For various reasons, covid and otherwise, my son did not really socialize with anyone from school from 6-8 grade. Now he is a freshman and wanting to hang out with friends, and I feel like we missed all the baby steps of increasing responsibility and setting up a framework of rules. He's my oldest, and at his age, I was a huge nerd who mostly hung out with church friends and the super-driven kids who would never risk getting in trouble. So I am a naïve little lamb when it comes to the trouble kids can get into and how to safeguard against it.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? 2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? 3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? 4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go?
There is a specific event that precipitated these questions, but the details probably aren't important. It felt extreme though and was a wake up call that we need to establish rules ASAP.
I am proceeding with caution when it comes to the kids he is hanging out with. I don't think they are dangerously bad kids (DS has been pretty open about which kids at school are into vaping, drinking, drugs, and it's not his crowd), but I do get the impression that they push some boundaries and are maybe not parented super closely. I also worry that not having close friends for 3 years has really skewed what he will tolerate and what he will go along with to be part of the group.
1. My son is only 12 and in 6th grade. We don't get a ton of invites to homes. They mostly play outside still with the neighbors. If they are playing basketball in my driveway since it is my property, I did text the parents and say hey I am picking up DD and will be back in 20 minutes. They chose to move on to the park, and they all have phones, so it wasn't a problem. But I wasn't comfortable leaving them inside the house yet or leaving them without the parents knowledge. DS has a lunch group, so I've managed to get the parent's phone numbers from party invites. So I would at least ask/ have the conversation.
2. So far I know all the friends.
3. No to Ubering.
4. Yes, I have rules around biking. They had a bike club but were leaving the younger sisters behind, so I shut it down. But they are probably old enough to try the bike club again, but I haven't mentioned it. We had specific street boundaries. They are allowed to bike to the library. They are not allowed to bike to fast food or the dollar store yet. They haven't asked, so I haven't said no yet. Those are known tween hangouts where kids get into typical tween trouble. Also, they went somewhere they weren't supposed to so that was another reason I shut it down.
I am sure if he were 3 years older then my answers might be a bit more open, but we aren't there yet.
Post by expectantsteelerfan on Feb 6, 2023 15:41:08 GMT -5
My ds is 13 and in 8th. 1. We are just entering an age where I've actually been ok with him and his friends being at our house without an adult there, at least for short amounts of time (like when I have to drop dd somewhere or pick her up, or if I'm going to pick up food or something). I do try to let the parents know if no parents are going to be home for a significant portion of time when making plans. I'd just tell ds "tell them no adults will be home from x till z, and ask if that's ok" and I'd listen to his phone call/look at his text to make sure he did. I won't make a huge deal out of knowing if parents are home at houses he goes to, but our rule is that we need to know details of what he's doing, and he needs to tell us if details change, so if we are ok with the hang out in general, it shouldn't matter if the parents are home or not in theory. 2. If it's a new friend, we did ask to see a text to confirm he had actual plans when he was being vague before. He said they were going to meet, but I wanted to make sure they had an actual time and place set before we actually dropped him off somewhere. Also, I realized another 'rule' is that we tend to ask that a new friend come to our house eventually...he had one friend he went to their house like 5 times once, and we were like, you aren't going again until you at least invite this kid to our house. 3. Uber isn't really a thing we do, at all, so no. 4. This goes back to us needing to know a general idea of plans before he leaves, and if plans change, he needs to let us know, so if he wanted to go further than previously discussed, he would need to let us know.
1. Generally we do not allow her to hang out with friends if parents aren't home, but she's got 2 good friends on our street and we've been flexible with them - ie. all the parents are at work and they want to hang out after school. 2. So far I know all the friends. She has a tight group of girls where I know all the parents and a looser group that she texts with but only hangs out with at school or during school-type events like clubs or sports. 3. I think I'd be a no on ubering just because I don't want the kids in a car driven by a stranger. 4. DD has walked and biked a few places that we had been to walking or biking as a family, each about 1 mile away.. Sometimes I will drop her at the mall or Bubble Tea and I'm OK with it.
