Teens and “young adults”? On zoom? OP I am very concerned about your judgement.

Anonymous wrote:If I knew the friends personally yes. With what you are describing I really don’t know if I would or not. Have you talked to any of the other parents?

This. Have you met the kids’ parents over zoom? Contacted them independently in some verifiable way. Can you independently confirm who the teens are (e.g., match zoom image to publicly available info that matches their story)? I’d want a lot more info about these friends before letting DD meet them alone out of state. The actual travel logistics I have no issue with. I flew around the country alone or with one similarly aged friend for a HS extracurricular activity. Stayed in hotels where someone else’s coach was technically my chaperone but in reality I was unsupervised. I was a city savvy kid who didn’t give my parents a reason to worry. But they knew who I was meeting up with, that there were responsible adults around, etc, etc.

No way!!!

Anonymous wrote:My concern would be less the travel logistics and more the online "friends"

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Exactly. Visiting family? Yes. Online 🙄 “friends”? 😂

Anonymous wrote:My 16 (almost 17) year old is going to Boston for a one day event with people she met on line several years ago, who have since become good friends. Would you let her fly up by herself, take public transportation to the venue, and then fly home that evening? She is very comfortable with DC public transportation and good at finding her way around. The alternative is that I'd fly up with her.

F no!

Absolutely not. She has only met them on zoom? Are you out of your mind?

I would not. The only part I'm uncomfortable with is the online friends that she's never met IRL. That would be a hard no for me.

I would say no. Reward is not worth the risk.

It would be a smooth hell no for me.

I would go with her; the trip isn't the problem, but having a minor meet unknown friends in another city is. You don't have to be with her the whole time, but it would be good to put in an appearance and meet the friends.

Anonymous wrote:You want to let your female child fly to another city to meet strangers she met online alone? Isn't that like the first thing we tell kids NOT to do?

This. I would not do it. Not even for my son, honestly.

I would go with her

I’d go with her and get a hotel for the night. She does her own thing during the day, maybe you come and say hello, and then you all do dinner in Boston, spend the night and come home the next morning.

Anonymous wrote:If you want her to end up in a child trafficking situation go for it.

All this tells me is you don’t understand how trafficking works. It’s not the wealthy white teens with family at home wondering where they are who get trafficked. It’s the girls who don’t have anyone to buy them a plane ticket or help them get a lawyer.

I would go. Not so much because I'm worried about online friends (I have those, we've met up, none of them are serial killers. Also, this is basically what online dating is and this teen will be doing that pretty soon too.) but because I wouldn't want my kid out of state if something went wrong. I'd fly up with her, probably go with her at least part of the way to meet up with her friends, putter about by myself for the day (probably checking in with DD by text now and then), then maybe take the kids out for dinner if there's time and catch our flight home together. Man, that sounds like a really nice weekend, honestly.