Which one’s worse – teens or their parents?

• November
• 27

6:00 am Mums, Parenting, Parenting Teens

Lately I’ve been pondering which one is worse – the teens, or the parents?!

It’s been a week of milestones for our two teens. Last week I posted about Mr 17’s graduation from high school. Since then he’s dyed his hair to celebrate his freedom – it’s half green, half black (inspired by a certain UFC wrestler). Surprisingly it looks really good! Thankfully he was not interested in participating in Schoolies Week, instead we will be going on a family holiday in the near future.

On Sunday, Miss 15 turned … 15! She had about 7 girls for a sleepover, so we converted the garage into “party central”, with an air conditioner (it was stinking hot), a heap of mattresses, Playstation, music, small pool table, fairy lights and plenty of junk food. After a BBQ breakfast we drove the girls to the ferry, and they spent the afternoon on the beach at Coochiemudlo Island.

That was supposed to be the end of the “party” but somehow we ended up with 2 extras back at our place, waiting … waiting … and waiting for parents to pick them up. Supposedly they’d gone out for dinner nearby and were to collect the girls afterwards. But at 9pm, we’d had enough, and drove them home ourselves.

Needless to say we were not terribly impressed with the parents taking advantage of us like that, especially as we’d never even met them! Or, were the girls just spinning a tale so they could spend more time together? Hard to tell!

 Miss 15 seems to have a new group of friends (we were only familiar with two of the party guests), which we thought might be a good thing as a couple of the old group seem to have gone off the rails. However I am already not keen on one of the new friends – the alarm bells are ringing! I think Miss 15 was a bit shocked too so hopefully she has seen another side to this friend.

So where do I start to tell you about why I’m concerned about this new friend?

1. She’s 14, and has a 17 or 18 year old boyfriend, and they’ve been together for 8 months – with full parental approval. I’m sorry, but am I the only one sitting here thinking “WHAT THE?!”. He has recently got his P’s and drives her everywhere so they have a lot of freedom …
2. Hubby took the girls to the convenience store on the Saturday night and while he was paying for stuff, the girls waited outside. This particular friend had an urgent call of nature, so apparently squatted right there and then (we only found out later when the girls were giggling about it). Hmmmm. That’s just grotty …
3. When the girls went to Coochie for the afternoon, we thought about going along to supervise but decided against it. After all the girls are mostly 15, and this is COOCHIE we’re talking about, a sleepy little island, not Surfers Paradise or Kings Cross! A four hour visit to this family-oriented location on their own seemed appropriate. BUT as we later found out, this friend’s boyfriend turned up, and the pair then disappeared until it was time to get the ferry back!

Miss 15 was distinctly unimpressed and I sincerely hope she hangs on to these feelings! The one saving grace is that I’m told this friend doesn’t often socialise with the girls outside of school, because she spends all her spare time with the boyfriend.

 I will be interested to see how Miss 15 handles all this … it was certainly an eye-opener to us in a lot of ways …

I have to say I was also really shocked by some of the parents. We’d never met most of the party guests before, and have also never spoken to or met their parents. Not one parent phoned us in the lead up to the party to check what supervision there would be, or to make sure that there really WAS a party. Even when the girls were dropped off, not one parent took the time to walk up to the front door and introduce themselves. Seriously! I mean – we could have been child molesters, drug dealers, axe murderers …

Maybe we are over-protective, but there is NO WAY we would let our 14 or 15 year old daughter sleep over somewhere without sussing it out first! Actually, I tell a lie, we have banned sleepovers altogether at other people’s houses this year, simply because we KNOW that there is not going to be quality parental supervision. After a particular incident several months ago, we told Miss 15 that we were no longer prepared to allow sleepovers at friend’s houses as there is no supervision. She retorted, “But X’s Mum will be there!” to which I replied, “Exactly! No supervision! We know she lets her kids do this, that and the other – not acceptable!”

Part of our kids growing up is allowing them more freedom, especially as they prove themselves worthy of our trust. But at the same time, they are still young people – not adults yet – and in need of parental guidance and wisdom. However sometimes (like this weekend) I feel like the only parent in the universe that feels this way …

What about you? What rules and boundaries do you have for the teens in your family? What freedoms do you allow and at what ages?