Do you have an athletic teen? Someone who excels in sports like volleyball, softball, track, basketball and soccer? Then you can probably relate to my problem with my daughter's interest in wearing body jewelry.
See, she's a star student. Straight A's and a perfectionist. She willingly helps out at home and treats her brothers and adults with respect. It's incredibly hard to deny her the one thing she wants right now: body jewelry.
But as parents, we're concerned about two things. The first is the message it sends to others about her interests. They could mistakenly believe she has a casual attitude about sex. While that may sound stereotypical, the reality is that it's human nature to make quick judgments about people based on their appearances. It's how we sort the good buys from the bad guys. If someone doesn't spend enough time with your daughter to understand she's not "loose," then they could walk away and spread the word that she takes sex lightly. In our opinion, that's not acceptable. We don't want to give anyone the opportunity to think anything about our daughter that's not based on actual merit-based fact. We can't necessarily control that, but we can help where we can. Therefore, no body jewelry for her until she's older.
For now, she reluctantly accepts our position because of the active role sports play in her life. Her coach and most athletic clubs just won't allow body jewelry on the court. It presents too much of a hazard and danger to the player, potentially even to those around. You just never know what might happen.
My advice, if your daughter is interested in wearing body jewelry, is to steer her away from the subject by covering these two important points. There's always time to add it later if they're ready.
Julie enjoys sharing health and beauty tips. A great resource for flat irons, curling irons and hair styling tools of all kinds is My Hair Styling Tools.
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