Standards

Penelope has come such a long way. In so many ways, she appears like a typical teenager. She has similar teenage dramas and social problems. But RAD is a part of her, regardless of how much try to push it out. How am I suppose to determine the difference between RAD behavior and typical behavior? But that's really not the right question, is it? It's not about the behavior, rather the thinking behind the behavior. Until she just starts spewing every thought that enters her head, the only way I can know what she is thinking or feeling is through her actions. But even then, it still leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
What also complicates this interpretation is my own issues. A fear reaction to the future implications of her actions. An anger reaction to being tricked into giving her too much freedom or responsibility. A guilt reaction for not having the ability to prevent it from happening. A shame reaction for allowing myself to distance my feelings towards her because of her behavior. I've been able to recognize that some if not all of these reactions do not help me address the behavior in the best way, but there is a bit of a delay in getting my mind organized enough to do something.
So, Penelope has had a cell phone since she was 14 years old. I may have written about it in the past because I found this great website with phones for kids that have a ton of parental controls. The downside to this website is that because they only offer monthly plans (as a control feature), you have to pay the full price of the phones. Well, after about 1 year, her phone stopped working. I wasn't going to buy her another phone. Grandma offered to put her on the family phone plan, which was the cheapest option. Because it's through a well known mobile service, there were free phone options. There wasn't one phone with no camera. Her old phone had a camera but a parental control prevented being able to send the pictures anywhere. Grandma talked to the sales rep and set up parental controls on the new phone. The problem is, her new phone is a smart phone giving her access to Apps. I didn't think anything of it, when we were assured.
Well, you know where I'm going with this. She had an app that allowed her to chat with strangers. I had checked her phone over time and nothing but then her battery stopped working unless plugged in. She was going out with a friend so I traded phones with her. I didn't even look at it until the end of the night, going through her photos and found an album with this particular's app title. They were pictures of naked boys and pictures she had taken of herself - close up photos of certain body parts. Nothing identifiable but I know it's her. I went to the app and found conversations with boys, or so called boys, and where they had exchanged pictures.
We had talked about this type of activity, interest teens have in it and the potential consequences - not the punishment kind as much about what it does to your self-image, privacy, and safety. She would volunteer without prompting about other girls that did these high risk behaviors and other high risk behaviors and how she would never do it for this reason or another.
Lie, lie, lie. All lies.
She feels justified in her actions. "No boys at school care about me. At least I'm getting attention somewhere." And things like that. Trying to figure out what I can do to help her as her Mom have higher standards for herself.