need help explaining to a 14 year old

[lateaugustday]

ok, my brother and sister in law have a new foster child. she's 14 and when we were at dinner a week or so ago (right after she came) she drew a protection symbol on my brother's wrist and said it was the symbol for witch. being as she had only been there for a few days i let it go. since then electrical stuff has stopped and started working at random, and when she went to visit my sis n laws dad breakers in his house were blowing left and right (this wasn't happening before they went and it hasn't happened since they left). it's even to the point that she's said that she is bad luck.

question being how do i go about talking to her about this without coming across as trying to 'convert' her (her dhs worker is ....interesting). at this point i think the universe would stop giving her a hard time about it if she were to appologize, but she has no religious affiliation that she's talked about so i don't have an idea about the context in which to address this. i don't know if paganism is something she's actually interested in or if she's just watched too much t.v.

does anybody have any suggestions for explaning the connection to her without having a birth parent, a counselor, 2 case workers, and a parole officer thinking i'm trying to 'recrute' her?

she's supposed to be coming over tonight so i can talk with her. anything suggestions would be great, and muchly appriciated.

becky

[Sylvan]

"Hey, pretty weird electrical stuff going on when you go to visit people... I don't have to worry about my tv blowing up, do I?" <-said in a lighthearted, joking manner

[Mab]

"Hey, pretty weird electrical stuff going on when you go to visit people... I don't have to worry about my tv blowing up, do I?" <-said in a lighthearted, joking manner
actually, I think that's a great idea. Sort of joking, but not really, and kinda feel her out to see what she already knows.

[Rowan Darkmoon]

Oh my, interesting situation you have there. It sounds like this girl is a natural witch, and is having difficulties controlling herself due to some circumstance or another. I would first try to discuss with her when these "bad luck" things happen. Is she feeling sad? Angry? Upset? Is there something in particular that seems to happen with her right before this stuff happens?

If there is an emotional cause behind it, I would work first on trying to get her identify these emotions and work with them. Can she come up with an outlet for her anger? Creative work, talking to someone, exercise, etc... (I'm guessing the root cause is anger because that's when I used to get most out of control magic wise when I was younger).

In addition to this outlet, you might also want to start her on some type of meditation regiment if she is interested. Meditation is used by many different religions, so hopefully it skirts around the religion problem, and I think it would help her to clear her mind and calm herself. Otherwise? If you discuss any form of paganism with her specifically, I'm afraid you will probably be accused of "recruiting," although that sucks. So I would stick with identifying emotional causes and meditation if you feel this is a case of magic gone awry. Hope it helps. :)

[Phae Talon]

ok, my brother and sister in law have a new foster child. she's 14 and when we were at dinner a week or so ago (right after she came) she drew a protection symbol on my brother's wrist and said it was the symbol for witch. being as she had only been there for a few days i let it go. since then electrical stuff has stopped and started working at random, and when she went to visit my sis n laws dad breakers in his house were blowing left and right (this wasn't happening before they went and it hasn't happened since they left). it's even to the point that she's said that she is bad luck.

question being how do i go about talking to her about this without coming across as trying to 'convert' her (her dhs worker is ....interesting). at this point i think the universe would stop giving her a hard time about it if she were to appologize, but she has no religious affiliation that she's talked about so i don't have an idea about the context in which to address this. i don't know if paganism is something she's actually interested in or if she's just watched too much t.v.

does anybody have any suggestions for explaning the connection to her without having a birth parent, a counselor, 2 case workers, and a parole officer thinking i'm trying to 'recrute' her?

she's supposed to be coming over tonight so i can talk with her. anything suggestions would be great, and muchly appriciated.

becky

My suggestion would be to teach her some 'relaxation techniques', like grounding, centering and shielding. The quicker she can learn to control her energy output, the less likely she will be to continue having problems with overloading electrical things - it may also give her the tools to deal with whatever emotional issues she may have.

