[sistomany18]

How do you approach this lovely little issue when it rears its head especially with teens who have special needs or RAD?

My daughter N who is 16 is boy crazy and when she was in middle school up until I pulled her out to home school that's all she would talk about. When my hubby attended her parent teacher conference to discuss her IEP they affirmed that N's only focus was on boys and not on school work or anything academic related. She was stuck on one boy for a certain time and there were notes being passed between them and they were supposedly "boyfriend and girlfriend" at school but nothing happened thankfully, but she is still boy crazy if not even more since turning 16 with hormones raging and all. I have thought about inquiring with our family doctor about birth control somewhere in the near future. It seems like N has been wired like this from an early age and boys and relationships are the only two things that seem important to her.

[greenmama]

She isn't already on birth control????

[sistomany18]

*I should have posted this is in the original first topic which explains the situation sorry for those who are confused*

N isn't on birth control at this time since she has been homeschooled for the past 3 years so it wasn't a concern since the only time she socialized or hung out with kids close to her age was in supervized settings like church or with one of her older siblings (who would tell me if she was doing anything inappropriate) since she has a hard time handling herself appropriately and making good decisions.

This issue is now being brought up because with her still home schooling and being 16 me and the hubby were looking into sending her to our state's job corp program to learn basic living skills and to get a skill of some kind. One of my older daughters N attended job corp and the stories she would tell me about her friends having casual sex are enough to make any parent concerned so my issue is that when N does go I want to make sure she is on some kind of birth control and is able to understand about what a big decision sex is which she might find hard to fully understand since she may look normal and have the body and hormones of a sixteen year-old, but is mentally at the level of a third grader.

[cbmstephanie]

I don't mean this to sound harsh, so please don't take it that way, I am just trying to understand. The job corp centers that I am familiar with are full of street smart, mature for their age kids, that have had to grow up way too fast due to circumstances in their life.
I am confused as to why you would send your daughter to job corp, if she has been homeschooled, has the mental capacity of a 3rd grader and hasn't had a lot of interaction with kids her age, let alone the street smart kids at job corp.
It scares me to think of what will happen to her there.

[sistomany18]

The one my daughter N attended did have the street smart crowd, but had the more lower level crowd as well which included those with special needs and those were mentally slower than their peers and N is what you would consider mentally immature and I was worried about her at first and was iffy on sending her, but after a day or two in the program she seemed to thrive in the job corp setting and successfully graduated last year.

This was just something me and the hubby were considering since we were trying to find somewhere for her to go to learn living skills and to learn a trade. We haven't had much luck with finding life skill/trade programs in our area since we live in a small town so when N did go to Job Corp we had to take her to the city for the program. So with us being in a small town our resources for finding programs are few in between. Do you know of any websites or listings that give information about life skill/trade programs by state?

[cbmstephanie]

I'm glad that your other daughter had good results at the particular center she attended. Maybe that is a good choice for this daughter. I only stated what I did because most of the job corp centers I am familiar with are associated either with a Juvenile Detention Center or the Department of Corrections, thus the kids that are there are very wise to the ways of the world and able to manipulate others very easily.
I would start with your State Government...Department of Social Services, Education, or Health. If they don't have a program that is suitable, they should be able to refer you to one that is suitable for your daughter. What state are you in...I would be happy to do some research and see what I can find. Good Luck...it has to be a hard decision to make.

[sistomany18]

I am from IL and thank you so much! It isn't easy because as much as I want to shelter her from the world and making bad decisions I can't and with how much N thrived in job corp I only want the same for Na as well to learn a trade of some kind and to be able to support herself somehow when me and hubby are gone.

[Joy2566]

Just a word of caution. Our church is very supervised (so I thought). My dd got caught having sex with the pastor's son in an office during our church picnic. I really thought she was completely supervised, but obviously not.