Daughter doesn't want to go to wedding

Hi, everybody, I'm new here. My youngest daughter was a late baby. She's 12 now, almost 13. I'm the oldest of six, so that means all her cousins are either much older or much younger.

One of my nephews is getting married in October, and "Susie" says she doesn't want to go. In fact, she refuses. I don't have a choice about this, because the wedding is in another state, and I can't leave her home. I'm going, so she's going.

The last wedding we went to was last summer. At the reception, she ran out into the parking lot crying because no one would talk to her. I followed and tried to explain that people want to have fun at a reception, and she shouldn't expect people to put themselves out for her.

I don't know what to do. I want to see my family, and I can't leave her home, but I don't want to have her crying and pouting the whole time. Last year, she was also upset because she wasn't allowed on the dance floor. Well, I'm sorry, but eleven/twelve is too young to dance at a wedding! There's a wedding every year in our family, sometimes more than one, and she's just going to have to accept that. But she said if I "make" her go, she'll kill herself. So I don't know what to do.

Why is 11 to young to dance on the dance floor? I have been to many a wedding where toddlers are dancing. What else is there for a child to do at a wedding? It is no wonder she was bored to tears.

I'm sorry but I'm going to be up front here
No wonder she doesnt want to go if all she can do is sit in a chair or walk around.
Why cant she dance? Is that your rule? Or others?
And there is no age limit for dancing any where
To be honest I wouldnt want to go either
Good Luck bc it seems you maybe staying home

I'm sorry but I'm going to be up front here
No wonder she doesnt want to go if all she can do is sit in a chair or walk around.
Why cant she dance? Is that your rule? Or others?
And there is no age limit for dancing any where
To be honest I wouldnt want to go either
Good Luck bc it seems you maybe staying home

ITA! My girls both are out on the dance floor at receptions.

You always have a choice. The best choice is the one that's best for you and your daughter.

Twelve and thirteen year-olds think in microcosmic terms; in other words they do pretty much see themselves as the center of attention. This is often more true and longer true in single child households. What were you doing that she felt excluded from you too?

Why is that? I've been to many weddings where the kids were dancing along with the adults. Sometimes the kids were the life of the party. I'm interested to hear why you think a 13 year old girl is too young to dance.

I agree with what everyone else has said.
But would it be possible for her to take one of her friends so she has someone to talk to and hang around with her own age. I am sure the added expense of one more little mouth wouldnt be that great!
and then you could have a good time and so can she.

I'm sorry but I'm going to be up front here
No wonder she doesnt want to go if all she can do is sit in a chair or walk around.
Why cant she dance? Is that your rule? Or others?
And there is no age limit for dancing any where
To be honest I wouldnt want to go either
Good Luck bc it seems you maybe staying home

Ditto, I totally agree. I've been to weddings at the age of 9, and was the only kid there and danced on the dance floor. Had a great time doing it. I can't imagine having to sit in a corner with no one paying attention to me all night.

That's a great idea.

I'm going to have to agree with everyone else. I have seen children younger than your daughter dancing at every wedding I've been to.

Maybe you can talk to the bride/groom and see if there will be any other girls around her age there? Perhaps they can arrange for them to be at the same table.

The only problem with this is if you already have your invitation you can't really ask to bring an uninvited guest.

Wow. Gee. I'm a little embarrassed now! I hope you don't think I'm a terrible mother!

The fact is, we are very close, and I don't normally treat her like an unwanted person. But at last year's wedding, she wasn't hanging around near me. She's at that age where you don't want to admit that you HAVE a mom, and I should emphasize that she was never one of those kids who constantly goes "Mom! Mom! Mom!" when their parent is trying to socialize. So I didn't realize she was upset until one of my neices told me she was in the parking lot. She wasn't crying because *I* brushed her off; I want to make that clear.

As for being "too young" to dance, there's no official "rule". What I meant by that was:

1) There were no boys her age.
2) All her male relatives had wives or girlfriends with them, and I didn't want her to impose.
3) I didn't want her dancing with a man I didn't know, especially if he'd been drinking.
4) She only knows how to dance to pop music, and this wedding had a polka band. 5) And there were no other pre-teens on the dance floor (because there were no other pre-teens, and no teenagers, just her and the littles, who were doing their thing in a corner).

