17 year old son planning on tricking us to spend night with gf -gf’s parents away

[Anonymous]

I think there is a lot going on here that’s subtext. I think hanging out for three hours to deal with this is odd. I think you should have talked to him directly when you knew the plan. I would’ve said “hey, some texts came through to my phone and I’m aware of what you’re thinking about with X tonight. I’m not comfortable with this for xyz reasons. You’ll need to stay in tonight. If you disobey this , this is the consequence.” But moreover I sense you’re being uncomfortable with his sexual relationship. That’s a part of his life you have no business involving yourself in. Make sure he knows how to be safe and has access to condoms and continue talks on consent and respect. Do you know the girlfriend? It’s a pretty normal desire for him to want to go there when her parents are gone and frankly they aren’t doing anything they haven’t already, but I understand not wanting him to do that and if the parents found out it could jeopardize their relationship, cause bigger problems etc. I also think he’s not a good kid going bad as you seem to be thinking. He’s growing up, he’s having sex, he has a girlfriend, he’s done well in school, he has friends, he’s going to college. Not much to complain about. I’d let him know that as an emerging adult there still are rules that are important to you while he’s at home or visiting home once at college. For example, I couldn’t have my boyfriend at my house overnight, but I did stay at friends overnight when in college and that may have included a boyfriend staying too. That wasn’t my parents decision to make. You should have rules around drinking and weed and driving etc. expectations for hanging with family as well as friends. General GPA expectations while you are supporting him. That kind of thing. Absolutely emphasize your relationship but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have guidelines for when he’s home. We have a home by 1 or stay over and text us rule for college and out of college when visiting home out of respect for our sleep. We have a no opposite sex overnights unless long term relationship and we are all on vacation together because I really don’t want to hear my kids having sex even though there’s nothing wrong with it- just not comfortable with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would call his phone, girls home or parents and let them know you are coming over to get him now with your spouse and that he loses the car privileges for a month, cannot go out without you or your husband except school and activities and restrict use of the phone. From now on all texts and emails go to your phone as well AND he is restricted from downloading anything without your permission. I would email the parents and let them know what happened and let them know his is not to sleep over or be at their house when they are not home.

Yep, this. I would pull out all the stops. His behavior is totally unacceptable.

That’s totally nuts.

[Anonymous]

The thing that actually jumped out at me from your post, OP, was that he "berated" you. That's totally unacceptable. Nobody should berate you. Not ever. The lack of respect in the form of insults and outright lies -- this would be a cause of grave concern for me.

How would you react if you husband berated you or lied to you? Without suggesting that your reaction should be the same, this is a useful frame of reference. Because you are preparing to launch this person into adulthood, and your reaction should therefore be somehow congruent with another trusted adult berating your and lying to you.

As for the posters who ask you to focus on your relationship with your child as you prepare to send him off -- I agree, but I see the other side of this: Do you want to have a relationship with him where he lies to you, does not respect your wishes, berates you -- and you just let him, because you don't want to rock the boat?

OP, you deserve more from your son. You deserve more from yourself.

It's time for a frank conversation with your son. The question shouldn't be what power you're going to wield in order to coerce him into compliance (i.e. "consequences", i.e. punishment.) Rather: what kind of relationship do you want to have with each other? Tell him how it feels to be deceived. Tell him how it feels to be insulted. Tell him that you will always love him, and also you will not tolerate being treated that way. Or will you? Be honest with yourself: What are you willing / not willing to put up with? What are the very real and likely consequences here? Not, what am I going to do to him if he doesn't comply, but, how am I going to protect myself in a relationship in which the other party is not being respectful?

On the cusp of adulthood, I would insist on being respected, and I would also look hard in the mirror and see if I am treating my child with the respect I am asking for myself. Are you listening to him? Or are you dishing out rules and punishments in a way that might feel infantilizing or arbitrary? The question isn't whether the rules are restrictive or permissive, but why is this about rules at all? There is an underlying "why" to all of the rules. Is your child aware of these? Do you talk about it? Does he take responsibility for his actions?