Good Luck

--Phae

[lateaugustday]

from what i've picked up on the girl energy wise she's a bit of an enigma, so it wouldn't surprise me if she was a natural witch, but how do i bring up the use of symboles? after we got home i thought about it for awhile and i figured it would be my brother who would either have a effect - most likely everything going great or going south. i had asked my sis in law about it a cupple days latter, and it wasn't till today that she asked if it could go back and effect j (the foster daughter). for all i know it was something in her energy that crossed the line between drawing a picture and something more akin to casting, but i'd really like to give at least a basic understanding of intent when using symbology. when she announce to the table that they symbol was for a witch it was kind of flippant and 'look what i know' but it wasn't disrespectful (if that makes sense). so i think a big part of this lesson is going to be on intent, because what's happening isn't hurting anything it's more like the universe if flicking her some crap (it's really kind of amusing if only because i remember that lesson).
cripes, this is easier when the bugger are yours :doh2:

thanks
becky

[Rowan Darkmoon]

Do you believe that she is using the symbol with intent, and kind of putting this "bad luck" on your brother or marking him as a witch, or do you think she was just showing off? If she was showing off you might want to bring the conversation around like you would a conversation about bad words i.e. while symbols are just symbols, some create reactions in people that are not necessarily good because of what they may mean to them. Like little kids using bad words, the stronger you react to this, the worse it will probably become because she realizes it gains her attention. So try to calmly explain why the situation can bother people, even if it really bugs you that she's throwing these symbols around.

If it is with intent: I started studying various forms of paganism when I was 12 years old, and consider it entirely possible that this girl knows what this symbol means and was reacting to something she saw in your brother. Or she wants to talk about what she knows. If she is using it with intent, and admits that it is with intent, then you should probably have a serious conversation with her about what she would consider a moral use of power. Magic ability does not necessarily fall under any specific religious practice, so it can be general laws of right and wrong. If it is with intent, or unintentionally with intent, I would recommend grounding and meditation to help her with her control. Hope it helps. :)

[Rick]

Ya know, most classic poltergeist cases that have been recorded occur in girls around this age... could be something "attached" to her, rather than her...

[BrigidMoon]

Ya know, most classic poltergeist cases that have been recorded occur in girls around this age... could be something "attached" to her, rather than her...

Good thought. Didn't even cross my mind but could be.

[Ron]

Oh my, interesting situation you have there. It sounds like this girl is a natural witch, and is having difficulties controlling herself due to some circumstance or another. I would first try to discuss with her when these "bad luck" things happen. Is she feeling sad? Angry? Upset? Is there something in particular that seems to happen with her right before this stuff happens?

If there is an emotional cause behind it, I would work first on trying to get her identify these emotions and work with them. Can she come up with an outlet for her anger? Creative work, talking to someone, exercise, etc... (I'm guessing the root cause is anger because that's when I used to get most out of control magic wise when I was younger).

In addition to this outlet, you might also want to start her on some type of meditation regiment if she is interested. Meditation is used by many different religions, so hopefully it skirts around the religion problem, and I think it would help her to clear her mind and calm herself. Otherwise? If you discuss any form of paganism with her specifically, I'm afraid you will probably be accused of "recruiting," although that sucks. So I would stick with identifying emotional causes and meditation if you feel this is a case of magic gone awry. Hope it helps. :)
Okay like..... you people are describing me. For one, I'm 14. For two, bad things always happen to things when I have bad thoughts about them. There's a cd player I used to loathe because my mom would play it in the morning and it would wake me up. One day I thought how much I hated it and wanted to just smash it into bits. The next day.. it stopped working. Also, there's a girl that bugs me and when I get mad at her she ends up in the hospital with a broken bone... all of this was getting worse until I started controlling myself about 3 months ago. Now I'm pretty good about it -- but it's happening to myself. Ie: I'm having unpleasant thoughts about my future and they are coming true. So I spend a lot of my time now thinking to myself and burying myself in theories and control.

That's my story. Maybe it can help this girl somehow? Maybe you could tell her a story about a little boy who used to think bad thoughts about other people and bad things would happen to them. Just a suggestion. I dunno.

[zakzekezedd]

Actually, crazy electrical occurances have been happening randomly (including some weird light fixtures at my house) and the one thing I keep coming back to is that right now there are some pretty unstable energy patterns or flows between the dimensions. It's entirely possible that the girl does have some natural psi abilities that she hasn't really developed the ability to control, and that added to unstable energies is causing the "fireworks". I'd just sit down and talk to her about what sorts of things seem to happen around her, and what her "take" on them might be. If she's willing to talk to you straight, then the next thing would be to offer to help her learn grounding and shielding techniques to help her avoid triggering any more electrical "shows". I probably wouldn't put it in terms that you are going to teach her how to control her powers though. At 14 she's just as apt to want to learn to control her powers in order to "zap" someone as anything. Besides, she may already have learned some rudimentary controls, just not very effective ones.