My son is a sophomore now and drives, but this was our rules as a freshman:
1Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? Yes, most of the time I would know the parent so I would ask. If I didn’t know the parent, I just trusted my kid, he is very honest with me and hasn’t done anything to break that trust yet. 2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? He just would need to tell me what they were doing and where they were going. He has Life 360 on his phone so I could also see where he was on that. 3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? I didn’t think kids were allowed to Uber? I did let him ride in cars with older friends, but only within our town limits. 4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? Our town is pretty small, so this isn’t really an issue. But yes, I probably would.
Thanks for the responses so far. We are just now making the transition from me knowing all of his friend's parents, to him making new friends with kids who went to other elementary schools and so I don't know their families. So we are figuring this out as we go.
He went home from school with a (new) friend on Friday. I trust him, but it was last minute (planned at school that day, so no time to discuss in advance), I had no idea if a parent was home, and don't know this kid or his family at all, so really didn't know if I should be worried.
They hung out for a couple hours, then ended up walking to a nearby shopping center, which was where I picked him up. He does have Life360 so I was able to track him. But the other 3 kids were originally planning to walk 4 miles, in the dark, on non-pedestrian friendly roads, in 15 degree weather, to get to another kid's house. They ended up deciding it was too cold to walk, and after we picked up DS, the other kids took an uber.
We had honestly manufactured dinner plans so that we had an excuse to pick him up because the whole thing felt weird. Once I realized that they were planning to either walk 4 miles in the dark, or uber, I was glad that we picked him up. But clearly the other parents weren't worried about all this? I have no idea why they didn't call any of their parents to get a ride. I wasn't sure if it was normal for a group of 14 year olds to Uber and i was just out of the loop. I'm not comfortable with it though, so that will be a no for DS in the future.
Post by pinkdutchtulips on Feb 6, 2023 16:14:06 GMT -5
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? Only if I know the parents can she hang out at a friend's house w/o an adult. If I don't know the parents, I do a quick text and meet at the door.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? She can ONLY have girls over at my house, no boys allowed. I do know she hangs out at the mall w boys and girls but that being a public place, I'm not as worried.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? Yes. Usually I'm the one calling the Uber bc I'm still at work (along w other parents sometimes - alot of dd's friends' moms are single moms like me) and I track the Uber from the time they get picked up until they are deposited at their destination (either my house or one of the friends' homes)
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? In the rare occasion she walks, its 15m or less and she has to be sure that her location tracker is on so I can follow her.
I realize that I given Miss R alot more freedom than most parents, mostly out of necessity as I work an hour away so she's on her own some days for up to 4 hrs until I get home.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents?
So far, this hasn't been an issue - as in, DS has been to a few houses and/or had kids to our house w/o an adult around, but it's been for short periods of time OR I know the kids and am comfortable with it. 2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? We don't have any set rules as of yet- haven't run into this really. I'll be curious to see what others say!
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? No, not yet!
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? DS often goes about a mile away, which I'm fine with. Last summer, there were 2 trips that he took that pushed my comfort level and I told him not again.
DD1 is 13 and has a track record of not awesome decisions, but is also very immature, so the bad decisions don't have huge ramifications at this point. She struggles socially and is willing to do a lot for acceptance. So I do my best to balance letting her do things, but trying to keep an eye on things.
1. I do require that an adult is home. I would be OK with a responsible college-age sitter type of situation. I used to be OK with DD2 being at a friend's house with her 17 year old sister in charge, but I knew that she was very responsible.
2. I kind of just have to feel things out here. DD1, at age 12, asked to go to a friend's house that I hadn't met and wasn't from her school. Upon some digging, she lived with her single dad and they were renting 2 rooms in a house from some random dude. Hard no, invited the kid to our house instead.
3. No
4. I've been letting DD1 walk pretty far from home, as long as she's with a friend and has her phone. We live in a suburb, lots of places to walk - parks, stores, strip malls. She keeps me updated about where she is, and I make sure she knows my availability if she gets stuck someplace (weather rolls in or something).
