Young Lady, you WILL contain it until "I" can deal with it!

"I'm sure you would tell that to your 16 year old daughter"

Yeah, you’re right. If I had communicated to my 16 year old daughter that she could tell me anything and I would never judge her - and she came to me about sex - instead of addressing it head on, I’d INSIST that she throw her 16 year old sexual urges inside the bucket marked, of course, “16 Year old sexual urges” because I am not at a point in my life where I can handle them. Surely my boundaries would only strengthen our relationship.

And then if she got pregnant or caught an STD because I was unable to help her sort out her overwhelming emotional and physical feelings about sex, I would tell her that she’ll now have to deal with the consequences on her own since she didn’t listen to me and ‘contain’ her feelings, and instead ‘acted’ on them.

I would certainly not take any responsibility because I was not at a point where I could hear her cries of confusion and distress and I explained that to her and she refused to put her hormones and feelings in the damn sex bucket!

Or, better yet, I’ll have her sign a “No Sex till I’m married” contract. That will ensure she chooses ‘chastity’, and if she does choose to have sex, at least I did the best I could to prevent it. I mean, I can’t be with her all the time.That’s definitely better than working through her feelings, helping her and not judging her…if she puts it in the bucket and slaps a lid on it – it was all just go away…And I’ll just have to “trust” that she will “honor” the fact that I am her mother and continue to be honest with me…even though she is now afraid that I cannot handle her feelings.

And if she refused to be honest with me, even though she no longer trusts me, I would just consider that "mother/daughter interfering behavior" give her the time to work through her feelings on her own, and then give me a call....and "we'll leave it at that".

Yeah - I can see containment and contracts are best. That way I can pretend not to be aware of any of my daughter's feelings, thoughts, behaviors, or really, HER.

Dang! I had no idea DBT would work for that too!!!! Talk about your multi-purpose cleaning supplies! I'd better start working on that bucket ~ she'll be 16 in 8 years!