[kenaz na wyvern]

Fourteen sounds about right. When I was around that age I discovered that I had natural abilities. Unfourtunately, I lacked self dicipline, control, and guidance. I'm a guy but I know of girls that have extreme influence over electrical energies during that stage of life as well. I have been blowing electrical stuff up since puberty (about 20 or so years ago). My research revealed that natural witches usually "discover" thier abilities during puberty because of the enormous hormonal surges that take hold of your body. These hormonally supercharged magick vessels are usually referred to as "wyrvn" or "wyrvern", meaning young dragon.
As far as how you handle the situation, it depends on the spiritual leanings of your brother and sister-in-law. Are they of a like mind with you? As far as "recruiting" goes, if she is in fact a natural witch then she will eventually come to the truth on her own. All you can do is offer an eager ear. I wish that I had a mentor when I was that age. I probably wouldn't have as much karmic debt as I do. Power without control can be very dangerous. I know from personal experience.
It is possible that she is skirting the edges of the craft from exposure to superficial arcanum (eg. "Charmed" on television). That show has enough fact to make it seem reasonably credible, but enough hollywood make believe to make it annoying.
Being a foster child, no matter how nice the foster home, sucks in a big way. Again, personal experience. The big question is how much does she trust you and can you count on her to be discrete if you tell her about yourself. I haven't found many teenagers that would qualify as discrete.
Good luck with J. and may the fortunes smile upon you as you seek to help her.

[Storm]

I haven't read all responses but something to consider. I don't think you can consider them abilities unless she is consiously making them happen. More likely she is what would be considered poltergeist. Many teenagers give off lots of energy that bounces around and makes things go haywire. Some adults too but given all the changes going on in teenage bodies they give off a lot of excess energy. I had a fourteen year old babysitter who set off all kinds of crazy electical events. Radio going on by itself fuses poping out of the fuse box, toaster setting itself, a fan blade broke off the ceiling fan and flew across the room. Really i think it is paranormal in nature and has nothing to do with witchcraft or paganism.

[BabblingImp]

Things like that happend to me too when I was 14, like at the time I played polo and when I got mad at the other team players the horses would just stop, and the ball would keep rolling fruther than it was suposse to. And one day our old truck wouldn't start and I would have been late but when I got close to the truck and put my had on the hood it just started. I don't know how you would talk to her since she is a Foster child, My mom and I always were this way! So all I can say is that she is doing what all witches do at that age=) :hahugh:

[MorningDove030202]

I would first find out if she is doing it intentionaly, subconciously or if something else it doing it. If it's anger related you could teach her some construtive ways to channel her anger.....such as into a stone and then throwing it away, or something mundane like a punching bag, writing in a journal, etc.

Dove

[AlAskendir]

First, if you've never watched Buffy the vampire Slayer, or Charmed, or the movie The Craft, go and watch.
Be warned: they are all schlock, but they are this generation's versions of 'bewitched' and 'I dream of Genie'....those were schlock too, but a great place to start having a conversation about what might be possible, and what someone believes.
Having watched them, ask if she's watched them, and how she feels about them..be ready 'cause this can go ANYWHERE.
Of course, if she's ready to believe stuff without intense persuasions, I'm sure you know how to deal with the conversation from there.
If she's not ready, and you want to stay in the broom closet (which is what this sounds like), you're going to have to do some mild deception of some kind or other.

You could say you've just gotten into meditating, and your home is your haven from the chaotically crazy world, so you can't handle agressive or judgemental thoughts being harbored in your home, teach her a non-witchy way of venting outside, and require her to be calm, peaceful, and in particular, non-judgemental of others' belief-systems while in your house.

You could also say that you've just gotten into Role Playing Games, and in your home, witches are a positive role, and if she doesn't feel that way, she must pretend to feel that way while there.

There are many other possibilities...think outside the box.