Questions: 1. No, we don't. But our kids mostly socialize with other kids in our apartment building. We live in a military village and my husband pretty much knows all the other husbands, so it's not as worrisome. It's been a good transition for us to more independence. If they have friends coming over when we aren't home, either my husband or I text the other parents to let them know we won't be home.
2. Not if they live in the building, because they are all military kids. Otherwise, we would probably connect with the other parents first.
3. No, but we live in Rio de Janeiro. So it's a hard no for safety reasons.
4. Once again, we live in Rio de Janeiro, so in terms of distance, they are limited because of safety. They walk to the bakery, and run other errands within 1km of our place, and they walk to the club, which has the swimming pool & basketball court alone. So, I guess they have a 1km range.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? I don't require this. I actually feel pretty strongly about kids hanging out alone, independent of parents. I don't really ever know if parents are home or not and we often leave when he has friends over. 2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? At 16, I no longer know lots of his friends. I don't have a seperate set of rules for hanging out with those kids. 3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? This has not come up but I would not allow it. 4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? So far, I'm nearly always urging him to go FURTHER so I haven't had to put any limits on it.
Post by definitelyO on Feb 6, 2023 16:48:35 GMT -5
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? Yes we require a parent to be home. I trust DS to tell me if one will be there or not....
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? parents must be home if at a house - otherwise if they're all going to park to hang out - no rules except our standards of no drinking, smoking, be where you say you will be, home on time, etc..
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? no - but I thought 18 was the minimum age for Uber set by Uber and I just validated that via google.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? I know the areas around us - there is a park and a DQ about 3 miles away that they rode their bikes to all the time - so as long as I know the area/neighborhood and he get there and back himself I'm okay.
Our library is about a mile away, but are not allowed to go downtown or cross a busy street so it is 1 mile to the south, less than a mile to the west. And they can't go north or east because of the traffic situation.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents?
I used to require that a parent was home at our house for ds to have friends over. Now it depends on the friend. I can't control the rules at other houses, so I don't require that a parent be home in a house where ds is.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know?
I just want to know where he is and what time he will be home. I also want to know if he changes location.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends?
No. You have to be 18 to Uber alone.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go?
Not really, but when he first started doing this, I did set a perimeter. I'd say which streets he couldn't cross.
I will add that ds is 16 and drives, so my answers may be for a slightly older kid. He stated high school in fall of 2020 and we are in an area where all was shut down until like April 2021. So I am not sure what I would do freshman year. At that point, he was mostly hanging out with kids I knew because they did an activity or something together.
Post by rootbeerfloat on Feb 6, 2023 17:05:06 GMT -5
DS is 16. Most of his friends he's had from elementary school, and he's fairly introverted and sheltered by choice.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? If I know the parents, then no (or really, I don't check). For a new friend, I would quiz him first to get a sense of the situation.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? It would depend on the situation, I guess. He mentions friends from school that I haven't met, but hasn't asked to hang out with them outside of school yet.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? No, but we don't live somewhere this is likely to come up. I WISH he would grow enough independence to take the bus lol.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? He is lazy, so I can't imagine this. They mainly go to the park (from kids who live close) or the mall (from our house, which is close). In the situation you described, he would've noped out at the 4 miles and texted me for a ride.
Post by InBetweenDays on Feb 6, 2023 17:14:58 GMT -5
Answering the questions for DS who is newly 14 and in 8th grade. He's VERY social. So he is out and about a lot with friends. They used to bike, and I bet they will again in the summer. But now they usually walk or take the bus. We live in a fairly urban neighborhood so shops and restaurants are close by and the biggest road/fastest speed limit within a few miles is 30mph and has numerous stop lights.
It seems that we're a little more "free range" parenting than many on this board (but in line with our friends here). And DS is a good kid and generally a pretty open book. So we try and give our kids a bit more freedom when they've shown they are responsible enough to handle it. And we do have Life360 so we can see where they are.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? No. If he is having friends at our house and we're going to be gone I just make sure the other parents know and are ok with that.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? No. We just ask him to let us know where he's going and who he is with. And if we don't know the person we may ask a bit about them when he gets home. But we don't have any set rules.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? That's never come up because they almost always walk or take the bus. But if they were somewhere and needed to rely on an Uber I'd be ok with it.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? His school is about 2 miles away. And he often walks from school to a local sports field or community center (that is somewhat on the way home) and they walk to a convenient store, etc. If they're going further than that they take the bus and he always checks in before doing that.