These weddings are generally not the half-a-mil Bridezilla affairs where people sit in assigned seats and everything's very low-key. They're usually loud, beery shindigs at the Knights of Columbus or in the church basement. Think The Deer Hunter, or the wedding at the end of Mystic Pizza. The thing is, Susie is VERY shy.
When we do go to a nice restaurant with friends, Susie is able to hold her own, and has impeccable table manners and intelligent conversation. The reason I was upset with her is because I didn't think she was making enough overtures to other people. This is an ongoing problem: she thinks she should just sit and wait for other people to approach her, instead of trying to make her own friends.

What ended up happening last year is that, while she was outside, one of her cousins, who is six or so, came outside, and Susie tried to talk to her, but the other girl got bored and went back to *her* mom. Much later, my brother (who is gay) was outside and they talked for a long time. He and his partner are thinking of adopting a kid, and I guess that was a big topic of conversation. So she was in a better mood when we left.

I had a talk with her just now. I told her what I meant about people not putting themselves out for her, and she said that when people are all sitting at a table already talking to each other, she doesn't know how to break in. I told her she shouldn't interrupt an ongoing conversation, and we kind of went back and forth on that. What she told me, that really made my heart hurt, is that she's never truly felt herself to be a member of the family. It's a very unfortunate situation, the timing of her birth, with no one in her age group. As I think I said, I was the oldest of a very large family, and I guess it didn't occur to me how an only (which she effectively is) would feel.

Also she told me that I'd promised her that she could take a piece of cake home, but that when we were leaving, I didn't remember, and I said I must have said it to shut her up. She asked why I couldn't have let her have a piece anyway, and why was it necessary to shut her up. The thing is with that (and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this) there's a lot of drinking at these receptions, and I can't remember half the things I said. And she was upset with the shoes she'd had to wear, because they weren't broken in and made her slip on the dance floor when she was crossing it to go outside.

She did say that no one was actively mean to her last year, just indifferent. But that she wants to be part of the family, and it's really awkward with us living in Jersey and most of the family in PA, so she doesn't get to see them very often, and now they're all in college or married, so she's really out of the loop. And that she thought the purpose of going to a wedding reception was to see people and talk to them, and if no one wanted to talk to her, why should she go? So I think there are two possibilities here:

1) Have her stay with a friend for the weekend
2) Have someone (my brother, if he's going) assigned to her all evening, and dance with her and introduce her around.

I'm veering towards option 1, but I'm afraid that if I show up without her, all night people will be asking, "Where's Susie?" So what do you think?

Let her stay at a friends.



ps. why does she have to dance with a male? I spent many a wedding dancing with my aunts , girl cousins and mom.

People shouldn't want to "put them selves out" by spending time with her or talking to her? That to me sounds like a very distructive statement. If my parent said something like that to me it would shatter my self esteem.

I agree with whoever said she should bring a friend, so she isn't alone, or perhaps YOU could spend time with her at the dance?

also, IMO, I don't feel that 12 is to young to dance. Every wedding I have ever been to has had toddlers out on the dance floor!

Well, what I meant was, she shouldn't wait for people to come to her; she should make the first move if she wants to talk to people. But she told me she did try to talk to people, and either they brushed her off, OR, she stood there, not knowing how to start or enter a conversation. I didn't mean that no one should want to talk to her, just that it should be up to her to try.

I don't know. She's very shy, and I've always been very outgoing, so I don't know what advice to give her. Maybe I should start another thread, about helping a child overcome her shyness. I mean, it was the same way when she went to church camp; she sat at a table not talking to anyone while they were all socializing. She told me afterwards since everyone else all knew each other, she didn't know who she *could* talk to.

But that doesn't make any sense to me. No one's going to make it their personal mission to make sure she has a good time, at camp or a wedding or whatever. When I'm in a place where I don't know anyone, I introduce myself. I don't wait for people to come to me; why should they, if I act like I don't want to go to them?

I can totally sympathize with your daughter. I was like this all through school. Right up until I hit about 21 years old actually. I have no advice on overcoming it. I only did based on the fact that at 21 I started growing into my body, became leaner, my face cleared up, and I just wanted to be out and about all the time. Even at 29 I'm still quite shy, not so much, but I have the same fears as your young daughter.

Just out of curiousity, does she have a lot of friends at school etc? Does she do things outside of home and school, like dance classes, sports? These would probably help a bit with her timidness.