Our job is to launch them into adulthood. We don't do it all at once, in one fell swoop. At 17+, he should be making his own decisions and communicating with you, and you should be there as a sounding board, to help his baby-adult brain connect dots he may have missed, to help him see what he may have missed. We want them to be able to come to us for advice, we want them to make their own good decisions.

I don't care a whit whether he sleeps here or there, is home at 9pm or 1am or 7am the next day. What I care about it how he treats the people in his life, and in particular the people who support him and love him and on whom he depends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that actually jumped out at me from your post, OP, was that he "berated" you. That's totally unacceptable. Nobody should berate you. Not ever. The lack of respect in the form of insults and outright lies -- this would be a cause of grave concern for me.

How would you react if you husband berated you or lied to you? Without suggesting that your reaction should be the same, this is a useful frame of reference. Because you are preparing to launch this person into adulthood, and your reaction should therefore be somehow congruent with another trusted adult berating your and lying to you.

As for the posters who ask you to focus on your relationship with your child as you prepare to send him off -- I agree, but I see the other side of this: Do you want to have a relationship with him where he lies to you, does not respect your wishes, berates you -- and you just let him, because you don't want to rock the boat?

OP, you deserve more from your son. You deserve more from yourself.

It's time for a frank conversation with your son. The question shouldn't be what power you're going to wield in order to coerce him into compliance (i.e. "consequences", i.e. punishment.) Rather: what kind of relationship do you want to have with each other? Tell him how it feels to be deceived. Tell him how it feels to be insulted. Tell him that you will always love him, and also you will not tolerate being treated that way. Or will you? Be honest with yourself: What are you willing / not willing to put up with? What are the very real and likely consequences here? Not, what am I going to do to him if he doesn't comply, but, how am I going to protect myself in a relationship in which the other party is not being respectful?

On the cusp of adulthood, I would insist on being respected, and I would also look hard in the mirror and see if I am treating my child with the respect I am asking for myself. Are you listening to him? Or are you dishing out rules and punishments in a way that might feel infantilizing or arbitrary? The question isn't whether the rules are restrictive or permissive, but why is this about rules at all? There is an underlying "why" to all of the rules. Is your child aware of these? Do you talk about it? Does he take responsibility for his actions?

Our job is to launch them into adulthood. We don't do it all at once, in one fell swoop. At 17+, he should be making his own decisions and communicating with you, and you should be there as a sounding board, to help his baby-adult brain connect dots he may have missed, to help him see what he may have missed. We want them to be able to come to us for advice, we want them to make their own good decisions.

I don't care a whit whether he sleeps here or there, is home at 9pm or 1am or 7am the next day. What I care about it how he treats the people in his life, and in particular the people who support him and love him and on whom he depends.

This! I also care that he protects himself (medically) or at least considered ramifications (legal, social).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that actually jumped out at me from your post, OP, was that he "berated" you. That's totally unacceptable. Nobody should berate you. Not ever. The lack of respect in the form of insults and outright lies -- this would be a cause of grave concern for me.

How would you react if you husband berated you or lied to you? Without suggesting that your reaction should be the same, this is a useful frame of reference. Because you are preparing to launch this person into adulthood, and your reaction should therefore be somehow congruent with another trusted adult berating your and lying to you.

As for the posters who ask you to focus on your relationship with your child as you prepare to send him off -- I agree, but I see the other side of this: Do you want to have a relationship with him where he lies to you, does not respect your wishes, berates you -- and you just let him, because you don't want to rock the boat?

OP, you deserve more from your son. You deserve more from yourself.

It's time for a frank conversation with your son. The question shouldn't be what power you're going to wield in order to coerce him into compliance (i.e. "consequences", i.e. punishment.) Rather: what kind of relationship do you want to have with each other? Tell him how it feels to be deceived. Tell him how it feels to be insulted. Tell him that you will always love him, and also you will not tolerate being treated that way. Or will you? Be honest with yourself: What are you willing / not willing to put up with? What are the very real and likely consequences here? Not, what am I going to do to him if he doesn't comply, but, how am I going to protect myself in a relationship in which the other party is not being respectful?