I have a 14 year old freshman as well. I think we lacked some socialization during Covid years too. She’s still in junior high though so we haven’t had the issues of new kids at high school yet.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents?
Honestly I don’t check. I guess for the most part I know her friends parents and they’d be home. At this age I wouldn’t require it with friends we know. But seems her friends parents are always home when she’s over. That was my biggest issue with my parents. I was a straight A super good kid and they required my friends parents being home when I was in HS. I basically just lied a lot. We literally sat around studying, watching tv etc. we were never bad. Drove me nuts my parents wouldn’t trust me. I get things can happen but I think this can be a small step towards freedom/independence.
I do always feel like I need to be home when dd has friends over because I feel like the other parent would need to know otherwise.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know?
It really hasn’t happened much. She’s been on a varsity sport since a 7th grader so there were some older girls we didn’t know. Although most of her teammates we do. There were some sleepovers etc but the group as a whole are super great/nice/overachievers so we felt ok with it. I guess we’ll see next year if she meets new kids at HS and what we’ll do.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends?
Definitely wouldn’t happen here but even if it was more common…no way.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go?
This makes me nervous because I walk and run a ton and I know how shitty drivers are. I’ve almost been hit several times. We aren’t a walkable town so it’s really just neighborhoods. My dd will sometimes bike with a friend around our neighborhood or her friend’s neighborhood. They biked to ice cream shop that wasn’t too far away. She takes her phone and I can track her. But I don’t think anybody would be walking/biking too far.
I do live right next to a college so I do have concerns that once my kid gets older…it would be extremely easy to just walk to college parties.
Overall I have a really good kid who is probably just as cautious about things as I am. We’ve kept the lines of communication open and she tells me a good bit and often wants approval. So if plans changed and a parent wasn’t home or they wanted to walk somewhere…she’d most likely text me and let me know/ask. I’m fully aware that could change but for the moment I feel we have a good understanding about what’s expected.
Thanks for the responses so far. We are just now making the transition from me knowing all of his friend's parents, to him making new friends with kids who went to other elementary schools and so I don't know their families. So we are figuring this out as we go.
He went home from school with a (new) friend on Friday. I trust him, but it was last minute (planned at school that day, so no time to discuss in advance), I had no idea if a parent was home, and don't know this kid or his family at all, so really didn't know if I should be worried.
They hung out for a couple hours, then ended up walking to a nearby shopping center, which was where I picked him up. He does have Life360 so I was able to track him. But the other 3 kids were originally planning to walk 4 miles, in the dark, on non-pedestrian friendly roads, in 15 degree weather, to get to another kid's house. They ended up deciding it was too cold to walk, and after we picked up DS, the other kids took an uber.
We had honestly manufactured dinner plans so that we had an excuse to pick him up because the whole thing felt weird. Once I realized that they were planning to either walk 4 miles in the dark, or uber, I was glad that we picked him up. But clearly the other parents weren't worried about all this? I have no idea why they didn't call any of their parents to get a ride. I wasn't sure if it was normal for a group of 14 year olds to Uber and i was just out of the loop. I'm not comfortable with it though, so that will be a no for DS in the future.
