.

It seems many of her friends are advancing from standard ear piercings to other forms of body jewelry. I've seen one girl with a tragus and another with an eyebrow ring. While these forms of adornment won't be condoned by my daughter's coach, she still longs for other more questionable body jewelry.

Where her father and I struggle is with the notion of restricting her from something that she obviously thinks is important. Wouldn't that seem like punishment to a kid who excels and performs at almost everything she does? It would be easier to say "no" to body jewelry if she were a poor student or constantly had to be talked to about her behavior or attitude. That's not the case here.

On the other hand, we aren't parents to be friends. Parenting is parenting, and sometimes that means standing firm with rules you believe will serve the best long-term interests of your child, like body jewelry. If this sounds like something you're experiencing, I'd encourage you to talk openly and honestly with your kid about your concerns. They need to know why you don't support the idea, lest they think you don't care about their interests or don't believe they're living up to other expectations. If you just deliver an arbitrary "no!" without explanation, your good kid just might rebel.

Category: Arts and Entertainment