Thoughts / help with teenage child

[Kate T]

If any of you don't know my wife and I have 3 children, 15yr girl, 9 yr girl and 5 yr boy.

I'm 43 yrs old, so is my wife. I came out to her 5 years ago thinking I was CD, 12 months ago she helped me and we decided that I need to transition and we would do that. We are still together and somehow ridiculously happy (mostly due to her being absolutely amazing :love:)

All our children have known pretty much from when I told my wife and have been kept in the loop the whole way. The 9 yr old is good, proudly telling all her friends her dad is Transgendered, I'm not sure if the 5 yr old thinks it is just normal that some dads become girls in the way that some dads build cars and others are doctors or whatever. The eldest however has always been our "bottler". She bottles up emotions a bit (A lot like her mum) and is still avoiding telling her friends even though we are full time, we even have a photo of me mucking around with her school principal the other night at a P&F function pretending to give him a big kiss!

We don't want to push it and we have always tried as much as possible to enable our children to make their own choices about who and how they tell but we aren't sure if we just need to push her a bit to face this fear. She knows rationally that her friends will be perfectly fine and probably forget it within the next couple of months but she just has this fear of confrontation. Any thoughts / has anyone had any experience of kids in this age and them telling friends, hints or tips??

Thankyou

Kate

[KellyJameson]

What is socially important to your daughter? Does she lean more toward being a loner or is it important to be part of the group?

What are her school interests? Does she prefer sports over books or books over sports? Is she a bit of a geek or more interested in fashion, media stars,ect..

Has she ever been bullied or is she more likely to be the mean girl?

Is she more of a follower or a leader ? Can she be bossy at times?

Her personality and temperament and where she fits into her social circle and the importance or unimportance of people as her world of people that occupies her thoughts and creates her emotions will shape how she responds to your transitioning.

Is she embarrassed or has she been made fun of or experienced shaming, exclusion or ostracism ?

What was your relationship the first five years of her life ? Were you extremely close or not so much ?

At fifteen she may have a million concerns and worries.

Does she bottle up emotion because she does not know how to express herself or does she have trust issues with adults and does not want to let them in?

She may feel caught in the middle between supporting and accepting you but fearing how you are affecting or may affect her life but not wanting to be honest about her feelings and needs.

[Eringirl]

Hi Kate: Sounds like you have an awesome family!! As for your teenage daughter.....welcome to that world!! Having raised to daughters (who are now in the mid twenties and awesome in their own ways), for a while the teenage years were more about survival than anything else!! ;) That may be a bit glib, but holy.....the hormones, the peer pressure, trying to figure out who they are and how to manage their way through high school?? That is plenty on their plate. Add in a dad who is TG, it is another layer. Sounds like she stays inside her head a lot. That is how she works things out. I have one daughter like that. She is a "ruminator", our deep thinker. She always needed time to noodle things around for herself and work it out. And she always has. For us, we gave her space, let her know we were there when she needed support or had questions. The worst thing we could do with her was to keep poking at her. It drove her nuts and she resented it. So, we learned to let her come to us and to trust her to do that. And she did, and still does. So, this may be just the way your daughter is working her way through to becoming a young woman. Many people don't like confrontation and that is just something that happens and takes a long, long time to overcome, if ever. I would let her get there on her own. She needs to face this from a position of strength, and that comes from within, when she is ready.

Just my 2 cents worth....

Erin

[Kaitlyn Michele]

i think it sounds like you are doing what you can..

my daughters were similar ages..

the younger one 10-11 as this played out often said "i don't understand" and refused to be seen with me...but i ended up bribing her because she had to pick up a last minute gift that was out of stock locally... i drove her 50 miles to a place that had the gift...and I made her come with me...she saw it was no big deal and slowly the ice melted..

the oldest one held it in... and i could tell she would fake being "great"...over time though (she was 15) she just relaxed about it..

at first neither one let me near their school but later they were ok with that too and my oldest daughter brought me into the school her senior year for LGBT pride presentation and i outed myself (and in a way her) to the LGBT community in the school..

btw, no one at the school had any idea...it was crazy...


i am not a fan of therapy for kids unless its clearly neccessary or they ask for it.. it can feel to a young kid that you are just forcing one more thing they dont want onto them..

[becky77]

I will start by saying I'm not a parent, so I will try approach it from a different perspective.

Being a bottler when I was that age, if that happened to my Dad. I would have wanted to pretend it wasn't happening because at 15 you are very self conscious and would have been mortified to tell friends.

Give her time and space to come to terms with it, remember what it was like at that age, you are embarrassed by your parents even when they are supposedly normal.

I know if pushed I would have gone the opposite way and closed down even more.

Hope you don't mind my input.

[Kate T]

Erin and Kaitlyn, Thankyou for your input. And Becky, no, I don't think it was out of place, honestly I tossed up between posting this in here or LO half hoping that a KOT (Kids of Trans) may spot it and post so I'm actually really happy you did. Thank you. I must admit all of you have reinforced what we have been doing, I guess as a parent you just want that reassurance every so often that you are doing the right thing. In part also because everything else has gone so well I think we are now starting to half make up monsters under the bed waiting for that thing that will bring us crashing back to earth!

Kelly, I'm not quite sure I understand your intent with your post. I'm sure you were trying to help but you do realise that absolutely no parent would ever divulge all that information about their child on a public forum when they are concerned their child is struggling with exposure? What I wanted / needed was experience from parents and LGBTI kids, not psychology. Still, thanks for trying.

[Debglam]

Hi Kate,

First, I have two daughters 21, and 16, and they are both very comfortable with having a trans* parent. I understand where Kelly was going with her questions and I don't think she actually expected an answer but just for you to consider them. I think she may be correct in that how you and your spouse handle things will go far but that much of how she deals with it also depends upon her personality and social circumstances.

My older daughter is a quiet, artsy girl who took a little longer to get comfortable with things. She also went to a pretty conservative high school and her friends and their parents are not the most open minded of people. As Kelly suggested, my older girl would have needed to balance her love and acceptance of me with her embarrassment and possible ostracism at school. (She was starting college when I came out to her.) My younger daughter is much more outgoing and takes things in stride. She also goes to a pretty progressive school where having a trans* parent is a status symbol! Her personality and circumstances happen to make acceptance fairly easy.

Anyway, what I would suggest is to continue to be understanding and patient, and maybe to see if your daughter wants someone other than her parents to talk to about all of this. Maybe a BFF, a relative or family friend, or possibly a therapist?

Best of luck! Debby