Any experienced teen parents willing to help me out? Never thought I'd say it, but bring back the tantrum years - they were far easier!
Dd is 12 (year 7). Yesterday she was showing me a message a friend had sent about all the different coloured pride flags for pride month. She told me she thought she was asexual - apparently "I bloody well hope so, you're 12" was not the appropriate answer, and she's now got herself into a spiral of never had a crush on anyone (girl or boy) and her friend already knows she's a lesbian (the friend, not DD) and how will she know what group she is meant to be in..
Anyway, I'm just trying to work out a sensitive way of talking to dd about it when she brings it up again. I told her that half the fun in growing up is working that out and she didn't need to "know" at 12 whether she was anything yet and that her friend was probably unusual in being so sure at 12 that she's a lesbian. But that wasn't ok either - apparently she needs to know what group she's going to be in and can't deal with the uncertainty of not knowing and "everyone else knows what they are". In the end I eventually distracted her with something altogether more easy to think about.
I'm not planning on bringing it up again unless she does - can anyone help me out with at least so proper answers?
The plus side is that she is open, and believes me that her and her dad are ok with whatever happens in the future, but I don't want to minimise her feelings - because they are clearly very real to her(there were lots and lots of tears) but equally I think this is something she absolutely should not be worrying about at 12. And I did point out that most of her friends won't be all-knowing either, but she reckons since they've all had crushes on various people, they do know..
Help?