On the cusp of adulthood, I would insist on being respected, and I would also look hard in the mirror and see if I am treating my child with the respect I am asking for myself. Are you listening to him? Or are you dishing out rules and punishments in a way that might feel infantilizing or arbitrary? The question isn't whether the rules are restrictive or permissive, but why is this about rules at all? There is an underlying "why" to all of the rules. Is your child aware of these? Do you talk about it? Does he take responsibility for his actions?

Our job is to launch them into adulthood. We don't do it all at once, in one fell swoop. At 17+, he should be making his own decisions and communicating with you, and you should be there as a sounding board, to help his baby-adult brain connect dots he may have missed, to help him see what he may have missed. We want them to be able to come to us for advice, we want them to make their own good decisions.

I don't care a whit whether he sleeps here or there, is home at 9pm or 1am or 7am the next day. What I care about it how he treats the people in his life, and in particular the people who support him and love him and on whom he depends.

This! I also care that he protects himself (medically) or at least considered ramifications (legal, social).

PP and yes I totally agree. That's what I was thinking of when I wrote "connect the dots" -- that he is as mindful as can he can be of the broader context and consequences. Although honestly i would presume with a sexually-active 17-year-old that this would be part of a conversation that had been going on for many years already..!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The posters citing concerns about statutory rape are almost certainly misguided. First, in many, if not most, states a 16 year old has reached the age of consent. Second, many states require there to be a significant age gap even if one party has not reached the broader age of consent. A 17 year old sleeping with a 16 year old would not realistically face legal consequences for consensual behavior.

This is not true. Don't you watch the news?

Virginia has a Romeo and Juliet law about this -- if both parties are 15 or older and under the age of 18, nothing will happen. Prosecution goes back on the table at the age of 18.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:at 16, he needs s...e...x... it's natural.

Depending on the girl's age it's also r...a...p...e.

This is what OP has to get her son to understand.

[Anonymous]

This is the OP. First of all thanks for all the very helpful perspectives.
To address the texts issue, he said his phone crashed and he’d lost access to the Appleid-this was the day before. He asked me for the password and I sent it to him. When he reconnected his texts started coming to my phone just at the time he was making his plans. At first I though they were my 9 year old’s texts which do come to my phone but I saw some non-9year old language popping up so I opened the texts.
I sort of panicked to be honest. I didn’t want him to know I’d read his texts. He’s become so so prickly these days and Im walking on egg shells all the time. I was nervous about telling him. We’d just had a huge huge argument just 2 days prior because he simply refused to go on our long planned family holiday and told us the day we were supposed to leave. His sisters (11 and 9, who think the world of him) were in tears begging him to come. He was adamant -clearly because he’d planned all these events with his gf while her parents were away. To cut a very long and painful story short, his sisters really wanted him to be with us so we rescheduled the trip but it was a very ugly situation -his sisters crying and begging him to come, us reasoning that it was a planned family holiday and he should prioritize family etc. but he just stood there uncaring and sticking to his guns which is so unlike him-he’s such a soft, kind hearted boy.
Anyway we had formed an uneasy truce (the protecting the relationship before they leave ) so I just did not want to bring the texts up. I changed the settings in my phone so I could no longer see his texts and just reminded him before he left that he needed to be home by 12 because he insisted on taking his car and that if he felt he would break the 12 curfew to leave his car and uber home. He said he would definitely be back by 12 and, because he’d also said in the texts that he did not feel comfortable carrying out the plans, which is more in line with his usual behavior, I thought he’d rethought them and decided against them.
At 12:15 I get a text saying he’s spending the night at his friend’s. My antennae were immediately raised because of what I’d read in the texts. I reminded him that sleepovers were always off the table and that he could hang out for a while since he said there were other friends there but to be home by 2.
I saw the dots appear when someone is about to reply but he clearly decided to just ignore me and he never responded so I called and he didn’t answer. I sent a text saying I was not going to bother home anymore but that I expected him home by 2 or to expect to stay home for NYE. Again I saw the dots but no reply came. That was why I went to the friend’s house.
Anyway as you all know I decided to come back home.
He arrived home at 11 am all antagonistic about the texts I’d sent him “after he’d fallen asleep”. He said he did nothing wrong, that he’d told me he was spending the night and had promptly fallen asleep.
I know he is lying because I know he saw my texts evidenced by the dots that appear when the respondent is replying (I saw them after both texts but no reply arrived) but he chose to ignore me. I have no real proof that he slept at his gf’s house except the texts. It’s conceivable that they all (gf included) slept at the friend’s house. It is also a conceivable that he executed his original plan and left the phone at his friend’s and collected it this morning or that his friend drove it to him and he simply drove home. I don’t know.

