I think you’re being a teensy bit extreme… sending her to another school?
I agree with wring, only maybe not let her ‘out’ for only a week instead of two, and make her pay for the window. The community service thing is a great idea.
“Believe me she follows the
rules.”
Well, then why the OP?
Boy, those were fun days as a teenager. So, have you talked to the guys folks about his little adventure?
sneaking out was not a problem in my imm. area. all the kids knew what happened to a neighbourhood kid when he slipped through the window while grounded.
his friends called for him in the time honoured way, hitting his window with small projectiles. he went out the window and off they went. they were just “driving around” when the accident happened.
“no, officer there must be a mistake, my son is upstairs, in bed.” no mistake, her son was in the morgue not the bedroom. believe me this stopped a lot of the usual teenage sneakiness in my area. it made quite an impact on all of us, and still does.
Bill, I haven’t cloned myself yet, but I can share my parents rule for grounding. Take last month for example, younger brother (17)swore up and down that he would be home from the prom by one am. One am happens to be the begining of the driving curfue for 16 & 17 yr olds in this state. He wandered in around 2am. Busted!
So, he was grounded for two weeks, no driving his car except to his part-time job, which meant banishment to the school bus. He complained to me about it, and I advised him to be on his best behavior. I knew(from experience, of course) that my parents would half his “sentence” if he didn’t whine about it, and showed remorse. He was good, they decided he got there point, and he was back behind the wheel in a week.
So, if she’s good and shows remorse, I’d let her off for good behavior if she was my kid. If she was a brat…she’d serve the full sentence.
As for private school…I think you’re kidding yourself if you think that she’d be avoiding “bad” kids if she skips public school. There are as many bad kids in private schools as public ones(do watch Cruel Itentions, at least the bad kids are entertaining), because the amount of $ you pay for a kid’s education doesn’t affect how much of a jerk the kid is going to be.
im 17 years old and a guy… I know how guys my age think, and what they are after.
I say dont ever let her out of the house, or maybe send her to an all girls boarding school.
Wildest Bill, I can definately empathize. I found out that our 14 year old daughter ahd been sneaking out too. I didn’t catch her, but did find her plans for the next night. She is already grounded for walking down a busy street when she was suppose to be at a friends house.
Anyway, sweet gullible child that she is, I told her that I had dreamed she snuck out and was abducted by some guys in a black car, and that we could not find her. This is not too out of the ordinary, I often have preminitions about the kids. We discussed this a bit, and I told her that as long as I knew where she was, I felt that she was under my protection, but I couldn’t protect her if I didn’t know where she was. We also discussed alot of the things that Wring brought up. That made sense to her, and I hope that will be the end of it.
And a month is just about right, IMHO.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent, but I have been a teenager. I don’t know WB or his daughter. YMMV.
WB, I think wring has given some good advice. But I think I would disagree with one point. I think (as you apparently do) that it wouldn’t be a good idea to “compromise” on a lesser punishment. I think the reason is that if an apology can get you to reduce the punishment, she might think you can be manipulated, and that could lead to even more trouble.
You warning her about private school concerns me a bit. You said that 2 weeks ago, but she sneaked out anyway? And even now you haven’t acted on it, so she might not take it seriously and she may disregard other things you say. I think that if you say you’re going punish her in a specific way, you should do it. That means you should also be careful about what you say you’re going to do.
This might be overkill, but you might consider talking to a lawyer about the exact legal issues that arise when an 18-year-old boy gets involved with a 14-year-old girl. The lawyer should also have some advice about whether or not you should talk to John and his parents about these issues.
My daughter is 14 so I can seriously empathize here, though she hasn’t done the sneaking out of the house thing and swears she has no interest in it at all. Thank the Creator.
While wring made some good points, I have to agree with zgystardst on not backing down from the one month term once you’ve ‘pronounced sentencing’.
Amen! The one time I grounded Jr. Ranger 1 for a month, took away her computer privliges and took away her phone she spent her free time sighing and moaning about not having anything to do, it was boring, I was mean, I didn’t understand, on and on and on. Agh. Sticking to my guns was damned hard. But she’s never repeated the offense and I doubt she will.
Definitely mention the possibility of getting the authorities involved if this guy shows up again. Having Dad call the cops on a guy she likes would probably be one of the most embarassing things she could imagine, and if the discussion manages to get back to the guy (maybe talk about this in front of some of her friends) he will be scared to go around her. Making her pay for the screen is good, too, you can probably get a lot of housework out of her that way.
Be VERY careful, though significantly older I echo Pathros_1983’s sentiment - teenage girls who are willing to sneak out of the house late at night are highly valued by guys of many ages, though an 18 year old definitely should know better than to mess with a girl that age, I’ve known plenty of guys 25 years old or older who would.
This actually happened to us! We had a house fire at midnight. Luckily, this was in August. Three of us (and the dogs) were out watching the meteor showers (Pleiades?), my Mom was up washing dishes, My Dad was in bed, and my sister was in bed - or so we thought. She had snuck out and was two doors down at a party. My folks were a little freaked out because we couldn’t find her. She only found out that the house was on fire because when the folks at the party heard the fire truck sirens, they thought it was the cops coming to split up the party, so they all ran. One of them noticed the fire, and went back into the basement at the party house (where my sister was still partaking in controlled substances) and told her.
This actually happened to me. I’m the dad of a 13YO daughter who had a sleepover at a friend’s house. It turned out that my daughter and her friend had snuck out and gone joy-riding with a couple of boys. The girls were caught while sneaking back into the house at “zero-dark-thirty.” The consequences were:
Grounded for 1 month.
No telephone and no internet for 2 weeks.
No TV/Stereo for a similar time.
Allowable activities were:
Study.
Help mom with the housework.
Study some more.
Along with all of that there were mucho heart-to-heart talks etc.
Hope this helps.
Testy.
Anyway this wont apply. But, God forbid if it ever does, this is one my mom used on my sister which worked wonders. Naked boy is found in sisters bedroom, as punishment, mom takes her door away. Right off the hinges, no door, no lock, open to the world. Never happened again. But my sister was a REAL brat. Difficult to the utmost and knew it and reveled in it. Interestingly enough she’s married with two girls of her own and has really settled down. Literaly overnight, that’s what pregnancy will do to ya. BTW she didn’t get pregnant till she was 21 and 1/2.
Women’s Christian Military Boot Camp
Women’s Christian Military Boot Camp?
Never heard such a thing & there isn’t one on the web obtained through a search. Nice try though.
wow, lots of good advice here takes notes for future reference
I would emphasize the deal about the 18 year old guy.
Remembering what it’s like to be a 14 year old girl, I know I’d be really flattered if an 18 year old guy was paying attention to me. I’m sure that I would be easily impressed and probably infatuated quickly.However, you pretty much have to assume that he has “one thing” on his mind, because otherwise, there isn’t much cause for him to be around.
Yeah, a month sounds fine. (I got a month when my mom caught me having sex with a boy in my room when I was 15.)
I would have probably gotten 2 weeks for sneaking out and 2 weeks for breaking the screen and leaving the window unsecured. Plus I would have had to pay for the screen repair.
I am a parent of 8 and 3 year old girls. I hope I never have to deal with this. It scares the hell out of me.