I would do your very best to see if there's someone she can stay the weekend with, or if you can take a friend and have them share a plate of food if it isn't possible to have another one prepared. A simple stop at a local McDonald's even before the reception to fill them out might be an alternative if there isn't enough food for an extra guest.


This post has been edited by CantWait on Sep 9 2006, 03:54 PM

She doesn't do any activities any more. I used to sign her up for educational programs, and she enjoyed those a lot, and got along with the other kids. For a few years, she was in a children's orchestra (she played violin), but when she was 10, I started wondering if this was the best thing for her. Our community is very athletic-oriented, and I thought it would be better for her to play a sport. Also, my neices and nephews are or were all into sports, and I got tired of hearing my brothers and sisters bragging about what their kids were doing in sports when I didn't have anything to brag about. So I made her leave the orchestra and join the track team, and it was a really bad experience. The other girls were very bullying to her, and she was miserable. I tried to tell her that she just had to be tough, and that she couldn't quit something just because she didn't like it, and there are bullies everywhere and she can't always run away from them. So she stuck it out, and towards the end of the season, the girls started being nice to her. But when the new season started, they were back to bullying her, so I let her quit.

About this time, she also asked to leave Girl Scouts because it was boring, and I had to admit it really was (they never DID anything, just had meetings) so I let her quit. And since I went back to school, and since my husband is on the road a lot, we don't have time to drive her places anyway. We're not as involved with the church as we used to be, so those activities fell away too. She's in the gifted program at school, but they don't do anything either, outside of school.

She doesn't have a lot of friends at school. In fact, she's pretty much an outcast. But I'm so stressed lately, with school and problems with my husband, I just can't take hearing it every day. It upsets me to hear that she's upset, but I have problems too, and I don't know why she keeps taking it and taking it and taking it. She's letting it happen, and she can't *let* people walk all over her. My husband wants to sign her up for the Dale Carnegie course; maybe that will help. And maybe she needs therapy. What I'm really afraid of is that she'll end up going Columbine. She's talked about taking a gun to school, and I'm not sure she's just saying that. (We don't have guns, but who knows what she might do?)

I was an extremely shy child growing up. I was also picked on ALOT at school. I know from expereiance that it is tough, and it sucks, but she will grow up, and this expereiance will make her a stronger adult. She WILL learn how to socialize and deal with other people, but it will have to be on her terms, and in her own time, not yours.
Would she like to get back into orchestra? maybe if she joined activities she enjoyed, and would have an easier time opeining up to people.

My town is extremely clichy also. I didn't have a single friend all the way through elementary school, and only one or two in middle school. It wasn't until I hit highschool and a new mix of kids that I was able to really make friends.

Since when does one need a man to dance with? Most weddings I go to the men just sit back while the women dance in groups. The only time the men get up is during a slow song. Your daughter should be able to dance on the dance floor with whomever she likes.

As for her being bored with noone to talk to, you are her mother and you really should be checking on her from time to time. It is really sad that she was outside at the last wedding and you didn't even know it. Perhaps you should make the effort to introduce her and stay with her for a bit until she is comfortably engaged in a conversation. After that you should check on her every now and again to make sure she is okay.

Yes...I hadn't really thought of that. I was just so caught up talking to people I hadn't seen in a while. It was like this last summer, in '05, when my oldest daughter, "Linda", came to visit. Linda was showing me some episodes of American Idol, which I'd heard about but didn't have time to watch, and Susie piped up, and Linda yelled at her, saying she didn't care what contestant Susie liked, because we were talking about a different contestant. And looking back now, I really should have told Linda, "Don't talk to your sister that way," but I hadn't seen Linda in a long time either, and I wanted to spend time with her. The three of us did watch a couple movies together, and another time we all went out to lunch, but mostly, Linda and I were all caught up playing cards and talking, and Susie is so quiet, we hardly knew she was there.

The thing is, I just don't have a lot of time for Susie in general. I was so stressed last spring from taking a full load at college, I didn't know how I was going to make it, and now school's started up again! Last semester, I remember one morning I was driving to the campus, and I spent the whole time crying. And when I come home, I just need to decompress. I don't want to hear if she had a good day or a bad day, because for me, every day is a bad day. I can't listen to her until I've had at least one glass of wine and changed clothes and like that. And then I have to go upstairs and work. And I don't need her getting mad at me, like she did the other day, saying that I messed up the kitchen that she spent all afternoon cleaning. It's my kitchen, not hers, and it's great that she wants to help out, but it doesn't make her the queen bee around here. I'm just stressed out all the time, and she's not making it any easier. So perhaps it would be better for her to stay with a friend, so we can have some time apart.