I haven’t yet responded to him. I told him I was tired and would discuss later.
I have no idea what to do. Give him the benefit of the huge doubt and accept that he slept at his friend’s and just penalize for not responding to my texts when I know he received them so that he could spend the night -which is a hard rule at our house except if it’s a designated vacation away with friends?
This is my first go round. I do not want to push him away but I do not want him to think he can flaunt all rules because he’s going on 18 in 9 months. I know it’s normal for teens to rebel but his rebellion covers a lot of things here and I had not even considered the statutory rape issue. I just thought it was disrespectful to defy her parents and stay when they had specifically said he could not.

I am stumped.

[Anonymous]

You can’t control him. You can only control you. You can take away phone. Tell her parents to keep a close eye out. Tell his friends parents to inform you about sleep overs. Whatever. But you cant control him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP. First of all thanks for all the very helpful perspectives.
To address the texts issue, he said his phone crashed and he’d lost access to the Appleid-this was the day before. He asked me for the password and I sent it to him. When he reconnected his texts started coming to my phone just at the time he was making his plans. At first I though they were my 9 year old’s texts which do come to my phone but I saw some non-9year old language popping up so I opened the texts.
I sort of panicked to be honest. I didn’t want him to know I’d read his texts. He’s become so so prickly these days and Im walking on egg shells all the time. I was nervous about telling him. We’d just had a huge huge argument just 2 days prior because he simply refused to go on our long planned family holiday and told us the day we were supposed to leave. His sisters (11 and 9, who think the world of him) were in tears begging him to come. He was adamant -clearly because he’d planned all these events with his gf while her parents were away. To cut a very long and painful story short, his sisters really wanted him to be with us so we rescheduled the trip but it was a very ugly situation -his sisters crying and begging him to come, us reasoning that it was a planned family holiday and he should prioritize family etc. but he just stood there uncaring and sticking to his guns which is so unlike him-he’s such a soft, kind hearted boy.
Anyway we had formed an uneasy truce (the protecting the relationship before they leave ) so I just did not want to bring the texts up. I changed the settings in my phone so I could no longer see his texts and just reminded him before he left that he needed to be home by 12 because he insisted on taking his car and that if he felt he would break the 12 curfew to leave his car and uber home. He said he would definitely be back by 12 and, because he’d also said in the texts that he did not feel comfortable carrying out the plans, which is more in line with his usual behavior, I thought he’d rethought them and decided against them.
At 12:15 I get a text saying he’s spending the night at his friend’s. My antennae were immediately raised because of what I’d read in the texts. I reminded him that sleepovers were always off the table and that he could hang out for a while since he said there were other friends there but to be home by 2.
I saw the dots appear when someone is about to reply but he clearly decided to just ignore me and he never responded so I called and he didn’t answer. I sent a text saying I was not going to bother home anymore but that I expected him home by 2 or to expect to stay home for NYE. Again I saw the dots but no reply came. That was why I went to the friend’s house.
Anyway as you all know I decided to come back home.
He arrived home at 11 am all antagonistic about the texts I’d sent him “after he’d fallen asleep”. He said he did nothing wrong, that he’d told me he was spending the night and had promptly fallen asleep.
I know he is lying because I know he saw my texts evidenced by the dots that appear when the respondent is replying (I saw them after both texts but no reply arrived) but he chose to ignore me. I have no real proof that he slept at his gf’s house except the texts. It’s conceivable that they all (gf included) slept at the friend’s house. It is also a conceivable that he executed his original plan and left the phone at his friend’s and collected it this morning or that his friend drove it to him and he simply drove home. I don’t know.

