I need some advice. I wish teenagers came with owners manuals.

About 4 months ago my daughter started dating a boy whose parents are friends of me and my hubby. He is 16 yrs old and drives. At first i let her ride to town with him, to the gas station which is less than a mile from the house or to his house which is less than 3 miles from the house but recently she has been taking it for granted. Yesterday she asked me if they could go swimming and i said yes. I slept most of the day while she was gone and when i woke up at 8 pm she still wasnt home and hadnt called. I called his house and they were there so i told her to come home and she was grounded for not calling to check in. Now she is mad at me because she is saying i am being to strict with her. I also have a son who is 16 but he doesnt have many friends and never asks to go anywhere so i didnt have this to worry about.

I'm not sure what to think...i was 15 before i was allowed to ride with anyone but that was 18 yrs ago and i know times have changed. What do the rest of you think about this age rule??? Please, i need all the suggestions i can get.

Also of note, my hubby doesnt approve of her riding with him and he says if it was up to him she would have never been allowed to the first time but it was up to me since he is gone all the time and i seem to handle things.

One of my suggestions was for him to come here and hang out instead of her going to his house all the time but she said she doesnt like it here and neither does he because it is so quiet and usually i look and feel horrible so then they are uncomfortable. She says i need to be more socialable but its hard to with the pain as bad as it is and also my depression and bipolar has been a problem lately.

Thank you so much in advance, Alicia

Anyway I did come from a strict home and didn't like it too much about all the limit setting- THEN.. once I became an adult I better understood what my parents were trying to do.

I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16 and there was a limit to how much makeup I could wear which I hated but I'll pass on to what my mom said to me when I complained about not being able to date and make myselp look "older"..

She said- "You have your whole life to be a grown up and date but right now you are still a kid. I want you to enjoy the things young girls do like making friends and getting involved with school activities etc. I'm not letting you grow up sooner than you should be. Enjoy being a kid because that is what you are. They'll be time for dating and all that later."

I didn't like that advice and those rules back then but I understand them now. If I had a teenager I think I'd want to be a mother first and the friend thing second.

You are not forbidding her to see him and offering them to come to your house was a good idea. She's still young and her boyfriend is 16 with lots of hormones. Better to be under your roof at times even if it's not their first choice of where to be.

Ok that's my opinion. Don't feel guilty. She's only 14- let's keep her that way LOL

Hugs

Leslie

Post edited by: Snoopy30, at: 06/11/2008 18:36