Teens at night

In My Humble Opinion
21

I have very lenient parents. I’m 20, and I’ve never had a curfew, and I’m free to leave whenever I want on my own accord. My parents don’t care when I go to bed (as long as I’m quiet) or wake up. I usually stay up till about 3:00am and I get up around noon.

Of course, the big catch is that I’ve always been a very responsible teenager. Despite not having a curfew, I rarely stay out past 1:00am and I always arrange my own transportation. I’ve never been in trouble; I’m pretty much your classic nerd who never really gets inovolved in anything questionable. The deciding factor was always school work. Pretty much the only obligation my parents ever placed upon me was mainting my marks. So long as I performed, my parents were satisfied.

22

Well I’m allowed to go pretty much anywhere, so as long as I have my cell phone on me and they can reach me I’m alright.
My curfew is 1 normally.
-foxy

23

I was given alot of freedom as a teen. My father passed away when I was 15 after a long battle with cancer, I went to a private catholic high school. When I turned 16 I think my mother appreciated that I needed some space, time and some fun for a few years. I had my own car and as long as I faithfully attended school, kept my grades decent (which was cake) and let her know where I was (generally) I made my own hours. During the summer I slept as late as I wanted. I never did drugs, got arrested, didn’t come home drunk or drink and drive (rarely drank at all) and really rarely gave her any reason to regret her trust in me. I got a full scholarship to college, moved out of the house and haven’t moved back.

24

I’m 17, never had a curfiew. I just have to say I am “out with friends” and my father is happy. I have more details to tell him, and I usually do tell him, but usually he is satisfied with “out”.

25

Generally during the summer when my dad was working nights (which I think was about until I was 17) I was up all or most of the night, and stayed up and talked with him, then slept until the afternoon.

During highschool I went to bed around between 4-6pm and woke up in the middle of the night. Now that I’m in college (though still living at home). I’ve been taking classes until around noon and sleeping during the afternoon. So overall I would have to say that my parents didn’t care much when I was out, though they’ve made me carry a cell so they can reach me.

I’m really into astronomy though so that probably factors into why my parents are fine with it. :slight_smile:

26

Originally posted by AbbySthrnAccent

Give me a break! I was a teenager, and no worse than most. My plans were usually to go riding around aimlessly in my friend’s car, which was a little too unstructured for my parents’ liking. I asked Dinsdale how he knows what his kids are really up to, because I have two children of my own now and I’m going to have a hard time letting them out of my sight. I have read other parenting threads Dinsdale has participated in, and he appears to have a style I can relate to and possibly learn something useful from. Hence my question.

27

My kids (12 and 13 ) don’t have a specific curfew- it depends on if they need to be picked up and how early I want to go to sleep. As far as “hanging out” - although I don’t always know which specific people my son is with on a particular day or night, I do know who his friends are. I know his friends are Josh, Travis, Edwin, Jimmy and so on. I don’t necessarily know that Josh has a baseball game tonight, or Travis is on vacation or Edwin’s cousin is visiting for the week so there are additions to and subtractions from the basic group. Same thing for where they are- there are certain places where he frequently goes, and I don’t need to know when he moves from playing basketball in Edwin’s yard to video games at Jimmy’s house and then when they all go get pizza. He does have to ask to go other places, such as to the movies , the mall or anywhere out of the neighborhood.

As for the people in Dinsdale’s town who were talking about teens needing places to go and things to do at night, I can understand them. People in both my neighborhood and the neighborhood I grew up in often complain about teenagers hanging out in the park at night. The problem is, there’s really nowhere for them to be except in the park , on the street or in someone’s house (or more likely in nice weather, on the front steps). The houses and apartments aren’t big enough to accomodate more than one or two friends over at a time. When I was a young teenager, the high school gym and pool were open a couple of nights a week, there was a movie theater in the neighborhood, a club that really was alcohol free for teenagers a night or two a week, a roller rink and nearly every week some school or church had a dance for teenagers. The club is gone, the theater is gone ,the roller rink is gone, and there might be two dances a year.

28

Thanks all for your comments. As a parent, it can be difficult to find a mirror against which you can hold your parenting choices.

A couple of responses:

Larz - you say (paraphrase) you do not lie, you just tend to disclose as little as possible. IMO, witholding info you know is relevant and of interest to another party is the easiest form of lying. Look at it another way - if your parent went through the whole “20-questions” exercise trying to ask exactly the correct question that would force you to disclose what you knew they wanted to know in the first place - then would you be accusing them of prying or nagging?

