Tobias

In general I can sleep under pretty much every conditions. Sounds don't stop from falling asleep (although certain sounds especially connected to my daughters make we wake up very quickly) and I am not very sensitive to other things as well. During my time at university I spent a night on a windowsill with only my backpack as a cushion, but I probably shouldn't try this today ... While external influences don't really affect me falling asleep, internal ones really do. When I can't stop thinking about certain things, "real problems" or results of me overanalyzing things and/or anxiety related, I can't feel asleep. During certain periodes of my life it took me hours to feel asleep almost every night and while it hasn't been so bad recently it will probably always be a problem for me.

This is wrong on so many levels: First of all, what kind of doctor would even do this? Is this even legal? The information about the hymen being intact has no medical value whatsoever, so why examine this and share it was the father? Having different feelings about your son and daughter becoming sexual active is something that I understand to a certain degree (yes I am aware that it is a double standard, but you can hardly change how you feel), but an adult should be able to keep this feelings to himself and to avoid acting based on this feelings, but think about it on a more rational level. And rationally this makes no sense at all: it does no good at all, but invades your daughter privacy, shows that you have no trust in here, and that her body does not belong her and that sexuality is something negative ... And while I would disagree with trying to prevent her from being sexual active, you could at least argue that it is a (misleaded) attempt of protecting her, but in this case even that isn't true, because it's not even an valid indicator for her being a virgin and even if it would be a valid indicator it's to late to "protect" it anyway. This is not about her, this is about him and if your decisions as a parent are lead by your own interests and not by your childs that is really messed up, especially when it comes to something so intimate. I never heard of this guy before, but now the biology teacher in me wants to have a very long talk about all the things he missed during his sexual education class and the father in me wants to punch him in the face - sorry, I am the last one to promote violence, but guys like this make me incredibly angry. And while talking about this in public makes it even worse for his daughter, I hope that the controversy about this reaches a lot of other parents who might consider something like that and make them realize that this is abusive. “Communication that is open, nonjudgmental and involves listening — even when you disagree — helps to build trust and encourages responsible decisionmaking." - From my perspective this sentence from the article is a pretty good guideline when it comes to handling it.

We had a similiar discussion here, when it came to some of the music my older daughter listens to now. My initially thought was to outright forbid round about everything she wants to listen to right now, because I felt like this kind of music has to be a bad influence for her. After talking about it with my wife I realized that my worries about negative aspects are probably heavily influenced by my personal disapproval of the music in general. The fact that I don't like the music shouldn't be a reason for not allowing it and when it comes to stopping negative effects not allowing it won't have much effect anyway: She will get in contact with all sorts of music anyway while visiting friends and she will get in contact with a lot of swearing and other things I won't like at school. So making certain types of music a "forbidden fruit" (and thereby even more appealing) could even be result in her listening more to this type. In addition by allowing her, to listen to "her" music while we are around we will at least know what she is listening too and there is a oppurtinity to talk about certain aspects and make sure the things she listens to (not only swearing, but sexual or otherwise sensible themes) are put in a context. In the end we decided to be lenient when it comes to what music she is allowed to listen too, but strict when it comes to actual behaviour like using certain words or phrases (that might or not might be "inspired" by listening to this music). P.S.: I don't think you should worry about annoying anyone with your questions, because even if someone is not interested in your questions they can just not read them. You making annother thread has a lot of upside (like leading to an interesting discusssion) and no real downside. So go for it if you feel like it .

I think an "indirect" approach like this is a good idea. Writing a letter (or an email or some other form of electronic message) could work as well. Writing the things you want to say to her, ask her or would like to discuss can be a help for you and/or a good way to make sure you get the things across that are important for you. As you and others have emphasized communication is very important, and bringing topics like this up in a face to face conversation can be hard. If you start a written conversation both you and your stepmother have the opportunity to either continue it in this more indirect way or to discuss it directly - depending what works for you and feels "right". And even if you decide against sending the message to her in the end the act of writing it down can help you "sort out" your feelings and thougths. You got a lot of good advice already and there is not much I can add, but like ethanisland I'd like to compliment you on your mature approach to the situation - reflecting about it like that and not only thinking about yourself, but also about your stepmother is great in my opinion . I am sure you'll find a way to make things works more comfortable for both of you eventually.

During my childhood we would have never thought of adressing an adult by their first name without them telling me to do though. And even today, with "formality" being less important most of the children I know in Germany are raised that way (mine are for sure). From my perspective it is interesting how different formal or not so formal adressing works in German compared to English. We don't have an real equiavalent to the use of "ma'am" or "sir", but next to more subtle ways of talking more or less formal there is a difference between the use of "du" (you) and "sie" (you). The same sentence becomes a lot more formal through the use of "sie". So the sentence "Could you please help me?" would be different in German depending on the context: "Könntest du mir bitte helfen?" versus "Könnten sie mir bitte helfen?" When I started learning english in school I was so confused about the lack of a way to say "sie". Using "you" to talk to adress classmate and to adress a teacher or other adult felt ... wrong to me. And always using "sie" when talking to adults was like an automatic reflex for me, so even when the parents of friends told me to call them with their first name, when I was older (which felt strange to begin with) I still used the formal "sie" which lead to quite some amusment from their side. Even after they told me to use "du" I had a hard time changing this habit ... On the other hand I can still rember the first time I was adressed with "sie" myself by an adult - I was so proud that I told my parents about it .

Very useful infoirmation - thank you for sharing this. Information or help are also available online or via telephone, for example: https://www.thehotline.org/

I only used Facebook for a short time, but I felt exaclty the same. Being able to communicate with other people is for me one of the biggest advantages of the internet, but while I had a lot of interesting discussions in different kinds of forums over the years and am still staying in contact with some people I meet this way, Facebook seems very superficial to me.

Considering what she does on the internet right now she will be probably looking at horses, and more horses, cute animals and photos posted by people she watches on youtube. So I am more worried about her "stumbling about it" than actively looking for it. I am probably worrying to much anyway, but I am not very good at giving up control, and compared to now allowing her to use Instagramm would mean less control for us. In the end we have to start at some point though, if we want her to learn to use social media in a responsible way. Instagram maybe be a better start than for example Facebook. If we decide to allow her to use Instagram, taking it away again will be an option for sure - we always made very clear that access to certain media is an privilege that can be taken away if they "abuse" it.

We have and will of course do that, but I like to have a certain control about what they see on TV (by restricting the channels they are allowed) and while surfing the internet (by using a hopefully suitable software). I am aware that they will still see things I don't want them to see, but I'd like the reduce the amount at least.

Thank you very much, that helps a lot. So by setting her account to private and deciding about who is allowed to follow her we can make sure that no one we don't know can see her photos. That sounds good, but what about the photos she can see, would be deciding about the people she is allowed to follow be enough to make sure she doesn't see anything inappropriate?

So far they don't have access to any social media, but at least for the 12 year old we are thinking about letting her start. We will probably allow only one thing (Instagram?) at first and observe how she is using it, before deciding about how to continue. As someone how is not using Instagram and is not very skilled when it comes to things like that in general I'd like to ask: How does controlling the account as a parent work?

I fully agree with this. A childhood friend of mine was really afraid of his father, he stiffened when his father came into the room, sometimes even winced when his father came close to him - witnessing something like that was terrible enough, I don't want to imagine who he felt. I was afraid of getting spanked, but I was never afraid of my parents. They never spanked in anger and only for breaking of rules, that I knew of beforehand. It was a transparent process and they made sure I understood, that I made the decisions that lead to a spanking. Now I am trying to do to the same when dealing with my daughters and I am sure that they are not afraid of me.