To ask at what point you stop 'raising' your kids?

Part of raising your children is giving them the skills to navigate the world. You can only do this by giving them freedom and letting them learn from their mistakes.

Presumably by 18 she's going to be away at uni somewhere and you want to know she has the skills to be able to thrive away from home. You also want to know she trusts you enough not to be overbearing if she needs to phone you for help and advice. So keep your eye on that target.

One of my kids is at uni in a big city. Thankfully we gave him enough freedom while he was home that we feel reassured that he knows how to safely navigate the complete freedom of uni life.

Edited to add, we are still very much raising him. He phones for advice and to update us regularly on his adventures.

The tighter you try to control her the further away from you she will need to flee so it's not surprising that she has mentioned Australia. I can't believe you are still talking about coats at age 16 - that's something more appropriate for young children still at primary school. Let her make her own mistakes.

She’ll be going to uni and be an adult in less than 2 years. How do you expect her to cope if she isn’t allowed to make any decisions, take any control or take any small risks now?

I have children of a similar age, they don't have a curfew but we do have a discussion about where they are going, what time they are expecting to be home and how they are getting home. As with a pp, if they unexpectedly change location they text me to let me know.

If they don’t choose to wear a coat they get cold or wet and learn from it (or not).

They went to all their uni open days alone, on the train or bus. They’ve organised camping trips with friends away in the wilds for several days. They’ve been left at home alone while we were both away for work.

They are planning to travel with friends next summer and have got themselves jobs to fund their plans.

I have a friend whose Mum & Dad (who are really lovely people) followed a similar parenting style to yours, even after he started university. In his third year he did a “year abroad” in Australia and moved there permanently.

There’s a difference between raising a child and controlling one, and enforcing a 7pm curfew and dictating education and travel plans is controlling!
This is the time to take a step back and offer opinions rather than rules. They’ll get things wrong but that’s how they grow.

Unless it's snowing or pouring with rain, I let the children in my class decide whether they need a coat or not. They're 7. They can get one if they're cold.

My children are 10, 14, 18.
Coat - 10year old - it’s cold today, are you taking your warm coat? Wouldn’t occur to me to mention it to the other two.
Curfew - 10 year old has evening activities that finish later than 7pm but I’d be collecting her. 14 year old has activities up to 10pm, I know how/with whom he is getting home. 18 year old has his own car, he tells me where he’s going and who with and what time he’ll be back and he would let me know if he’ll be late but he’s not asking permission.
Travel plans - 10 year old going abroad next year on a supervised trip with trusted adults. 14 year old gets a train several hours away by himself to visit family. 18 year old has been doing short holidays in U.K. with friends from 16 and is planning a European trip after Alevels, funded by savings from the job he’s had since 16.
Future plans - oldest planning to go to uni, has done a mixture of getting himself to open days or one of us going with him, lots of discussion about finances, final choices for UCAS were his.

@insideoutsider I think you are way behind the curve on prepping your 16 year old for adulthood unless there is a massive drip feed about her being particularly vulnerable.

I let my 3 and 5 year olds choose whether or not to wear a coat. What’s the worst that can happen? I also have to race the clock (and often fail) to get them fed and in bed by 7pm with juggling my own work and their extracurriculars, so I’m curious about how a 7pm curfew for a 16 year old even works, unless the idea is for it not to so she doesn’t go out at all?

7 pm is ridiculous. My 16 and 18 year olds don't even have a curfew. They know if they get home late and then struggle in the morning that's on them.
If she doesn't wear a coat what's the worst that'll happen? She'll get cold but so what? She'll wear it next time
Uni in Australia is probably a dream but perhaps she is just desperate for some freedom. Give her some and maybe she won't go to Australia. If she does then support her looking at uni places and courses
At her age they don't need raising as such but guidance and support.

It's a gradual process. You give them more and more autonomy from 12 onwards but not all at once.

At 16 on non school nights 10pm is perfectly reasonable as long as you know roughly where she is, later if it's a known location. I did mostly pick up if after 9pm at 16 (sharing with DD's best friends mum generally). On school nights they had to be for dinner at 6.30/7 and only went out for specific reasons eg sport, choir or an arranged thing. They traveled by public transport generally earlier and started going to the pub after choir practice (adults / older teens there too who dropped them home).

But remember the freedoms were gradual, some well before 16, and it came with increased responsibility eg doing own laundry, dd2 took on cooking 1-2 meals per week for us all, (dd1 is autistic so less capable) chore lists etc ...

Well adjusted young adults now

I still feel like I am raising my child of a similar age. But it looks very different. It doesn't involve coats or curfew but I'm there as a sounding board for big decisions, or to help with forms he's never seen before. He has a health issue so I still go to the hospital with him.

It's a strange age legally, still under keeping childfen safe in education, still under paediatrics, a minimum wage that is less than an adults, compulsory 'education', not allowed to drive or drink or get a tattoo
But in a very short space of time you have to be able to live independently, so you need to be supporting all those skills.

I am still very much ‘raising’ my dc as teens. They needs lots of support and guidance at this age, so it’s not hands off at all.

