You're probably wondering why I'm seeking help for something most parents of preteens would consider a positive, but read on, friends, read on.My daughter "Megan" is very bright, a little precocious, and also basically a 12 year old DARE cop. For background, I divorced her father when she was five because he refused to seek treatment for alcoholism. I suspect this may be where her fear originated, but I've never been able to get a definitive answer from her about it. I should also note that I've NEVER talked badly about him to or in front of her, have always made it clear that his alcoholism was a sickness that got out of control and not a sign of poor character, and that he isn't a bad person.I myself am an infrequent social drinker (1 to 2 drinks literally a few times a year, almost always on special occasions), and still any time my daughter has seen me drinking she's become upset almost to the point of tears and asking me "why I have to do this." I've tried explaining that most adults are capable of enjoying the occasional alcoholic drink without it becoming a problem, and that having a single drink doesn't mean you're an alcoholic, but it never sinks in.She's also internalized some weirdly judgmental attitudes toward people who use substances regardless of the reason. We recently had a conversation about the legalization of marijuana in some US states, the differences between medical and recreational use, and the medical benefits for some people (controlling pain, seizure reduction, etc.). I asked Megan what she thought about the subject, and she expressed that people who use marijuana are all "stupid" and "idiots" and "probably just want to do drugs." Another time, upon seeing a news item about some local teens who crashed a car in a DUI joyride, I made a remark like "they're lucky they're not dead" and my daughter shocked me by replying "It would serve them right." And this is not a kid who typically lacks empathy for other people. Under most other circumstances, she's an incredibly loving person and very supportive of her friends, but it's like anytime alcohol or drugs enters the equation she wants to throw the book at people.This all finally exploded last week when Megan tattled on a classmate who was seen smoking a cigarette at the bus stop before school. I should emphasize that Megan wasn't even there and didn't see this happen. She just heard about it and decided she needed to take action, so she told a guidance counselor. The kid was pulled out of class, the school contacted his parents, and he got a couple days of out of school suspension because he still had the cigarette pack on his person on school grounds.Megan was legitimately expecting her friends to think she'd done a good deed, so she was confused when they all called her out for snitching on him. I think she was even more confused when I didn't immediately show pride in her for what she'd done. I tried to tease out her motives to make sure this wasn't a situation of trying to get back at someone she'd had conflict with or anything like that, and she made it very clear that it wasn't. She genuinely thinks this kid was headed down a bad road by smoking and that "someone needed to do something before it was too late."I... don't know what to do with this. I understand that she thought she was doing something positive, and that she really thinks smoking a cigarette is some kind of gateway to becoming a junkie, but her reaction here was so disproportionate to me, and it worries me. I'm worried that if she has this same hardline, judgmental attitude in a couple more years when more of her peers are likely to start experimenting, it's going to cost her her friendships.Any advice? Has anyone else dealt with something like this? via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/35SkEZs
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