Severin - you asked why we have our kids get up and finish their chores before a certain time. There are at least 2 main reasons for that. One is that we are sick of being the music/chores cops. My kids are generally good kids, but they do tend to procrastinate. (I assure you, they inherited that from me.) We spend several hundred dollars a month on music lessons - which the kids strongly maintain they wish to continue. We have said that we will continue to support their music, but that they must practice regularly. And we are sick and tired of it being late in the evening, and maybe the family wants to go out, or watch a movie, and one of the kids says they didn’t practice yet. We refuse to have to remind them daily to do what they know they have to do every day.

Similar with chores. I’m out of the house and at my job before any of the kids are awake. IMO, when I get home 10 hours later, I shouldn’t have to ask my kid if he mowed the lawn, or remind them to make their beds, etc.

The second reason may be sort of philosophical - and I can certainly imagine folk disagreeing with us. We think there is some utility in kids getting used to having to get up at a certain time consistent with the rest of their family, and most of society. For example, we place a high importance on the family eating dinner together. That is the one place where we make sure anyone can bring up “important things” and make sure they are heard. If a kid wakes up at - say 2 p.m., it is less likely that they will want to eat dinnier at 6. If their entire waking and sleeping schedule is vastly different from the rest of their family’s, I think that increases the distance between them. And as the person making the money and paying the bills, I will not allow a kid to dictate the household schedule. I will not allow their “convenience” to cause me “inconvenience.” I’m probably not being too clear about this - but let me know if you do not get the gist of what I’m saying.

Other elements of this “philosophical” aspect - we don’t see a “need” for anyone to sleep so late. Absent a night-time job, a nocturnal lifestyle strikes us as a luxury. Which is fine for someone living alone, but not to the extent that it imposes upon others. Face it, folks - 9:30 isn’t exactly the crack of dawn.

Another more minor element - some of you may have noted my “Luddite” tendencies. At a basic level, sleeping very late is “un-natural.” The product of excessive energy use. I’m exaggerating somewhat here, but I do not see an inherent benefit in adopting such a lifestyle. Something strikes me as desirable about living in a manner that somehow reflects the natural passage of time.

Like I said, let me know if you want me to expand upon our choices. I’ll stop here before writing a treatise.

Thanks again. Keep the input coming

I’m not suggesting that our choices are the only legitimate ones, just offering what seems to work for us. I always find it frustrating when I here parents complain about their kids, and throw up their hands saying “What can we do?” Well, there’s generally a whole list of things you could do. But first, you have to get off your ass …

29

My kids are not allowed out of the neighboorhood on week days and they must be in the house by 8PM

On weekends they can go out but must be accompanied by someone’s parent and the curfew is 11:00PM

I let them go to bed anytime they want

30

My parents never gave me a curfew. And from the age of about 16/17 it wasn’t uncommon for me to not make it home until the following day. Now, at 18 I stay over a lot of the time at my boyfriend’s house.

31

My brother and I were generally pretty good kids (I’m now 27 and he’s 24).

Dad was a bit more uptight than mom about drinking before age 19 (Ontario drinking age). He didn’t really think it was necessary, whereas mom would always ask if we wanted a drink with here after we were 15 or so. They were both very strict about drinking and driving, though, and Mikey and I have always been very careful about that, to the extent of I don’t drink at all if I’m driving, and I think Mikey will have one, max if he has to drive.

One major difference between us and most kids is we grew up on a farm. Before we got our licenses, there was nowhere to go without an adult driving. So we had a lot of sleepovers. Mikey built a little shack in the bush to go with friends - at home, but out of adult supervision.

As for actual curfews, I didn’t have one unless I had a boyfriend. If I had an actual boyfriend, it was 11 on a school night (I didn’t start dating until I was 15, so 11 was bedtime anyway), and 1 on a weekend. Mostly we went to “events” - dances, plays, parties.

Mom and dad always knew who I was with, mostly because they were the cool parents (you know, the ones all your friends liked). In a small community, everyone knows everyone else, and if we were causing problems, none of the parents would hesitate to discipline any of us, own kid or not.

