Thank you so much for your response. You are right it is a minefield! Rasing my dd 20 and dd18 was so much easier because they were not as popular as my dd15. dd15 wants to be involved in everything so much younger than the older ones. I have also reminded her that you are guilty by association and when her friends make bad choices around her she may not be strong enought to resist. Even if she is trying to help she might get dragged down with them. We have told her to call us no questions asked and we will come get her out of any situation as well. The four friends she clings to are parented as follows. 2 have horrible divorce situations where neither one of their parents realizes that they are a parent first...divorced man/woman second. These 2 get to do whatever they want. 1 has a mother that lets her say whatever she wants to without any repercussion (sp?). The mother seems to be afraid upsetting her and not being her friend. The other friend has parents that were not from this country and the child seems to be raising them. Mind you I have know all these parents since she was in preschool with their kids. So this makes it hard as well. I am looked at as the way to strict Mom! Anyways...fortunetly dd15 does have so many other friends to choose from and she does do other things. She knows that I will say yes to those friends. Her loyalties to the original four will always be there and I just need to control those times. dd15 is a good girl and I have to remember that always. I just wish I could make this easier!
I agree with the other posts. Also, keep a *very* close eye on her. Know where she is and who she is with. Confirm sleepovers and those sort of things. I had this problem with my very good dd as well. I am very close with her, she is a good, sweet girl. She makes good grades and has "good" friends in addition to the 'bad' influence kids. But she finally succumbed to the pressure. I was trusting her, however, b/c she was 17 and had a car, and I thought I knew her so well. She ended up drinking and driving, using pot, going to several parties, sleeping over at a party at a boy's house, going to a party at a 22yo's house, and several other very bad things over a few months before I caught her and had to intervene. While I don't think forbidding the friends upfront is the right thing to do (these "friends" are forbidden now), if I had just called some of the parents she said she was "sleeping over" at or followed her a couple of the times I was suspicious about where she said she was going, I might have caught her before it got so bad. She talked about some of these friends and their behavior and we talked alot about making better choices and getting caught with people breaking the law and what that could do to her life. It wasn't enough to prevent her from making the bad choices herself. For some kids, this is enough. She wasn't strong enough. But I wish I had supervised her a little more closely, knowing what I did that she was hanging out with kids that were drinking and drugging. Now I'm getting a GPS at her expense. LOL. She knows she's got some work to do to get my trust back again. And I will most definitely be calling parents to confirm her location from now on. It's a shame I have to do that at her age, but neither she nor I want her to get caught by the police the next time. And we certainly don't want there to *be* a next time. She's so lucky she didn't completely ruin her life or anyone else's by her behavior. So, check on her, supervise, supervise, supervise. That's my two cents. :)
Pages
Piping in to give my two cents - I've btdt more times than I care to remember.
Thank you so much for your response. You are right it is a minefield! Rasing my dd 20 and dd18 was so much easier because they were not as popular as my dd15. dd15 wants to be involved in everything so much younger than the older ones.
I have also reminded her that you are guilty by association and when her friends make bad choices around her she may not be strong enought to resist. Even if she is trying to help she might get dragged down with them. We have told her to call us no questions asked and we will come get her out of any situation as well. The four friends she clings to are parented as follows. 2 have horrible divorce situations where neither one of their parents realizes that they are a parent first...divorced man/woman second. These 2 get to do whatever they want. 1 has a mother that lets her say whatever she wants to without any repercussion (sp?). The mother seems to be afraid upsetting her and not being her friend. The other friend has parents that were not from this country and the child seems to be raising them. Mind you I have know all these parents since she was in preschool with their kids. So this makes it hard as well. I am looked at as the way to strict Mom!
Anyways...fortunetly dd15 does have so many other friends to choose from and she does do other things. She knows that I will say yes to those friends. Her loyalties to the original four will always be there and I just need to control those times.
dd15 is a good girl and I have to remember that always. I just wish I could make this easier!
Thanks so much for your response!
S
Pages