Reply to My teens are just fine. WDYT? Are they really behaving or are parents fooling themselves?

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Reply to "My teens are just fine. WDYT? Are they really behaving or are parents fooling themselves?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When my daughter was 15 I thought she was doing great, seemed like it.  Then a mom of one of her friends called and said she had read her kid's journal/diary and my daughter was mentioned in something her kid wrote about activities they had engaged in like drinking, sex, getting high, etc.  She asked if I wanted to read it.  I did.

Confronted my daughter, she admitted it and when I asked her why she had outright lied to me when I had asked her about such things (so we could have a "talk" about risky behaviors) she said she didn't want to disappoint me with the truth.

I grounded her for the entire year she was 15, which definitely helped.  She wasn't allowed to sleep over or have sleepovers, she had to come straight home from school, she had to hang out with her family in the evenings and on the weekends.  She did not like it.  But....later she told me that was what saved her from MUCH worse behavior that year.

At 16 it's a lot harder to hold them down, and I cannot say I was able to totally reign her in at 16 and 17, until she graduated high school.  But I think it went better than it would have had I not had my eyes opened the year she was 15.

She is now an adult and is doing fine.[/quote]

This is I think most people's reality.  Some parents have their head in the sand.  Others have kids who are trustworthy until they are not. It's  trust but verify situation. I have been reading my 14 hear olds texts and instagram posts and comments for several years.  I know that she has failed to tell me things she should have told me (another kid's safety issue).  I also know that she shows excellent judgment in avoiding drama.  She ignores posts from others that really piss me off.  She doesn't engage in cat-fighting on social media like many of her peers do.  She doesn't post stupid vlogs bemoaning her oh so dramatic life.  She gets good grades and is very competitive in a time-consuming sport so socializes in frequently.  She's fickle with crushes on boys and has probably caused herself some drama there.  She wants some privacy and does not share everything with me.  She knows who among her peers is vaping and we've discussed that.  She knows which girls in 9th grade are the "party crowd" and she is not in it.  All that said, I know this could change at any time.    And, I absolutely DONT trust her peers.  So sleepovers are minimized at this point.[/quote]

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