Regarding chores, well, farm kids, lots of those. We could sleep in as late as we liked, but dad was up at 5am, and he wasn’t trying to be quiet. Usually we got the morning to ourselves, then dad would come in for lunch around 11 and we’d figure out what needed to get done for the rest of the day. We were pretty cool about it, we didn’t get allowances, but we did get paid for farm work, so if we wanted cash, we had to go to the field or the barn.

32

By the time I was able to cross the street without getting run over by a car, my parents stopped being concerned that I would make it home. My curfew at 14 was 1:00 AM after that the curfew kind of disappeared…it’s a wonder I am still alive. I didn’t have the judgement at that age to have no one looking out for me. I am more restrictive of my kids.

I have a 16 year old and these are the rules: HE has a cell phone and I have to know where he is at all times and who he is with. Now I am not stupid…I know he will stretch this to the MAX LIMIT. But…that is what kids are SUPPOSED TO do…stretch their limits. At least the has limits to stretch.

He has a job and a car. He is required to pay the gas and a portion of his own insurance. If he breaks the rules he gets grounded and can’t drive his car. School nights he usually doesn’t go out but if he does with rare occaision, he is to be home by 11:00. Weekends, he usually works but if not, I expect him to be home or on the phone telling me where he is by midnight. He is welcome to have friends in any time (and does frequently - says I am a way cool Mom). They have music, movies, snacks, video games, ping pong, basketball, but no drugs or booze. HE can stay up as long as he wants but he has to get up for school and work on his own.

Weekends if he has the day off he can sleep in but usually he is up by 1000 because he needs to do his laundry and since he is the “man of the house” I have him do the yardwork. And he usually washes his car.

He has been a great kid and never been in any trouble. He gets As and Bs and always has so I have no complaints. I respect him and give him room to grow and give him his privacy while providing a safety net for him to fall back on if he needs.

33

The disallowance of late sleeping sounds like a personal thing with you and your family. It also sounds like you respect the decisions of others to not necessarily follow the way your family does things.

There are clear instances where there are benefits to adopting a nocturnal lifestyle. After college, when job prospects were scarce, I bussed and waited tables for four years. Most of my work was at night – my usual time for leaving the restaurant was between 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m.

After work, lots of folks from the restaurant socialized after hours. When I started, I was a pretty shy young man, and not particularly self-assured. The solidarity among the restaurant staff helped me break out of that shell.

I learned a tremendous amount about how to socialize with others (especially in matters of romance) during the four years I worked at the restaurant. I consider the time spent out after hours to have been essential to my development as a person. I really grew a lot during that time of my life, and IMHO, a lot of that growth would not have happened had I hurried home after every shift to get to sleep.

I don’t know … I look back on that nocturnal phase of my life with absolutely no regrets. Indeed, I regard my restaurant years as something akin to how some people remember being in, say, the armed forces. Those times really shaped me and made me a better person.

Of course, since all this was going on when I was in my early-to-mid 20s, maybe this doesn’t really apply to a thread about teenagers. But I wanted to bring up something of a counter-example to your philosophy, even as I regard that you made an allowance for someone having a night-time job, as I did

I was living at my parent’s home for most of those four years, but our family had ceased taking meals together many, many years before. You mentioned family mealtimes specifically as a factor in your family upholding a 9:30 a.m. reveille, so maybe the respective familial arenas in which we’re dealing are too different for direct comparison.

34

This is SO not what I hoped a thread called 'Teens at night" was going to be about… :dubious:

35

I am eighteen, about to leave for college.

As a young teen, we never went anywhere without being driven by parents, so that wasn’t an issue.

For ages 16-17 or so my curfew was 12. It was not strictly enforced or anything, but I adhered by it. I would let my parents know a general plan for the evening (“We’re going to Diana’s house,” or “We’re going downtown”).

More recently, my curfew rule is that I should let them know what general time I’ll be home (by midnight, later, or “probably pretty late”). And I give them a broad plan for the evening like I used to. They know my friends and like them a lot, but never really inquire as to what exactly we do.

36

I would say if you know where they are, set no curfew. Let kids be kids and have fun(clean healthy fun!) until they are dead tired. Being an adult can’t always be fun, but being a kid can.

When I was a young teen I would often rent a game with one or two friends and play it until all hours of the night. Usually at my house but my friends would always call or their parents would call and my mother would chat them up for a while. “Yes little Johnny is over here…”

I’m not sure what to say about older teens who just “go out”. I was one of them and I’m still not sure what my parents should/could do to keep me safer. Cell phones might help nowadays though.

