Mumsnet Talk

Very angry with Ds 14. This afternoon he said he wanted to meet up in town with some of his friends,fine. I asked what they were going to do( small welsh town,bugger all to do, especially on a Sunday) ,he told me that they were just going to walk around the castle and chat.

Anyway I felt suspicious ,and phoned him after a little while.. He was obviously inside somewhere, he told me he was with X " I've phoned X mum and I know he is not with you". He then eventually admitted that he was in some unknown (to me ) girls house with some other friends.

I am so angry,we have had conversations before ,about the Importance of saying who he is with and where he is,for safeties sake if nothing else.

I HATE being lied to, DH has just gone to pick him up and will have a serious talk to him. Do you think removing his phone, laptop, and PS3 for a week is fair?

Bump

Personally I think the more important question is why he felt the need to lie about going somewhere else. Does he feel restricted in where he goes? I know how hard it is to let them have more freedom but I wonder if he feels that he has to lie rather than be able to say 'I'm going out to meet friends, I'll be back at 5pm, I have my phone'

I have 4 teens and I found that if I gave them a bit of slack, then generally they respected it, but if I was too controlling..they rebelled. They do need to feel independent now and again..

If I'm way off base and there are other issues, I apologise,but ringing his friend's mum.. or pretending to is setting him up for resentment.

I'd go with a calm chat, but not removing everything he likes. If you take his phone and he goes out again... what then?

Thanks Medusa for your very sensible reply. The reason that I am cross is that I feel we are not too restricting and there is no need not to tell us the truth.
We generally have a really good relationship ,maybe it is the whole girls thing he feels embarrassed about (goes to an all boys school) .

Perhaps it is too harsh removing his PS3 etc, but a similar thing happened a few months ago, and despite lots of chats ,calm words, he has done it again.

Maybe I am overreacting, he is a lovely boy on the whole...I just want him to know that lying is wrong.

He took his phone to school today,as it's snowing !