Raising a 5 year old teen girl

There are a lot of really cool things about being a Youth pastor. I get to have lots of fun doing something I love. Not a lot of people can say that about their jobs. I get to help shape the lives of young men and women, even fewer people get to say that. I could go on and on but right now I want to talk about one major drawback.

My 5 year old daughter loves the Youth and they love her. She likes to head in with my early on Youth night and stay with me late. She rides on the boys skate boards and hangs out with the girls. She is starting to talk about clothes and makeup with these girls. Trust me, this is a huge problem.

A couple weeks ago she was sitting out with a group of young teen girls while they were talking about relationships and friends and such. One of the girls she was talking about had the same name as her so she thought they were talking about her. Apparently she seems to think one of the girls is like her older sister or something. They commented that the girl’s step sister (who has the same name as my daughter) looks nothing like her. My daughter yells out in a perfect teen girl tude voice, “we have the same hair.” Admittedly the two do have similar hair but that is about as far as the resemblance goes. My 5 year old only needs that much apparently.

I do worry that she is going to have her little heart broken if there is some kind of falling out between her friends in the Youth group and some of the girls stop coming. I know this is a real possibility. Just last weekend one of the newer girls became pariah because of a big teen meltdown and so she isn’t going to be coming any more. Fortunately for my daughter she didn’t get close to this girl but I do worry for her.

I don’t want to hold her back. I think it is really cool that she gets to see some of these things before she goes through them. We talk on the way to and from church about this and she is really starting to get it. BTW Helen, you can’t have this one. She is really starting to get cool and interesting. I’ll send you the other girl but you’ll be sending her back. The look is only getting stronger. Soon we’ll have to register her as a lethal weapon.

Anyways, I’m getting distracted so I’ll leave it as that.