This is why we have the rule of 'check in with us if there is a significant change in plans.' If he was at a kid's house and they wanted to go somewhere else, anywhere else, by any means, he would need to check with us first. If we ok'd going to that place, and he wanted to go somewhere else, again he'd need to check with us. This rule will be in place until he can drive himself. Every once in a while his friends will have enough foresight to make some multi-stage plans, like he has one friend who lives near enough to a small grocery store and sometimes they will make plans ahead of time to meet at his house and walk to that store to buy snacks and then go back to the kid's house to play video games, and I will approve that ahead of time, but again, if I find out he goes anywhere else without telling me, he's in big trouble and not able to go anywhere for a long time.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? Not necessarily. Totally dependent on the friend. She has a couple of close friends who we don't care if they are home alone. I guess with a group or with friends we don't know as well, maybe I would check.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? She doesn't have any friends I don't know. I teach at the school so her school friends are all my students and her other friends are from soccer. Sometimes, she'll end up in a group with kids from another school but with soccer friends. This doesn't bother me. This might change next year when she's in high school.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? Not a chance. It's illegal anyway -- they aren't old enough.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? She's allowed to roam the neighborhood pretty freely (we live in a major city, so it's probably a 5-8 block radius where she stays).
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
We live in a weird area, where 75% of the school live within our very walkable neighborhood. I’ve never really thought to ask about parents being home yet for DD (7th). I think as she gets a little older, I may question it more?
Uber would be a hard pass. They’re actually building a new HS within walking distance, so by the time she’s in 9th, she can literally go anywhere she may need by walking (we have a grocery, bakery, coffee, ice cream, etc).
After reading your follow up, I’d be cautious. The kids may just be lying to their parents or they could have parents that either aren’t concerned or have later work schedules. But either of the two latter, while not the kids fault, would lead me to be more on top of things. I know because I was drawn to those types of kids since my Dad was on me all the time. I loved the kids without as much “structure” but really we were up to no good most of the time. Not like horrible stuff, but sex, drinking and smoking pot, even as Freshman.
DH and I were just talking about some of these last night! He grew up being left alone basically every weekend starting at 14 so we definitely disagree some.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents?
This hasn't come up yet but will. I think this is where we are: during the day, no. At night yes unless I know both the kid and parents really well. As she gets deeper into high school that will change but junior high/early high school no.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know?
Not really. I really don't know DD's friends super well now. She has made a lot of new friends this year in junior high and she has had sleepovers/hangouts with a lot of them. I've met most of them at this point but I don't KNOW them the way I knew elementary friends. I just want to know where she is going to be, meet the parent if she is getting in a car with the friend or sleeping over, and DD knows she has permission to text me or call me at anytime if she is uncomfortable. We also have ongoing talks all the time about guns. Probably need to add more to it.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? That is a big nope.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? Just in our neighborhood but our neighborhood is giant. It's big enough it needs two elementary schools. It's flanked by a freeway and another major road though so absolutely not to crossing it.
1. I don't feel like it is realistic to limit hangs afterschool or weekends to homes in which a parent is home. By this age, many parents are working or busy doing other things. A fair number of DS's friends parents worked in Manhattan or traveled extensively for work, so this was usually the case. I wouldn't be OK with a party or sleepover when parents are away. This assumes he's a level-headed and mostly good kid.
2. Most of DS's friends that age were from activities in which he participated, so we were mostly acquainted with at least one parent. Even though DS attended a large suburban high school (2000+ kids) there was a lot of overlap in social circles. When he did branch out, they were often friends-of-friends and known to parents I knew. DS did pick up one friend who was an outlier in terms of being known within 2 degrees of separation, but it turned out neither kid realized they'd gone to preschool together. I knew his mom and also his aunt and uncle were friends.
3. Uber was less of a thing when DS was younger, but he did take the occasional taxi and train into the city in high school. I do "let" my 85 year old mom use gogograndparent.com which is a concierge rideshare option and would be OK with a teen doing so-- especially as part of a group.
4. Bikes around here weren't much of a thing when DS was a teenager. It's hilly here and safe paths are limited, but once the pandemic hit a lot of kids that age were biking or to friends' houses, the center of the small town in which we live and especially the state park. Most stay within a 2-3 mile range as beyond that is pretty rural. Fast food, counter service food, Ulta, a few clothing stores, sporting goods store, 3 Starbucks and a movie theater are all less than a mile from the middle and high schools and always have a lot of kids that age and younger out and about.
