Found a lighter in dd's jacket. Now what?

[Anonymous]

My 14 yo DD was at a school event and I picked her up about 45 mins after the event let out. She was in the usual pack of kids, hanging out in a very public area, outside.
When she and one friend got in the car, I faintly smelled smoke and immediately asked. The friends said, "yea, some of the other kids smoke" and my kid just acted clueless.

Turns out, there was a lighter in my kid's jacket. She was acting weird about her coat-tried to give it to the other friend-so I took it and there was a lighter.

When I asked her about it, she immediately told me it was her friend's lighter. I told her that was most likely not true and then she gave me the "you never believe anything I say" crap.
She insisted that she would never smoke because she is not stupid. She is a top notch athlete and knows very well the dangers of smoking because of serious illnesses and deaths in our extended family. She also is a fantastic student, all A's, one B+ this term-which of course she reminded me of.

A few minutes later, she came to me and said "Can I tell you the truth?" I thought she would say that she tried a cigarette and hated it or something like that but she proceeded to throw her friend further under the bus. She said that this good friend (whose mother is a casual friend of mine), has started smoking pot with other kids. She said that the original group of friends (mostly kids on the same sports team) is talking to her to try to get her to stop. Oh, and she said that I cannot tell the mother!

So, what to believe here? This is my oldest so all new territory. I was no angel as a teenager, but never did drugs. I would like to believe my kid but I also know the "I was just holding it for my friend" excuse is probably pure bullshit.

Help a mom out here!

[Anonymous]

I hated it when my mother didn't believe me. And I was telling the truth. I stopped telling her stuff. Don't do that to your relationship.

Reiterate your family values about smoking, drinking, and drugs. Ask her how she's feeling about her friends experimenting. Start a discussion. Just listen.

However, there are times when parents have to tell other parents things, and drug use is one of them. Let her know you may have to discuss those things with other parents in order to best help the kids involved.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if you should believe her or not. But I will say that as a teen, I never smoked (okay, I tried it once), but my best friend did, and about half my friends did. So I carried a lighter because they always needed one.

[Anonymous]

Toss the lighter and let it go. Tell her that she isn't to smoke and if she does, she will be in deep shit. Who cares what the friend is doing. You aren't her parent.

[Anonymous]

This is the first time, right?

So... I would explain to her that you expect that she won't smoke cigarettes, or smoke pot, or drink alcohol. She's too young to make those choices. Then tell her that you believe her when she said she didn't and that you trust that she won't in the future.

Then keep an eye on it. If something similar comes up, lower the boom.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'd keep closer tabs on what's going on. You are wise to be very concerned here. You have a warning sign.
Let her have friend(s) over for pizza making or whatever, so you can get to know them. Trouble is brewing, but you can get a handle on it.

Lots of kids with top report card grades and sports success, get a free pass to drink and do drugs, both by their parents and their school. Not easily believable, but so very true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'd keep closer tabs on what's going on. You are wise to be very concerned here. You have a warning sign.
Let her have friend(s) over for pizza making or whatever, so you can get to know them. Trouble is brewing, but you can get a handle on it.

Lots of kids with top report card grades and sports success, get a free pass to drink and do drugs, both by their parents and their school. Not easily believable, but so very true.

I'll add that a lot of the high achieving kids think that pot is not as harmful as alcohol is, so some of the kids you'd least suspect are using actually are.

[Anonymous]

She needs a tight slap!

[Anonymous]

She's doing it. Is she a follower? It might be good to have learn leadership skills so she will stop covering for her friends. Also, why do people associate being a good athlete or student with good kids who don't smoke, drink, do drugs, have sex, etc? These are not mutually exclusive! Many people use that to their advantage to get away with all the bad stuff they are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few minutes later, she came to me and said "Can I tell you the truth?"

This, to me, sounds like the actions of a kid who is being honest. Or possibly one who is being dishonest, afraid she is about to get caught, and is scrambling to find a lie that will be believed. I have one kid who would be the first, and one, sadly, who is the second. But despite the fact that it is a 50/50 thing in my house, I think overall most kids (who aren't in counseling for habitual lying and several other issues like mine is) would be being honest when they reach out to their parents like this. Which one fits your kid? Try, for a moment, to ignore the smoke you smelled and the lighter you found, and think of this action coming from your daughter. Which type of person is she?

If you think she is usually honest with you, then I'd let his go, at least in regards to her, and assume she is telling the truth. But I would keep my eyes wide open going forward for any additional hints.

What to do about the telling the other parent is the harder question for me. I'd hate to undermine my child's trust when they came to me and asked me to keep quiet about it, but if I were the other parent, I would for sure want to know. I think your best bet is to try to get your daughter to understand why you need to tell the other parent, and then do so. While it is nice that your daughter and her friends are trying to convince this friend to stop smoking, unfortunately a bunch of kids aren't very well equipped to truly help the girl in question.

[Anonymous]

Well, first of all, you tell the mom of the kid who is smoking pot. But if you can find a way to protect your kid from being pegged as the source by the other kids in the group, do that. I would want to know if my kid was smoking pot and would be beyond furious if I later realized another parent had been told and had not clued me in -- wouldn't you feel the same way in those same circumstances?

Second, there are a lot of indications in your post that you already did not trust your daughter before you found this lighter. I don't know why -- despite saying she's a good student, knows the dangers of tobacco, etc. -- but it sounds like you were primed not to believe her anyway: "....I told her that was most likely not true...." was your very first reaction. "...She proceeded to throw her friend further under the bus...." Again, the assumption she's covering her own backside. .Maybe she has a habit of blaming others for her own behaviors before this? "I would like to believe my kid but I also know the 'I was just holding it for my friend' excuse is probably pure bullshit...." OK, maybe that's right, but is that based on your experience with your child prior to this? If yes, again, fair enough.

Only you know what was going on with her, and between you both, before this. But if she's given you no other reasons to distrust her, then when she came to you and said "Can I tell you the truth?" you might have missed an opportunity. Yes, she absolutely could have been saying that in order to feed you a huge lie. But she also could have been telling you the truth--couldn't she? So...what in her past and your experience with her made you assume the former and not the latter?

I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses here. Kids do stuff and lie about it. But unless she already had a pattern of deceiving you, I'd be hoping that she wasn't so put off by the reaction she got that she now will focus just on protecting herself and her friends and thinks there's no further point in coming back to talk about this with you.

[Anonymous]

If it is the first time you have had a big issue where you aren't sure if she is being honest, then err on the side of trusting. Let her know this is setting the stage for trust so she should think long and hard about any additions or modifications she needs to make to the story to make sure it is the truth. Let her know that you will trust her and finding out over time that that trust was well placed will build more trust. However if you find out over time that that trust was misplaced (and she did smoke), it will break down the trust you can and mean building it back up will be a long slow process.

[Anonymous]

Pick her up when events are over, not 45 minutes later.

[Anonymous]

It's hers. Check her stuff in her room or purse. Bet you find other things too.

[Anonymous]

That explanation is complete bullshit.

Don't be a sucker. Yeah--she's just holding the lighter .

Many of our elite HS athletes were the biggest partiers-- pot, booze, etc...I'm talking Division 1 scholarships.