Teens Need Control, Independence, and Straight Teeth

“I don’t WANT someone to marry me!!!”

That was the climactic point in a tearful exchange with my 14-year-old daughter. Shamefully, I smiled a little to myself despite her distress, because my husband and I often joke to each other how some poor (but INCREDIBLY lucky) shmuck will get to marry our headstrong, determined daughter. He better be ready for space travel because, as our older son says, “D is gonna colonize the moon.”

This is a girl who could out run her older brothers through the back acre behind her grandparents house, who once wore a set of laboratory goggles to the playground, and now insists on getting her braces removed so she can keep her overbite.

I don’t want to look like everybody else, she explains. prompting me to think of Jay Leno’s angular jaw, Lauren Hutton’s gap-toothed smile and Bruce Springsteen’s underbite. Iconic for their looks, admired for their talent. There is something valid in my daughter’s reasoning.

I’m supposed to have straight teeth so a boy will like me and then I’m supposed to get married, she continued, building up to the apex of her argument.

There was nothing I could find to help me talk my daughter off the ledge of orthodontia revolt. It’s rare that kids truly want to stand out from the crowd (and the ones that end up being carbon copies of one another, defeating the purpose). Much more often the distress involves having an outcast, shunned child who is so different she has no friends. We are very few and far between as parents who have children who want so badly to be unique they would rip the metal and rubber bands right out of their mouths.

Of course the logic of dental health only made my daughter more upset, and of course wasn’t the real issue at hand. While my daughter totally dumps on the contrived label of popularity and creates her own unique rhythm on her own drum, her braces and their technicolor elastic bling were just the bullseye of a much larger target.

Desire for Control.

Something every teen wants but heck if I was going to tell my non-conformist daughter that, for fear she would explode at the thought of being like all her peers. Control, and independence. For her, it takes root in being her own person, one who can do anything her brothers can do but only better. Her time in braces has taken longer than theirs, and this bugs her. Her brothers are doing school online and independently, so she doesn’t want me hovering over her homeschool studies and playing the role of teacher. Of course, D wouldn’t tell me that. She’s a teenager, more typical than standout in this way.

So instead of lecturing my daughter on the expense of braces and no way was she going to get them removed this far into treatment, I simply told her to bring her request up to the orthodontist at her next appointment. Instead of arguing, I gave her permission to keep the ball in her court and have a discussion directly with the orthodontist. You know, like a grown-up would.

And you know what? She hasn’t brought up her overbite since. I gave her control, and a simple plan to self-advocate, so I hope this is why she felt better. She needed to know I respect her feelings, but as she is fresh to this thing called Life, she needs direction in how to stand up for herself. But true to teen form, she was not going to ask for advice. I had to guess the right way to handle her wishes and worries.

She knows she can come to me with anything, for anything, anytime. Orthodonia, yes, but school…no. On that topic, she went to her dad and announced she wanted more independence in school. Dad then passed this on to me. (Not sure why she took a roundabout approach, but, hey, teens…) Then I talked with her and together we agreed on a new approach. She is now more independent in her studies and is much happier taking the reins herself. Which I admit is AWESOME, getting more time to write and volunteer and shower. It’s easy to keep handling our kids’ lives for them, retaining control, because we parents have been doing so since (and before) our kids left the womb. But taking pause, and giving our kids some control, opportunity to self-advocate, and be independent, allows them to grow into their own people.

Hopefully ones with who feel strong and capable, and straight teeth to boot.