My male friend has a DD aged 13 (my god daughter) and was asking my advice about her. I'm not a parent of teenagers but work with teenagers. Anyway, I'm wondering if there would be any helpful advice available from MNers.
So as not to drip feed- friend is a lovely bloke, not together with his DD's mum- they have never been together as she found out she was pregnant after they split up (after very brief relationship) but she decided to keep the baby and he supported her. A few years later she did the same thing and had another child, and hasn't revealed who the father is, and the narrative is that DC2 "doesn't have a daddy". My friend suspects she basically decided she wanted two kids and made this happen in her own way.
This is the context, but in fact all is essentially well- my friends DD (my god daughter) loves her mum and sibling and they live in a lovely house and have plenty of holidays and opportunities, and the mum earns plenty of money. She also has a lovely room and second home at her dads house. She attends a private school where there is a lot of work but also lots of support and she enjoys it and has lots of friends. Both parents are very loving and positive towards the girl.
The relationship between my friend and his DD's Mum can be tricky and the mum is quite high maintenance and dramatic, and can be a bit controlling about dates etc, for example leaving it to the last minute before approving a date for a trip or something so that it makes it hard for my friend to plan or book things ahead. Having said all this they have a solid arrangement where my friend looks after his DD at weekends, some evenings during the week, and they occasionally all do things together, like birthday meals etc and present a united front. My friend is also heavily involved in his DD's school, parents evenings, and taking her on holidays etc, and she regularly visits her grandparents. He is a great dad, extremely calm, structured, and invested and they have a great relationship. His DD has grown up to be a very mature, conscientious, easy-going girl. I sometimes take her out for the day (last time was about 6 months ago) and she is a delight. She is much more mature than most 13 year olds I've worked with and can sit and have adult conversations about ideas and various topics, and has always been easy going and up for doing new things.
Recently she has developed a group of friends who are all v close. They seem lovely girls and they are all well behaved and hard working, and love doing hair, makeup, nails, Instagram, having sleepovers and watching films etc- typical teenage girl stuff really. No interest in boys yet- they seem to self-identify as the slightly alternative / cynical/ feminist / too cool for boys crowd at school!
My friend has now expressed concern because his DD has suddenly stopped wanting to do things. She only wants to do things which her friends do. I said this sounds completely normal teenage behaviour.... But he also says she seems to be afraid of failure. Saying she doesn't want to try something in case she's not very good at it. She "cant be bothered" to read, go somewhere, see something new. She said it's all too much effort. She frequently says things like "I might get it wrong", or "I might mess it up so I won't bother".
Whenever my friend encourages her to do something new, even something tiny like cooking something, she says she can't be bothered and will mess it up.
He is feeling frustrated, and not sure where this lack of confidence is coming from or what to do about it.
For Christmas he bought her a book which is for young people and all about confidence and how to do what you want to do etc, something he was hoping she would be inspired by, and needless to say she didn't want to read it. Whenever he suggests anything new- reading, watching a new show, going to see something, learning a new skill, trying a new game, she responds that she can't be bothered and doesn't want to learn something new, and she will probably be crap at it anyway.
Does this sounds like completely normal teenage behaviour or if there are any strategies that can help here?
Any tips from parents of teenagers?