Weekend Negotiations
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| Tue, 10-17-2006 - 7:57am |
I have come to dread the weekends in my house. It seems that every weekend is full of negotiations. DH and I wait for what 17yo DD will ask to do and then the negotiations begin.
She has made some bad choices in the past and several weeks ago had a major car accident (she was not hurt). Lately she seems to be working on being more responsible - she is handling school better than ever (she's a senior so this is really a little late) and just got a new job.
As far as her social life goes, I never know how much freedom I should give her. We don't let her stay out late, but don't have a curfew that's set in stone - we set a curfew depending on where she is and what she's doing. Since the accident, we don't like her driving home much after 11PM.
There are often parties on the weekends - or rather, kids hanging out at someone's house. I don't usually know the kids (we have a very large school district - 2 towns), and don't call to see if parents are home. You never know if they will be home and even if they are, if they supervise the goings on in their house. She also asks for sleepovers at girlfriends' houses. Not comfortable with this - now that she has a car, how do I know where she really is.
Does anyone out there have a very social child? What does your teen like to do? What do you allow? What do you NOT allow? What are your curfews?
Just curious - thanks for any input!


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I have two very social teen girls, 17 and almost 19. The 19 year old went through a phase of having an extremely social life but seems to have settled down once she began college. I've found you have to give them some freedom in high school or they'll go crazy once they go away to college.
Our curfew was 11:00 pm for both girls while they were 16-17. Once they turned 18, the curfew is 12:00 am unless it's a special situation. My 17 yr. old doesn't turn 18 until June so we've changed her curfew until 12:00 am. Of course, now she wants to stay out later but I truly believe nothing good happens after midnight! I don't think kids need to be staying out later than that. And, unfortunately, given some situations my older daughter got into, we do not allow sleepovers because that's when trouble seems to happen.
As for getting to know the other parents, it's nearly impossible because they sometimes float from house to house. We have somewhat of an idea of who's who, but, we just have to trust them. If trouble happens, then the curfew goes back to 11:00 pm with no negotiations. It's the chance they take.
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lol..Welcome to my world.
Just weekends? :-)
It seems this is our role between 11 and 21. It's their job to push. It's our job to rein. I understand your frustration though. Sometimes it would be nice to have a break.
OTOH, negotiation implies respect for your rules and boundaries. Not all together a bad thing.
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ALL my kids have told me at some point, that I am the -only one- who will not allow (fill in the blank)..yeah..right.
There is a fine line between realizing actual danger, trusting your gut, and imposing restrictions simply because you don't want your little one to grow up. For me it's a very tough call. Yet, even in this crazy society, our teens still live in a fairly controlled environment. They are told where to be, when, what to study, when, what to do, when, how much they can spend...etc.
It's nice to give them choices and permissions whenever possible, within the guidelines of your expectations. For example, my DD likes to go to her friends parties. I know drinking will go on at some of these. She knows I will probably call her at some point to see how she is. She also knows an underlying purpose of the call - if she doesn't answer the phone, or if she sounds funny, there will be no more parties. We tend to use the cell phones a lot to just check in or ask a question. This way, the phone call is not an obvious glaring intrusional check up.
Calling the parents seems to be useful up to high school. By high school, to a large degree the focus needs to be on the teen rather than the supervision. Also, in many cases I've found a parent holed up upstairs makes no difference in what takes place downstairs anyway.
Curfew is between 11 and 12 on weekends. School nights are generally not an issue between homework, job and sports.
I agree with your take on sleepovers. They certainly have an ample amount of time for fun up to midnight. After that, just asking for trouble.
Well, the fact that she wants to negotiate says something for her respect of your rules... and her sense of wanting to be independent.
Although I agree with the concept of giving teens some freedom while at home so that they don't go crazy in college, how do we prevent them from going crazy while at home??
As it seems we all agree, we don't know the families that well, calling parents to ensure they are home is almost pointless, and there is a likely chance that alcohol will be present. So what do we do? We continue the communications that started when they were younger about the risks of alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. Then what - leave them to their own devices?
My DD wants to go out as often as possible. She tells me where she is going and who she is with and a curfew is set. We remind her about drinking and driving and to be careful. Ha! Without a GPS inserted in her body, we don't really know where she is! I know most of her friends, but not much about some of them. I know that there is a lot of drinking going on, I don't know of drugs but I am sure they are around. I want my daughter to do the right thing and to be safe (of course!) - she is starting to show us she is maturing and more responsible. So that's a good thing.
It's the helplessness that I feel that is driving me crazy. The what if's? The risks that are out there. I guess we all have to just let them go and hope for the best.......?
Thanks. You are right. We have to have faith that we taught them between right and wrong.
It's nice to know I'm not alone.
Oh boy, can I relate! My ds just turned 17 too, and he is a "social butterfly". His normal curfew on weekends (he just doesn't go out during the week much so there has been no need for one) has been 11:30. I thought about switching it to midnight, I'm not sure that is necessary, though, and also if he's going to be driving soon I don't want him out that late anyway. I also know what you mean about "checking with the parents" being useless, terrible as that sounds. I do know, because ds tells me, that there is usually alcohol (even if someone sneaks it in) and drugs at parties. I know it sounds crazy to some parents to allow your teen to go to that kind of get together, but honestly, I appreciate having the lines of communication open. It gives me a chance to talk about our values, etc. It has given ds an opportunity to witness the ridiculous behavior of kids who are high, and the consequence of their actions (car being taken away, sent away to "boot camp", etc.) He's also come to experience the reality of "guilty by association" that we've talked about before, too. I've been lucky in that ds has always abstained and he's known in his group as the "only one" who does. For that reason, though, I've seen him turn down going to a few of these parties. He knows that "all" that will be going on is that type of thing, and obviously it would be pointless for him to go. Now, sometimes he goes if it's a music show (to watch or play in) and he is there for that reason. He deals with all the other stuff because he's there for the music and hanging out with friends. As for overnights, they are rare. I'm lucky that he has never liked them, even when he was much younger. Prefers being home.
Having said that, ds has never given me a reason not to trust him, so he has my trust. If he were to come home drunk or stoned, if I were to find other evidence of that behaviour, etc. I would feel quite differently. It's a tricky, fine line. I agree that this is the time to screw up - at home and before going out on your own. But we're here to implement and show them the limits and consequences of the actions and decisions they make before they go out into the world and the nice police officer has to show them. So if your dd has given you reason not to trust her, then I would be alot stricter with her until she has completely regained that trust. That takes time.
To a certain extent, I have to wonder if the "information age" has made parents just a little paranoid.
When my DD was working on earning trust back, I wouldn't let her go to other homes unless a parent was present. Even if the parent wasn't supervising, at least there was one there if something happened.
So far as her spending the night away from home, I had to speak with a parent so that I would know that the parent knew DD was supposed to be there. I would also give them my phone number just in case I was needed. In theory, this should work; however, DD actually got one her friends to pretend to be a dad so after that her overnights were even more limited. If I doubted that she was where she was supposed to be, I would call her on the cell phone and insist that she call me from their house phone. The house phone number would show up on my caller ID. Granted this would only verify that she was there at the time the call was made but she quickly got the point that I was watching her and I didn't trust her.
Good Luck!
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