5 Tips to Keeping Your Child’s Secrets

As children get older, where they once told you everything now that they are moving into that Tweens and Teens stage of development, they become more secretive and only want to talk to their friends. However there are times when they want to tell you something and request your secrecy if they tell you because they don’t want to break their friend’s confidence.

A true parental dilemma, right! You want them to be able to tell you “anything” but what they may tell may inflict harm on their relationship with their friend which of course could have ong term impacts on  how people view them as not being  able to keep a secret and their confidences. What to do?!

This situation presented itself to me recently when my daughter burst out with “Beth told me something the other day but I don’t want to tell you because it’s a secret and I know you will tell her mother.”

Now if your child wants to betray a confidence you have to think it somewhat serious and not that petty tween girl nonsense that “insert girl’s name here is mean to me.”  I could tell she wanted to tell so I thought let’s not force the issue but wanted to make sure that one no one was in harm’s way.

“Is it illegal?  Is Beth being harmed in any way? I asked because if the child is safe physically and no laws are being broken, I  not going to force her to talk to me.

“No and No!” my daughter looked at me perplexed by both questions. Then she continued eating her breakfast.

I could tell she was pondering the situation.

“ If you think it’s serious then convince Beth to tell her mom.” I suggested.

“No way, it will get her dad in trouble.”  Okay this is a  new twist. The dad is involved. FYI, the parents are divorced and it was not an amicable divorce and the parents are barely civil and there is a stepmother, you get the idea.

In the end, my daughter did tell me the “secret” which made me ponder whether I should tell my friend (and for the record, the girl is not in any danger otherwise I would have told the mom.) That said,  I did convince my daughter to talk her friend into telling her mom “the secret”.

5 Tips to Keeping Your Child’s Secrets

• Don’t  Press Your Child to Tell You the Secret – You should be supportive if she/he decides NOT to tell you the secret. Tell them if they want to tell you “later” or “not at all”, that’s okay.  And of course, don’t badger them and hope they will eventually tell you.

• Don’t Make Promises That You Will Not Divulge The Secret – Until your child tells you what the secret it, you can’t make that assessment. What if the friend was in danger either physically or mentally from family, friends etc, you would most likely speak up.

• Encourage Your Child to Talk to the Other Child – If your child felt compelled to tell you, in their mind, it’s serious enough topic.  This is one of those situations you have to be flexible. Obviously, if it’s serious, then have her reach out to the child that you are going to talk to the parents and then talk to the parents about what was told to you.

• Don’t Get Angry If Your Child Decides Not To Tell You The Secret – Try to keep this emotion in check. I know I get a little frustrated but your child needs to feel comfortable that they can talk you when they are ready to talk.

• Express That You Will Love Them No Matter if the Secret is Good News or Bad News – It’s important to communicate “I will love you no matter what you tell me, good or bad” That’s all you can do is reiterate that you love them no matter what.

Has this situation happened to you? How did you handle it? Definitely add your tips on how you handled the situation.

 

 

Disclosure: NYC Single Mom was not compensated for this post. Parenting a tween/teen these days is a daily landmine of issues, events that I pray every day that we both survive.