I haven’t yet responded to him. I told him I was tired and would discuss later.
I have no idea what to do. Give him the benefit of the huge doubt and accept that he slept at his friend’s and just penalize for not responding to my texts when I know he received them so that he could spend the night -which is a hard rule at our house except if it’s a designated vacation away with friends?
This is my first go round. I do not want to push him away but I do not want him to think he can flaunt all rules because he’s going on 18 in 9 months. I know it’s normal for teens to rebel but his rebellion covers a lot of things here and I had not even considered the statutory rape issue. I just thought it was disrespectful to defy her parents and stay when they had specifically said he could not.

I am stumped.

I thought you said in a previous post that his car was parked at his GF’s house?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that actually jumped out at me from your post, OP, was that he "berated" you. That's totally unacceptable. Nobody should berate you. Not ever. The lack of respect in the form of insults and outright lies -- this would be a cause of grave concern for me.

How would you react if you husband berated you or lied to you? Without suggesting that your reaction should be the same, this is a useful frame of reference. Because you are preparing to launch this person into adulthood, and your reaction should therefore be somehow congruent with another trusted adult berating your and lying to you.

As for the posters who ask you to focus on your relationship with your child as you prepare to send him off -- I agree, but I see the other side of this: Do you want to have a relationship with him where he lies to you, does not respect your wishes, berates you -- and you just let him, because you don't want to rock the boat?

OP, you deserve more from your son. You deserve more from yourself.

It's time for a frank conversation with your son. The question shouldn't be what power you're going to wield in order to coerce him into compliance (i.e. "consequences", i.e. punishment.) Rather: what kind of relationship do you want to have with each other? Tell him how it feels to be deceived. Tell him how it feels to be insulted. Tell him that you will always love him, and also you will not tolerate being treated that way. Or will you? Be honest with yourself: What are you willing / not willing to put up with? What are the very real and likely consequences here? Not, what am I going to do to him if he doesn't comply, but, how am I going to protect myself in a relationship in which the other party is not being respectful?

On the cusp of adulthood, I would insist on being respected, and I would also look hard in the mirror and see if I am treating my child with the respect I am asking for myself. Are you listening to him? Or are you dishing out rules and punishments in a way that might feel infantilizing or arbitrary? The question isn't whether the rules are restrictive or permissive, but why is this about rules at all? There is an underlying "why" to all of the rules. Is your child aware of these? Do you talk about it? Does he take responsibility for his actions?

Our job is to launch them into adulthood. We don't do it all at once, in one fell swoop. At 17+, he should be making his own decisions and communicating with you, and you should be there as a sounding board, to help his baby-adult brain connect dots he may have missed, to help him see what he may have missed. We want them to be able to come to us for advice, we want them to make their own good decisions.

I don't care a whit whether he sleeps here or there, is home at 9pm or 1am or 7am the next day. What I care about it how he treats the people in his life, and in particular the people who support him and love him and on whom he depends.

OP here. Thank you. This is such a helpful post which is helping me to focus on the real issues. This is why I posted in the first place. To see if I was off base. It I was being unrealistic in my expectations for a teenage his age and your point about whether my parenting is infantilizing him/arbitrary lies at the heart of what I was trying to convey in my OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure he is lying but so is OP. If she saw his texts and knew what was happening, why didn't she confront him then? Instead she is being a drama queen stalking the friend's house at 3 in the morning, calling his phone when he is either sleeping or not there, and using that to fuel her drama.

This. And Dad is sleeping ?!?! -- so I think we are not even close to getting the full story.