1) Yes, I require an adult be present when my teen is hanging out with friends at someone’s home. I don’t check on it, but they know my rules. From what I can tell their friends all have the same rule, so it’s a non issue.
2) Friends I don’t know is an increasing thing. Our high school is a regional high school and is almost 4x the size of our elementary and middle schools. Kids come from all over the county for the Arts academy, which my kid is in, so their friends are scattered. We don’t have separate rules for new friends, but so far they haven’t asked to hang out with someone who they haven’t talked about to me a lot, so even if I haven’t met the kid I’ve heard of them. Most of their friends are from marching band and/or concert band, so some have already graduated but were in band in HS as well. Before my kid can be alone with anyone I need to meet them.
3) No Uber, but I’ve never been in an Uber myself either. This hasn’t come up for us.
4) Biking around is huge around here starting in middle school. In middle school the kids can only be within town limits (about 2.5 square miles). Once they hit HS if they’re leaving town they need to text me and let me know where they’re going. Only rule with biking at that point is that I’m not driving to get you if you bike too far away and don’t want to bike home, and no major roads after dark.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? I meet the parents. I reach out and send them a text introducing myself, and the first couple times they schedule a hang-out, I verify with the parent that they know about it. I walk her to the door when I drop her off to say a quick hello. Some parents are more breezy than I am, but honestly? I'm not necessarily looking to make new friends here. I'm parenting my kid. I also ask my daughter if the parents will be home, and tell her bluntly I need to know that, and don't give permission unless I get an answer one way or the other. Her group of friends is mostly good kids, with good judgement, and there's only one friend, sort of on the periphery I'd be iffy about her hanging out without a parent there (but honestly, the parent hasn't shown great judgement either, so I don't go out of my way to foster that friendship).
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? Firm rules? Not really. I want to know *how* they are associated with whoever she's hanging out with. Most of the time it's just someone they went to elem school with, or played on a sports team with. So far it's been fine. I've told her that I would always come get her, no matter what, if she felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave wherever she was. She's texted me twice, to ask me to remove her from a situation she didn't like, so I trust her judgement. I'm happy to be the "annoying mom" and take the blame for "making" her go home early.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? Nooooooope. No way. I'll be the uber and drive them around, but no way is she ubering anywhere alone, or with other teens. Not enough life experience/brain development for that.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? Again, situationally dependent. One friend lives close to the university/small downtown, so they walk there to/from her house. But from OUR house? No way. Way too far, no sidewalks, etc. So around here, they can bike/walk in the neighborhood. Around age 12 I started letting them take the back roads to the main road where there's a light they can cross at to get to Starbucks. It's about a mile and a half total, and they feel VERY grown up doing that.
I’m surprised at all the no Ubers. But I grew up in Manhattan and regularly took cabs with friends in high school. Ubers seem safer in that at least you can track them. I’m in the suburbs now with no license and I can’t tell you how much I spend on Uber. 😂
I will say that when I was a freshman, I would walk over to my friend's house that lived by the high school. I was allowed to stay there after school without a parent. My friend was supposedly babysitting her brother, but he was 8 and didn't need much care. We would make him a snack and that was about it. Then my mom would pick me up after work. I guess it was my "aftercare" for teens, but it was because I didn't have a car and didn't want to stay at school for 2 hours until my mom picked me up. She got me at 5 or 5:30. This was because I had to stay after for track or a club, and couldn't ride the bus home.
We were not in a walkable area, but when I drove I was supposed to call at each place I went to. So that got to be a problem because I had to use payphones (yes, I'm old). So, I feel like for kids nowadays a simple text hey we are going here is so much easier for everyone. Then the parent can say yes or no rather than find out later that they Ubered or went on a 4 mile walk in the dark in 15 degree weather.
What you described up until the 4 mile walk/uber is what I would allow my sophomore to do. I don't mind if they hang out at a friend's without parents as long as it isn't a mixed group. Some of my son's friends are driving and they pick him up to go to the mall or lunch. We allowed drop off stuff last year as long as we had a pick up time. It's possible that the friend's parents didn't know of the kids walking plans. I would be upset if my son ubered home without reaching out to me first.