37

I had to give my mother a semi-detailed itinerary of where we were going and what we were going to do. She’s a control freak so she had to know everything. I had to call if we decided to do something else, which was often the case. I had to be home anywhere between 11pm and 1am on weekend nights, depending on how tired my mother was, as she would stay up and wait until I got home. We’d negotiate on the time. (That still hasn’t stopped and I’m 25!! Of course that’s only when I visit. And I don’t come home till later.) I used to tell my parents one thing and do another. But we never partied. It was all harmless hanging out. I’d say we were going to the coffee house, which we did, but my boyfriend and I would end up somewhere else later on. We went on lots of “walks”.

If I was going to a friend’s house, my parents would check to see if the parents were there- that happened until senior year. If there were boys there- the parents had to be there no matter what. All parties had to have a parent somewhere in the house. My mom would call and check. Same when I went to my boyfriend’s house. They didn’t like leaving us alone. (Of course I understand why for that.)

My mom doesn’t believe in sleeping in and made us get up by 10am every weekend. Didn’t matter if we weren’t doing anything. She felt that we were wasting the day. (Did I mention she is a control freak?)

My parents were strict. Makes sense that I chose to go to school 500 miles away so I could do what I want. I’m finally doing all the stuff I never got to do in high school.

38

Dinsdale - I think your level of strictness is fine. My wife and I are planning a family, we do not have any kids yet. I’m 33 and she is 32. (soon don’t worry).

I have a 15 year old nephew and 16 year old neice. I bought them both a cell phone/camera last year so my sister could feel pretty confident about letting them go out. They live in Phoenix.
They take a photo of where they are and send it to my sister when she calls and asks where they are. It works out pretty well.

The reason I bought them both cell phones? - last year my wife and I were out there for two weeks. We were looking after them while my sister and husband went on a vacation.

The youngest was cool with staying home with Uncle Phlo and the oldest wanted to go out everynight. It was summer.

We did not give her a curfew because we knew her friends all had curfews and what was she going to do when they all had to go home…? Sure Phlosphr good rationale.
It was 1:30am and I was up with my wife, having a night-cap by the pool. I was geting very tired and decided to head in. Walking inside I caught odor of something that wasn’t there before.
POT…

Hmmm. I smoked pot in college, but then again I was in college. not a junior in HS. What to do, what to do?

I called upstairs to Jill and she popped her head out of her room. “Hey, Uncle! whats going on? You and Auntie out by the pool? I’ll come out! It’s hot!”

So I didn’t think anything of it. She wasn’t acting stoned…She came down and we confronted her. She blushed a lot and told us the pad answer all parents get… " There were people there smoking, but I wan’t I swear. I had one beer."
Not bad, I believed her. But we stayed up another hour discussing all the nasty side effects, habits that can be formed, and general facts about smoking Pot. She’s a smart girl she knows whats up. We left it at that. Then as she was going to go to bed. She said she would have called but there was no phone and no one had a cell.

The good uncle I am I went out and bought her and her brother two cell phones. Both with picture taking capabilities like my sisters, and mine. With a promise to check in with a photo and call at a certain time. For the rest of the week and the next we got photo’s and a call everynight at midnight (the nights she went out that is)
Technology is a great! When I was a teen it was a dime in the phone booth if we could find one.

Cheers!

**I did not preview this post, sorry for typos

39

I’m nineteen, and don’t live at home anymore, but when I did I had it pretty sweet. My mum had had quite a strict upbringing, and so she didn’t like the idea of curfews. The rules evolved, largly through trial and error, to
-no curfew, but if I couldn’t get up the next morning I wasn’t allowed to whine
and
-If I wanted to be picked up I had to ring to ask at a reasonable hour (usually before ten). If I wanted to stay out past about midnight I had to make my own way home.

I had a cellfone from about age 16, and if I left the house when no one else was home, I always left a note.

Basically mum didn’t care where I went or how long I stayed out, she just wanted to know where I was.

Having said all this, I also never gave her much grief - if I was drinking I didn’t come home drunk, I called if I wasn’t going to be home etc.

40

If my parents were a little more open-minded I would gladly tell them what it is I do, the only adult I ever tell about the stuff I do is my case manager.