What a conveniently timed technology “glitch” for OP. No way that happened as OP stated. She clearly has found a way to access her son’s texts. Sounds like my mom would have done if the technology had existed in the 90s. She found every way to violate my privacy even without technology. Now she wonders why I don’t have a close relationship with her and my dad, and why I have never confided in her about anything. That trust was destroyed decades ago. I would have had respect for their rules if they had given me an inch of breathing space and not made me feel like I had to hide everything about my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the OP. First of all thanks for all the very helpful perspectives.
To address the texts issue, he said his phone crashed and he’d lost access to the Appleid-this was the day before. He asked me for the password and I sent it to him. When he reconnected his texts started coming to my phone just at the time he was making his plans. At first I though they were my 9 year old’s texts which do come to my phone but I saw some non-9year old language popping up so I opened the texts.
I sort of panicked to be honest. I didn’t want him to know I’d read his texts. He’s become so so prickly these days and Im walking on egg shells all the time. I was nervous about telling him. We’d just had a huge huge argument just 2 days prior because he simply refused to go on our long planned family holiday and told us the day we were supposed to leave. His sisters (11 and 9, who think the world of him) were in tears begging him to come. He was adamant -clearly because he’d planned all these events with his gf while her parents were away. To cut a very long and painful story short, his sisters really wanted him to be with us so we rescheduled the trip but it was a very ugly situation -his sisters crying and begging him to come, us reasoning that it was a planned family holiday and he should prioritize family etc. but he just stood there uncaring and sticking to his guns which is so unlike him-he’s such a soft, kind hearted boy.
Anyway we had formed an uneasy truce (the protecting the relationship before they leave ) so I just did not want to bring the texts up. I changed the settings in my phone so I could no longer see his texts and just reminded him before he left that he needed to be home by 12 because he insisted on taking his car and that if he felt he would break the 12 curfew to leave his car and uber home. He said he would definitely be back by 12 and, because he’d also said in the texts that he did not feel comfortable carrying out the plans, which is more in line with his usual behavior, I thought he’d rethought them and decided against them.
At 12:15 I get a text saying he’s spending the night at his friend’s. My antennae were immediately raised because of what I’d read in the texts. I reminded him that sleepovers were always off the table and that he could hang out for a while since he said there were other friends there but to be home by 2.
I saw the dots appear when someone is about to reply but he clearly decided to just ignore me and he never responded so I called and he didn’t answer. I sent a text saying I was not going to bother home anymore but that I expected him home by 2 or to expect to stay home for NYE. Again I saw the dots but no reply came. That was why I went to the friend’s house.
Anyway as you all know I decided to come back home.
He arrived home at 11 am all antagonistic about the texts I’d sent him “after he’d fallen asleep”. He said he did nothing wrong, that he’d told me he was spending the night and had promptly fallen asleep.
I know he is lying because I know he saw my texts evidenced by the dots that appear when the respondent is replying (I saw them after both texts but no reply arrived) but he chose to ignore me. I have no real proof that he slept at his gf’s house except the texts. It’s conceivable that they all (gf included) slept at the friend’s house. It is also a conceivable that he executed his original plan and left the phone at his friend’s and collected it this morning or that his friend drove it to him and he simply drove home. I don’t know.

I haven’t yet responded to him. I told him I was tired and would discuss later.
I have no idea what to do. Give him the benefit of the huge doubt and accept that he slept at his friend’s and just penalize for not responding to my texts when I know he received them so that he could spend the night -which is a hard rule at our house except if it’s a designated vacation away with friends?
This is my first go round. I do not want to push him away but I do not want him to think he can flaunt all rules because he’s going on 18 in 9 months. I know it’s normal for teens to rebel but his rebellion covers a lot of things here and I had not even considered the statutory rape issue. I just thought it was disrespectful to defy her parents and stay when they had specifically said he could not.

I am stumped.

I thought you said in a previous post that his car was parked at his GF’s house?

It was. I’m not sure where I contradicted that. I said he may indeed have slept at his friends and picked up his car in the morning from his gf’s

[Anonymous]

if his phone was at the friends house, and you saw the dots- why do you think he saw them? You said he left phone and went out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure he is lying but so is OP. If she saw his texts and knew what was happening, why didn't she confront him then? Instead she is being a drama queen stalking the friend's house at 3 in the morning, calling his phone when he is either sleeping or not there, and using that to fuel her drama.

This. And Dad is sleeping ?!?! -- so I think we are not even close to getting the full story.

What a conveniently timed technology “glitch” for OP. No way that happened as OP stated. She clearly has found a way to access her son’s texts. Sounds like my mom would have done if the technology had existed in the 90s. She found every way to violate my privacy even without technology. Now she wonders why I don’t have a close relationship with her and my dad, and why I have never confided in her about anything. That trust was destroyed decades ago. I would have had respect for their rules if they had given me an inch of breathing space and not made me feel like I had to hide everything about my life.

Please re-read what I said. If you don’t believe me I can’t help that but I did not seek out his texts.