Question
Hi! Parents of a 13 year old girl. she has always gotten good grades, is involved in sports and has generally been a great kid. In the last couple of years, we have excused some changes in behavior as being part of "becoming a teen", whereas other times we have chosen to be very nitpicky with her. She has now withdrawn from most friends, other than a couple of other equally "anti-social" friends. She seems to be very shy around others, even other kids from school that she will see around town. Her self confidence is so low...she is a beautiful girl but sees herself as ugly, someone with no friends, etc. She is mean to her younger brother who is so hurt by her behavior. She often dresses like she just doesn't care about her appearance - despite her dad and I buying her nice clothes, she'll wear the same pants to school she wore 2 days ago that are dirty. Most of the time she doesn't put much effort into things. She goes through the motions with her sports, but doesn't put any true effort or hard work in. She will do chores but often with the same level of effort...I either put up with them being minimally done or at times make her go back and do a better job. In which case there is eye rolling and and general expressions of how overly harsh her parents are, but she does it. We have already severely limited her cell phone time. We are wondering if she is depressed, but fear that bringing this up to a counselor will result in a prescription for medication and we are just not wanting to go that direction. What can we, as her parents, do?
