Life Advice

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Health

Daughter struggles with self-esteem at college

By Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

Dear Confused: I know how upsetting it can be to have someone spread lies about you, but you need to stop pursuing this person for explanations; you have asked three times and gotten no response, and now you have to let this go. Stop calling, emailing or texting this person asking to talk, and understand that her description might be less a lie than a misinterpretation.

There could be many reasons why she might lie to her family: they were being nosy and she didn't know how to tell them the truth, she's in the CIA and had to lie to protect her cover or she's a disrespectful liar and she just felt like doing it. While it would be nice if liars provided their victims with detailed explanations, that rarely happens.

All you can do now is move forward. Be civil, and extremely cautious about confiding anything. Ever. Accept that you may never get a reason for her duplicity (or that any reason you get may be a lie), and downgrade this from a friendship to a civil relationship.

Dear Amy: We vaccinate our children. There was a mistake at the doctor's office and one of my sons missed a vaccine. Due to what I guess was just very bad luck, he was exposed to one of the illnesses the vaccine should have prevented.

We spent the next two days in the hospital, basically under quarantine. We do NOT know when or where he was exposed, only that he was, and it was a very serious threat to his health.

Please encourage vaccinations and careful monitoring of the health of those too young to be protected.

 

-- Aware Parent

Dear Aware: I am team-vaccination. We are so fortunate to have access to vaccines; I can't believe this has become at all controversial.

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(You can contact Amy Dickinson via email: askamy@amydickinson.com. Readers may send postal mail to Amy Dickinson, c/o Tribune Content Agency, 16650 Westgrove Drive, Suite 175, Addison, Texas, 75001. You can also follow her on Twitter @askingamy or "like" her on Facebook.)


 

 

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