Post by InBetweenDays on Feb 7, 2023 12:49:16 GMT -5
I'd even be ok with the 4 mile walk IF I knew about it ahead of time, knew who he was with, and there were sidewalks/it was a safe area. But again we live in an urban neighborhood where you can walk 4 miles all on sidewalks and not have to cross a road that is more than 30 mph.
For various reasons, covid and otherwise, my son did not really socialize with anyone from school from 6-8 grade. Now he is a freshman and wanting to hang out with friends, and I feel like we missed all the baby steps of increasing responsibility and setting up a framework of rules. He's my oldest, and at his age, I was a huge nerd who mostly hung out with church friends and the super-driven kids who would never risk getting in trouble. So I am a naïve little lamb when it comes to the trouble kids can get into and how to safeguard against it.
Questions: 1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? It depends. He and the kids across the street can hang out at our house (and vice versa) if no one is home. They're just sitting around playing video games. Now the few parties he's been to--yes we expect a parent to be there. 2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? This hasn't come up yet--I know everyone he hangs out with. They are either a neighbor, someone he's gone to school with a long time, or someone he's on a sports team or in band with. 3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? Possibly. He does ride with one friend that drives. He's a junior (DS is a freshman). The other day they went a lot further than I thought they were going to go, and we both learned some lessons that day. 4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? DS walks to work out of necessity sometimes, it is about a 10 minute walk, most of it in our subdivision which has sidewalks.
There is a specific event that precipitated these questions, but the details probably aren't important. It felt extreme though and was a wake up call that we need to establish rules ASAP.
I am proceeding with caution when it comes to the kids he is hanging out with. I don't think they are dangerously bad kids (DS has been pretty open about which kids at school are into vaping, drinking, drugs, and it's not his crowd), but I do get the impression that they push some boundaries and are maybe not parented super closely. I also worry that not having close friends for 3 years has really skewed what he will tolerate and what he will go along with to be part of the group.
My kid is pretty responsible for 14.5, so I trust him. He did admit to trying vaping at work awhile back, which I wasn't thrilled about obviously, but I was glad he told me (teenagers vaping is fucking rampant around here). The freshmen he hangs out with are really good kids overall, but he's also friends with quite a few upperclassmen, which I wasn't expecting. I don't think those kids are "bad" by any means, but they are 16,17, 18 years old.
1. Do you require that an adult is home when hanging out with friends? How do you confirm if you don't know the parents? Situation dependent. With a girlfriend or two no no parents would not bother me at all. A group with boys/more people? Yes, we require parents to be there. We are kind of learning as we go right now as DD1 is at an all-girls school and most of her male friends go to an all-boys school so besides parents we already knew, there is not a lot of opportunity to get to know the boy parents. She's established a little gang and I've met their parents (these boys seem to follow the same rules we girl moms do). The first few times we'd wait for a wave from the door from an adult etc. now I just ask. it's a trust issue - we'll trust her until she gives us reason not to.
2. Are there any rules around hanging out with friends that you don't know? Not really. Like I mentioned above, it's an all-girls school so every boy (except boys from her grade school) are boys I don't know. I usually ask: Where do they go to school? How do you know them? As long as they are not some strange rando internet person we're fine with it. Also, because of what happened to her last year, she does not associate with most of the girls that came with her from grade school, so every person she wanted to hang out with was someone I didn't know. In short, I've let go of this.
3. Would you let your kid uber with friends? Hmmm. Probably? There has not been a need for this yet.
4. If they want to walk or ride bikes, are there limits to how far you would allow them to go? We aren't really in much of a walkable area. There's a pizza place about a mile away and she's been walking there with friends for a couple years. They'll walk to the park and roam the neighborhood. The streets framing our neighborhood are fairly busy with no walking lanes (this is typical suburban sprawl but lot of the roads haven't caught up). No on the bikes - a 13 yo actually was killed on his bike a few years ago going from his hood to the CVS near us. This is a funny question bc as a young teen that was all we did - literally walk. Walk around. But I grew up in a very different area/more urban setting.