I am sorry if I come off sounding rude...But.......To me it sounds like having your daughter is just a burden for you..I have ALOT of stress in my life also,but I don't take it out on my children..7 and almost 4...I ALWAYS make sure to ask my son how his day at school was etc..Then we come home and do his homework then I do my stuff and get ready for work etc...And if my children would have cleaned up the kitchen or anything else for that matter I sure wouldn't have messed it up then got mad at them because they said something to me about cleaning it..Maybe if you don't have time for your daughter it would judt be easier if she could live with someone that cares about her and what is going on in her life...Just my 2 cents

I think that you're putting yourself first. It's good to put ourselves first sometimes, we can't always be putting others first.

But, I think you're putting yourself ahead of your daughter to much. As parents, we're supposed to make time for our kids. Spending time with them and helping to shape them into good adults is what we commit ourselves to do from the moment we give birth to them. Yes, you're stressed out with college, but Susie sounds like the kind of kid who has a hard time too. Imagine being shy and not having many friends, she should be able to open up and be herself around you, instead of being pushed aside because you have other things to think about. It's got to break her heart

This whole wedding thing isn't a big deal. Let her stay with a friend, it's not to hard to answer questions about where Susie is. I think you need to reconnect with your daughter and make some time for the both of you, or else she'll grow up and you'll wonder why your relationship isn't very good.

Best of Luck

How many times do you tell your daughter you love her in a day?
How many times do you hug her in a day?
Do you thank her for doing all the house work?

Because I will say this If I cleaned up the kitchen and you walked in and made a mess a small one even I would take everything form liquid to food and make the bigget mess you ever seen and walk out the door.

As for the older daughter where does she get off talking to her like that?
And Yes you should have told her never to talk to your sister that way I dont care how tired you are or caught up in your life you are its wrong

It seems to me that no one apreshates your younger daughter and that better change bc your going to lose her and dont take her threats lightly either bc she is reaching out for help and the help she needs only you can give her and maybe insted of going to this wedding you should plan a weekend away just the two of you bc thats what you need you dont need to get away from her you need to be with her.

Cathy,

Welcome to PC! I hope you stay around.

Your daughter is reaching out to you. Please put everything else aside and hold her. Take Lisa's adivce above. This has nothing to do with her birth order or anything else. My daughter is 9 her first cousins on my husband's side range in age from 37 to 47 years old. Talk about not fitting in!!! But that has nothing to do with whether she fits in or not. Please Susie needs you and college will wait (Hey! it waited all this time already right? I say that because I do not have a degree either and admire you for going back to get one at this stage in your life) But really take a semester, take a year take WHATEVER it takes to reconnect with Susie and get her what SHE wants not what YOU want. She will admire you and thank you for it.

Like Tara, I experience some of the things that Susie is experience, please do not take her threats lightly. She is reaching out to you for help. Please provide it.

Take care,

I think that you have to sit back, look at yourself and reevaluate your priorties. Your daughter loves you, and needs attention from you. It is your JOB as a mother to show her that she is important and loved. that needs to come first, before all other things, including school and your job. I agree that your daughter is reaching out. Please pay attention before she starts looking for attention in other ways.

I think you need to stop right now, go find her, and give her a hug, and tell her you love her.

well I was VERY VERY shy when i was little and a teenager as well. The one thing is i did not like to be pushed into talking to people or into a situation that I wasnt comfortable with. With me i had to do it at my own pace. Now that im an adult i can be shy at first when i meet people but im not even close to how shy i was growing up. So it does get better and it does go away. Some poeple are just out going and some are shy... we just have to understand how we all feel and just work towards being more outgoing.

I hope i dont sound harsh here because I am only being honest and trying to help out But why do you feel the need you have to brag to everyone about yourchild. If your daughter was in the orchastra like she likes then maby she should go back into it and then she will get really good and then you have somethign to brag about if you really need to. What i feel and believe is someone should not force a child to do something like sports or whatever if the child does not want to do it. The child should be able to pick what they like to do because if not then they will hate it and resent you.

Just ignore what your family says.. just say wow that awesome that they can do this and that kind of statement. What i hated is my ex would always force our daughter to do things because his sister and mom bragged about his neice. and then that put alot of pressure on my daughter and she regressed and refused to learn new things.