Q. I've been a fan of yours since our daughter was born, and she's now a very successful nurse anesthetist student and happily married. And you helped.

Now, I'm doing some mentoring and running into a common problem that we could also use your help with. A girl who loves to come to mentoring is being punished for her mistakes by routinely losing the privilege of attending the program. I heard often kids will unconsciously sabotage something good because they're so used to their parents' disappointing them that at least if they blow it, it offers them some sense of 'control.' They figure it will be taken from them anyway. Is this true? I think your input will be very helpful, especially to mentoring programs, so we could work with parents and kids to help break this cycle.

A. I've not heard that logic before, but I think it's more likely the parents find it difficult to know how to set limits for their children. They often believe they have nothing they can take away. Children who are enjoying a mentorship program talk about that enjoyment, thus offering parents a tool for enforcing rules. If you want to retain children in your mentoring program, it would be best for you to communicate with parents about your goals, assuring them that mentorships encourage students to respect their parents.

Parents will appreciate you being supportive to them. You can suggest that if they find the need to punish their children for inappropriate behavior, it would be better to take social privileges, cell phones, TV, or computers away rather than extracurricular or mentoring activities that will help their self- and family respect. If families do take good opportunities for learning away from children, it is discouraging and leaves them with only their negative activities.

For free newsletters about "See Jane Win for Girls," "Growing Up Too Fast," the importance of arts, or sports, send a large self-addressed, stamped envelope to P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI, 53094, or go to www.seejanewin.com for more information.

Daughter's Rights Begin in Adulthood

Q.

Is there such a thing as sibling rights? I have a child, and her father has another child by a different mother. The other mother won't let us see her daughter, my child's half-sister. Is there anything I can do so the two girls can see each other? I'm not married to my daughter's father. I believe the girls need to know about one another.

A. I don't know a law that prescribes whether either of the parents of the other girl must share information about your daughter with their daughter. Because you're not married to your daughter's father, you won't have much clout in persuading him to share information about his out-of-wedlock child. If your daughter's father is married to the mother of your daughter's half-sister, then she is undoubtedly not anxious to discuss her husband's improprieties with her daughter. In her position, I can't imagine why she would want the girls to meet.

While I don't know the details of your family arrangements, if you choose, you could share the information about a half-sister with your daughter, including her name. You'll have to explain that the girls will have to wait until they're older before they get to know each other. Because that won't be for a long time, you may choose not to tell your daughter, who would surely feel disappointment at not being able to visit her half-sister immediately. Hopefully, you can fill your daughter's life with good friends and other family members so that the lack of knowing her half-sister will seem relatively inconsequential.

For a free newsletter about the changing family, send a large, self-addressed, stamped envelope to P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI, 53094, or go to www.sylviarimm.com for more parenting information.

Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or srimm@sylviarimm.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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