curious mother

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Hi my daughter is in the throes of her final year and is studying hard for her final exams. We are on school break and these 2 weeks are study, revision, study, etc and a few breaks.

Just curious to know, I think I know but bit unsure, could I possibly be her obsession? Here is a bit of a 1000 entries in

her notes on iPad -Mum loves the Eiffel Tower, mum loves climbing the stairs on the the Eiffel Tower! Mum loves Paris!

Mum loves France! (insert French flag emoji ) Mum loves travelling overseas, her favourite place to go is France because

she just loves it so much! Mum loves frogs legs and snails! Mum goes to France every year to see Le Tour De France! Mum

has so much fun in France. Mum loves travelling, mum thinks aeroplanes are really cool to fly in. Mum absolutely loves

the time zones and how they change in different countries, she loves how right how it's 5.19 pm in Australia, Victoria and

9.19am in Paris. Mum loves the time zones because she thinks they are interesting and she thinks jet lag is interesting,

she loves the geography behind the time zones. Mum can't go travelling without her camera, she loves taking photos of

all the sights because she just all really loves the Big Ben clock! Mum also loves buying souvenirs, when Mum goes to

France she buys Eiffel Tower key rings, bicycle key rings, plush toys, when Mum goes to London she buys plush BigBen

clocks, Big Ben Clock key rings, Etc. Mum loves to send postcards to all her friends in Australia, she tells them all about

where she is and what she is doing. Mum adores travelling!




This is just one of her topics starring me.

I'm an Olympian, famous jockey, movie director, I've organised a St Patricks day party, I've been a football coach, I've

loved Jack Black, Harry Potter, Zack Effron, William Shakespeare, John Travolta, I love the Royal family, clocks and am a

Goth girl. In my adventures written by my daughter I have collected 50, 000 surf boards, 10, 000 surfing Dvds, mum is

getting a quad bike, two wheeler motorbike, riding gear, play stations ,4,200 play station 4 games, Foxtel, Harry Potter

accessories, DVD sets of home and away. 50,000 comic books, 6 skateboards,40 pinball machines and 10 tickets to

Disneyland. It goes on and on.

She loves doing this, is it her stimming over her final school year or am I her obsession in her writings?

Can this be nurtured for her future? or this is her soothing herself.

Do any other folks do this kind of thing? in this way.?


Thankyou

Did she give you permission to read that? It sounds like a diary, albeit an idiosyncratic one.

It could be partially stimming or maybe a way to review her feelings and try to figure them out by writing them down. (Like a diary) It could also be a way to keep track of what she and you both like to aid her in communicating with you.

That said, if you do not have permission to see it, I would leave it be. If she wanted you to see it, then maybe she wants to help you converse with her too.

There are probably a million possibilities. It could be that she is immature when it comes to separating her identity from you (much younger kids do things like that all the time), that she wonders what life might have been like with a different family (another phase kids tend to go through sometime), that she simply has found you a convenient foil for her stories, that this is her way of dealing with issues in your relationship, and so on.

My question for you is what led you to reading her writings? Has her behavior been worrying you lately? Has she intentionally left these out for you to explore? What else has changed in her life, and how does she seem to be responding to it?

Unless you have other reasons to be really worried for her, it doesn't really matter "why" she chose you. It will work itself out in its own time.

If you do have other reasons to be worried for her, the proper answer for the next step is the same regardless of the "why:" make sure she is talking to a professional on a regular basis so that she can sort out her feelings.

She is very open about it, she thinks they are very entertaining, her stories. She wants me to read them. Very hysterical laughter accompanies this. She can't always explain her feelings or talk about things she struggles with, she does say she does not know what she is thinking, when I try and talk stuff with her.

So, I thin maybe she is trying to communicate with you,maybe even through the diary. Some people are better at written forms of communication and so she is using this as a way to communicate with you.

I would not assume (or preclude the idea) that you are a special interest, but she seems to be keeping track of what you like.

Another thought is that if she views her writings as stories, and she thinks her stuff is funny, it may be an idiosyncratic try at writing stories.

Whenever my son is asked to write a story, it reads like something from the Theater of the Absurd, and when read that way, is kind of interesting. It is sort of like a written form of cubism, where the story is distorted by a unique way of looking at things.

Or maybe she's writing to her future/ imaginary kids?

I would often want to memorialize things for some reason and had an obsession with collecting things to help me document events so I would remember for the future.

I have a terrible memory so that is maybe why I used to do those things. But, for me, I think I was just trying to instill a sense of normalcy within myself of keeping things that belong to my family around or "treasuring" certain things because it was the "right" thing to do.

Needless to say, I have moved on from that phase and no longer want to memorialize or remember anything, so I would say it's just a phase your daughter is going through.

I wondered if it might be her interpretation of a school assignment or prompt maybe to think about another person's perspective. Or watching that Disney movie where the mom and daughter switch places or something.