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Daughter is going to military prison for drug charges. Is it ok to not feel
Feel sympathy?
My 19 year old daughter will be spending 13 months in a military prison for drug charges
I am unable to have much sympathy for her about this because she broke the rules even though I never told her it was OK to participate in illegal activities, embarrassed herself and has to go to prison and will likely get dishonorably discharged. . Not to mention set a bad example for her younger sibling. Instead of feeling sad for her I’m thinking I know where she is and maybe being incarcerated will teacher her a lesson
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If she wasn't doing any thing illegal long before joining the military, then this would be her first major transgression that will affect her life. I will sahre one thing that helps to understand why teens and young adults make terrible choices and decisions often. RFead this article as its faster than me retyping it.[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
It is titled Teen brain but it covers anything up to the mid twenties when the frontal lobes of the brain are finally mature and connected to the rest of brain. This missing part is crucial and without it, your daughter made a bad judgement error. Once she reasches her mid twenties, she should start making better choices. If she still isn't capable, then it might be good for a mental health Dr. to see her. Otherwise, the stupid thing she did now has only one excuse she isn't even awere of, her brain isn't mature not the frontal lobe conneted yet so she can't help but make stupid decisions.
Now you ask about not feeling sympathy. The dictionary says sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for the distress of another. Empathy however is ability to imagine oneself in the condition of another; a vicarious participation in another’s emotions. I see sympathy as something that life dishes out to an individual that they had no part in creating, like ones family member dying in a car accident, someone mugging you,your car stolen, that sort of thing. But sympathy isn't very helpful to me. I can only feel sympathy if it is something I have experiences myself or something close enough to it, like knowing what it is like to lose a parent. I use empathy more, imagining myself in the other persons shoes, trying to understand what drove a person to say, or do what they did or what they are currently doing. I look for scientific reasons behind something, maybe if there is something medically wrong, the type of people someone is hanging with, latch key kids with little love, attention or discipline during their younger years. I know I would certainly have said or done similar things. I remember not having good ideas but a young person can use a parent or another trusted adult like an aunt as a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. Si your daughter when out again is 20 mayber closer to 21 but thats still a ways from 25 or so. She could easily make another really bad decision and mistake if she doesn't realize the situation she is in with her brain. I used my parents as sounding boards. I came up with the idea, than ran it by them to get their input before finalizing any decisions. That is what your daughter will need to understand once out again. Telling her how bad she was and how she screwed up over and over is not going to help, no matter how much we want to do this as parents. Im a parent, I understand. Even if its a problem and you have the answer, you can't tell them as if they were still minors, I only ask if I could give them some advice on a situation they are struggling with and not a one of my kids has ever said yes. They want to be aduts now that they are a certain age and its tricky for a parent as they still heed help but at some point, I would say as soon as she gets out of prison, that you have a talk with her. Tell her you still love her, you just don't like what she did. Its a basic principle as in God loves us but he doesn't like our sin. But our sin doesn't ever make HIm stop loving us. Its hard for a parent, I know but that is where I viewd it as an opportunity for me to learn some life lessons myself and strive to handle things in the best way possible. So no, you don't need to feel sorry for her. She likely isn't going to be able to see where she went wrong or what was wrong with what she did until she grows older and looks back, then she may understand. Just remember one thing more, that people should not be defined by their past but by how they are now sa a person. She won't have learned much from sitting in prison. Not unless she is a very introspective person, always looking within herself, questioning everythibg in her life until she understands. Not many young people around like that. I was a little bit, but not enough to avoid marrying someone who fooled even my parents whom I asked for their advice on when I got proposed to by him. I was twenty when I married him, and I just didn't know better. Looking back, I can see what the warning signs were but neither my parents or I had any previous experience to fall back on regarding my situation. I raised kids and stayed until they were grown and then divorced. I should have left sooner. But I know that even when trying to make good decisions, before mid twenties or a bit older, a person is actually mentally crippled, unable to make good decisions as an adult would. Keep all this in mind when conversing with her. Love her but let her know you don't like what she did. I would suggest you showing her the site I gave you or there are plenty others on the subject. SHe needs to know this, otherwise she is more likely to make another bad decision again. She is more likely to learn if you keep reminding her you are there for her to use as a sounding board. If she can't imagine asking your perpective on something, then whatever it is, its not something she should be considering doing. If she has an idea but unable to think of consequences down the road, even to something as simple as marryihng young or having a baby at a young age, she is never going to learn how to connect the dots of action to consequences and until she is able to see down the road before she makes any decision, that she needs to learn to use much older stable adults to bounce her ideas off of to gain more insight viewpoints and see if there is anything she missed in planning something. This would be the best way to handle it. If you are willing to rise up to this challenge, then both you and daughter will learn something from it.
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I think you need to tell your daughter that prision is the one place you'll never visit her and be direct that she must get help or she's not welcome back in your home. Don't visit and encourage other family members not to during that time. It has to sink in what she will lose in addition to possibly her life by continuing down this path.
Prision may or may not do that for her. She has a problem and likely an addiction that is hopeless without proper intervention and treatment. It's right of you to feel embarassed and totally disgusted but you must understand the stranglehold drugs have on her and how this influenced her behavior.
You also still have to love as a parent. That doesn't mean condoning her behavior. When she does get out stage an intervention and make sure she gets treatment if she's not set up for it and encourage a turnaround. She needs to cut off contact with anyone who does drugs or could get her back into trouble. Other than that you have done what you can.
You can lead her to help as can prison but can't make her or have it stick. That's the part which is on her. She genuinely has to want it or it won't be succesful.
As far as her sibling goes make sure he/she knows that their sister screwed up in a major way with drugs and her career and life will forever be affected by a criminal record and that prison is no place to ever wind up in. Make them see how easy it is to get in trouble and the real consequences that exist including death.
The sibling is not their sister but reinforcing how easy it is to get sucked in and the road out being beyond difficult will work. There's nothing more you can do there. I wouldn't have sympathy for your daughter but I would have empathy knowing that she's in a very bad place and needs help. You may not be happy and who would with what she's done but you can't abandon your kid. This is when she needs parented the most.
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I would say it depends on how bad a charge it was, there's a big difference between a joint and distributing meth or heroine and destroying lives.
But even if it it wasn't a tiny drug charge, I do sympathize with her. 13 months is a long time, it'll be more than 1/20 of her life till this point. I'm sure prison sucks, military or not. She might be subject to more than a year of physical, emotional, psychological, maybe even sexual abuse. She might come out of there broken. I know a guy that went to prison and got in a fight, which resulted in him getting hepatitis C. On top of all the other stuff.
So, to me, unless she was destroying lives with hard drugs, she doesn't deserve the torment that she has to go through now. If she was only harming herself with hard drugs, then she should go to rehab. If it was marijuana, then she really doesn't deserve prison time for something that's legal pretty much everywhere.
I can't imagine thinking that my daughter deserves the pain and torment of prison because she got caught with a joint or something that would be nothing or a misdemeanor in the real world.
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