would you allow your 15 year old to start wearing flesh tunnels?

[Gatekeeper]

I really don't like the look of them one bit but dd is enamoured and has bought a few pairs in increasing sizes even though I had previously said 'no'. She has pierced her own nose (septum and nostril bit) and has done Indian ink tattoos which I went spare at. I don't know id I should just allow her to do it

My main concern would be that she is piercing/tattooing herself, I think you are channeling your parenting in the wrong direction here!

The easiest thing in the world is to allow it. The fact that you post on here suggests that it doesnt sit easy with you. In your position i would stand firm and not allow it. It is nothing short of self mutiliation and it is ugly. We all hve our individual whims and styles but we also have to live in the real world. Sorry to be a biased old fart but if someone sat in front of me looking for a job at interview and they were full of tats,holes and spikes, i would pay them the common courtesy of interviewing and listening to them in the slight hope that they might make me see the light and then as they left, raise my pen and cross their name off the candidates list.

My DD isn't into anything like this but my neice was. Her mum made a deal with her that she could do anything she liked in the way of hair dyes, standard size piercing and none permanent tattoo design but no flesh tunnels and nothing permanent tattoo wise.

Neice is now nearly 20 and has gone very conservative in her appearance. Got rid of all but 2 ear piercings and says regularly that she is so glad her mum stopped her doing anything permanent.

My DD17 has lots of ear piercings and nose (not septum). I'm really against tattoos, stetching thingies, and breast piercing but try to keep it as a dialogue/conversation. Quite a few of her friends with ultra strict parents have secret boob and belly button piercings (alognside serious drug habits).

Ultimately its the tattoos I'd worry about. Good luck!

Opps not saying peircings are linked with drugs - but more so strict parents and extreme rule breaking.

thank you everyone for posting...some differing views which I didn't expect.

we've had a difficult year with my dd and she has recently being diagnosed with Asbergers which I have LONG suspected. Late last year and early this year she was self harming as she was finding life hard as she felt so different from the usual crowd of girls in her year. This led onto the tattoos and an overdose ...the tattoos are awful but I understand why she did them

she is lovely but finds it hard to express herself other than in writing, which we encourage all the way. She becomes very focussed on one thing- almost obsessed and her whole life seems to revolve around it. From age 9-14 it was Batman/Harley Quinn and now it's bloody Rhu Paul's drag race stuff (arghh)

we have agreed to let her have small ear tunnel things but no more than 1cm and I will be checking regularly. School are fine about them as they are very supportive of her

More importantly she has found a new 'friendship' group at school which are great...totally low key (no queen bee drama queens) into music, art, manga, creative writing and she seems much happier, talking about her day and what so and so said etc

sorry for rambling...I know my last post is probably not connected with what I wanted to say but wanted to come back to say thanks for replying and for the kind messages received