Help with consequences -- 14 yo DD skipped school with friend, went to DC

[Anonymous]

The skipping school part is what concerns me more than anything else. At 14? Is that 8th grade? I would never have considered doing that - particularly at that age. Is this the first time this has happened or have there been other times? There would definitely be consequences in our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The skipping school part is what concerns me more than anything else. At 14? Is that 8th grade? I would never have considered doing that - particularly at that age. Is this the first time this has happened or have there been other times? There would definitely be consequences in our house.

14 should be 8/9th grade but the 14 year old was probably held back or a fall birthday and should know better.

[Anonymous]

This will be one of her favorite stories one day. In fact you two will laugh about this when she’s an adult. When I was 16 my friend had a car and she picked me up for one of our soccer games. She had already decided she didn’t feel like driving far or playing that day (we were both full scholarship D1 players - I definitely wanted to play! But she was the one with the car). Anyway we skipped the game and went to a diner somewhere and a guy did card tricks for us and smoked a cigarette through a coin. We had the best time! Little did we know that when we didn’t show up to the game one of the parents called her mom looking for her and called my house looming for me. Our parents were so worried about us - when we finally got home they were mostly just happy that we weren’t dead. I got grounded. She didn’t. We still laugh about it to this day. I guarantee if we had played the game neither one of us would remember that day.

Tl/dr your daughter is having one of the best days of her youth, she just probably doesn’t know it yet.

[Anonymous]

Is this the first time this has happened or is she normally a rule follower?

[Anonymous]

Apparently I'm the outlier here. First, skipping school is not ok in my house. Second, lying about your whereabouts is also a huge problem - whether it's lying by omission or lying outright. I'd also be concerned about the fact that she seems to have no street smarts or situational awareness. They intended to go into DC but ended up in Arlington AND she didn't have enough money to get back. At 14, plenty of kids don't think about things like this but that's what makes this stunt all more problematic. Fortunately she was *only* in Arlington and could call you and nothing happened, but these are the types of situations that can go wrong quickly under different circumstances.

I'd ground her for 2 weeks, remove social media apps/block content, no screens, and put a tracker on her phone. The tracker would stay on indefinitely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"She's so grown up now she gets to get herself to the grocery store and do the weekly shopping for the family."

Seriously. She made a bad decision. So what? Is this her first time she's done something stupid? All teens are stupid, their brains are regrowing. At least she's also shown you that she is capable of getting around town. She has some maturity to go with that stupidity. Why not start with a discussion about why she did it? Maybe she'll suggest a consequence worse than what you would.

But she's clearly NOT capable. They ended up in the wrong place and she didn't have enough money to pay the return fare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently I'm the outlier here. First, skipping school is not ok in my house. Second, lying about your whereabouts is also a huge problem - whether it's lying by omission or lying outright. I'd also be concerned about the fact that she seems to have no street smarts or situational awareness. They intended to go into DC but ended up in Arlington AND she didn't have enough money to get back. At 14, plenty of kids don't think about things like this but that's what makes this stunt all more problematic. Fortunately she was *only* in Arlington and could call you and nothing happened, but these are the types of situations that can go wrong quickly under different circumstances.

I'd ground her for 2 weeks, remove social media apps/block content, no screens, and put a tracker on her phone. The tracker would stay on indefinitely.

I agree. I'm really surprised by the responses here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m strict but I don’t think this is a big deal. Ground her and make her do extra chores. And sure, Life360

You don't think skipping school is a big deal? I find your definition of strict confusing.

The going to VA by mistake, that's kind of funny but skipping school isn't.

[Anonymous]

You don't necessarily even need life360 to track her phone. If she has an iPhone, under privacy and location services have her phone share it's location with you. Then you go on your iPhone and do a "find my phone" search on your app and her phone should come up in addition to yours.

I have the share my location on both my kids phones. Yes, they can disabled it, but they could also do that with life360.

[Anonymous]

Send her to boarding school. Let them handle it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"She's so grown up now she gets to get herself to the grocery store and do the weekly shopping for the family."

Seriously. She made a bad decision. So what? Is this her first time she's done something stupid? All teens are stupid, their brains are regrowing. At least she's also shown you that she is capable of getting around town. She has some maturity to go with that stupidity. Why not start with a discussion about why she did it? Maybe she'll suggest a consequence worse than what you would.

But she's clearly NOT capable. They ended up in the wrong place and she didn't have enough money to pay the return fare.

This.

If she thinks she’s such a big girl and street Saavy, drive her butt to a corner in south east, kick her out the car, park a block away and see how long she lasts before she’s scared straight and comes running back begging to go home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"She's so grown up now she gets to get herself to the grocery store and do the weekly shopping for the family."

Seriously. She made a bad decision. So what? Is this her first time she's done something stupid? All teens are stupid, their brains are regrowing. At least she's also shown you that she is capable of getting around town. She has some maturity to go with that stupidity. Why not start with a discussion about why she did it? Maybe she'll suggest a consequence worse than what you would.

But she's clearly NOT capable. They ended up in the wrong place and she didn't have enough money to pay the return fare.

This.

If she thinks she’s such a big girl and street Saavy, drive her butt to a corner in south east, kick her out the car, park a block away and see how long she lasts before she’s scared straight and comes running back begging to go home.

Nice way to teach her to be afraid of poor people of color. I’m sure your kids will grow up to be fine White nationalists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She probably figured it was NBD.

In the mind of an autonomous- seeking 14 yr old who feels invisible and doesnt have the mindset to be a forward thinker, she probably figured school is a big nothing burger during the shortened Thanksgiving week, other kids were skipping too, it's "just" the bookstore/not a rap concert, She reached out to you as a trusted source for help when in need, etc.

I'm not necessarily condoning it, but it really helps to put it into the context and perspective of a 14 yr old.

I actually think it's brilliant she could navigate metro, opt for a bookstore to hang out, and know that she can call me anytime for help no matter what.

If she's ordinarily a good kid, just talk it through with her. The skipping school part is a bit frowny, but otherwise emphasize you trust her not to repeat this w/o touching base with you again.

+1

I’d think and rethink the punitive aspect. Sometimes kids find it worse to converse about it and would prefer to be grounded so they don’t have to. Having a conversation may be a worse “punishment.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently I'm the outlier here. First, skipping school is not ok in my house. Second, lying about your whereabouts is also a huge problem - whether it's lying by omission or lying outright. I'd also be concerned about the fact that she seems to have no street smarts or situational awareness. They intended to go into DC but ended up in Arlington AND she didn't have enough money to get back. At 14, plenty of kids don't think about things like this but that's what makes this stunt all more problematic. Fortunately she was *only* in Arlington and could call you and nothing happened, but these are the types of situations that can go wrong quickly under different circumstances.

I'd ground her for 2 weeks, remove social media apps/block content, no screens, and put a tracker on her phone. The tracker would stay on indefinitely.

I agree. I'm really surprised by the responses here.

I'm not the "parents" here, for the most part, think their only responsibility when it comes to teens is providing them with food and shelter other than that they are on their own free to drink, party, have sex, and skip school on a whim.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I used to go into the city all the time and my parents didn't know. I don't find that to be a big deal. Skipping school is. Doesn't the school do anything? I'd ground her for 2 weeks and move on.