My teen needs to be in at 10pm - 11pm for a party.
Coat is up to her
18 to be travelling around Europe. We do allow her to go to festivals at 17 in this country. We will be nearby. And this year she will also travel to Cornwall for a long weekend with her friends

I wouldn’t be entertaining an Australian university - no. It’s too logistically far, too many things that can go wrong but would compromise and say she can travel there after she is 18 for a holiday. Given you are paying you can say no to this.

It’s about boundaries, respect and letting her slowly find her wings and her independence. It is exciting to watch!

That's absolutely ridiculous telling a 16 year old to be home at 7pm. You are in major danger of babying her so much that when she finally gets a bit of freedom (uni?) she's going to go absolutely off the rails with it. Far better to give her independence now where you can keep an eye on her and guide her.

My dd her age would be expected to be in 10.30 on a school night, though if she was out we'd normally be picking her up or she'd be round the corner at friend's and it's rare she does go out. Weekends now she's always at parties and gets taxis home or il collect her if its a decent time or shel usually stay with a group of friends at one of the friends houses. She tends to be in maybe about half 12.

I did the exact same with my twenty year old and she's now very Indeoendant. Goes abroad multiple times a year with no issues. Never had to go rescue her on nights out or anything and is just a well rounded, sensible, independent young woman.

My youngest is 21 oldest 26.

You never stop parenting your children. However there is a huge difference between parenting and being overprotective.

At 16 I didnt tell mine when to wear a coat.
They did not have a 7pm curfew. In fact they didnt have a curfew but an agreement they had to be able to get up for school the next day not in a mood.
You have to build trust .. build them up not constantly knock them down.

I supported their choices to go abroad. Aided ds to research his rugby experience in NZ (didn't happen due to covid)

Supported dd3 to move to Denmark (did happen for 18 months)

Supporting dd2s wish to do her masters in Denmark.

Right now I am supporting dd1 and her fiance to plan their wedding.

Supporting aka parenting = being the stable safe place for them to always come to. Like Mil was to dh and I until the day she died aged 91. My parents lived abroad so were not very involved in my life.

Be there for your dd. But also allow her to explore her world safely. Right now she is more likely to run for the hills when 18 as you are so overprotective she can't safely fund her way to become an adult. Change that be the stable safe place for her.

Yeah I agree with the curfew being silly i can understand why you want to protect her but it could be doing the opposite effect. My parents were laid back although they had boundries and I was going out on the town with my friends as long as I didn't get really drunk, text and rang and my dad picked me up at midnight. As a result I was always streetwise and never drank to excess etc. By contrast at uni a girl I knew got herself pregnant and had to get her stomach pumped in the first year as she went wild as she was so suffocated by her parents. Not saying you are like this OP but a bit of freedom can be beneficial

I don't think any decent parent just stops raising their DC. It is a gradual process, where you slowly step back. and start advising rather than telling. But yes, at 16 you need to start giving her some freedom to make her own choices and mistakes or she will end up very resentful.

Is this real, 7pm? Come on now. That's not raising your child that's just grinding them down for sport.

The biggest joy in parenting is watching them gain more independence and confidence. If she doesn't learn lessons on her own she's not really going to appreciate them. Let her out in the cold without her coat she'll soon cop on. I think you can't micromanage a 16 year old

In 6th form I started to let go of the apron strings and let DD manage her own life with practical, financial and emotional support from me, and some basic household rules (e.g clean room, curfew etc). She's 25 now and still needs me!

No wonder she wants to move to Australia if you have a 7pm curfew and are arguing about coats. You should have started letting her make decisions about coats when she was about six so that she learned to be responsible for herself.

I expect my dd (17) to tell me when she's going to be home. To not make me worried about her by texting if it's dark and she's going to be late, she doesn't ask if she can go here or there. She tells us like we would tell her.

She had decided where she would like to go to university. We have talked about money so she knows there is a restriction there but other than that where she goes or not goes is up to her. She is looking at university overseas to but it genuinely hasn't crossed my mind to try to restrict her. I want her to be happy and do what she wants to do and have a wonderful life because I love her.

The 7pm curfew is ridiculous for a 16-year-old. She could, as you say, get a job and be completely independent of you at this age.

I have a DC a similar age (he just turned 17) and his curfew at age 16 was 11pm on weekends/during the holidays. If he was at the gym on a school night he needed to be in by 10pm. Now he's 17 we allow him out until later, but he always has to have a plan for how he's getting home and we do, on occasion, go and get him. We let him use Ubers on his own, but he's a boy. If I had a girl I probably wouldn't allow that.

Agree Gordon sounds sensible do the same. At 18 they are adults you need to gradually step back so they do more for themselves. I don’t want them leaving home at 18 and being a helpless Bambi in the headlights.

My friend said her Dd said she was glad she did her early partying while living at home with parents there. At her uni there are some from cloistered backgrounds going absolutely mental who are quite unsafe as they’ve never had any freedom. She had that stage at 16.

At some point you need to start helping her assess risks for herself. So perhaps instead of telling her to wear a coat, for example, you could talk through with her what the potential outcome is and the chances of that happening. She might not make the same choices as you, but in a few short years she will have to make these choices on her own, so teaching her a way of doing so instead of imposing your own choices on her might be a way to go. You won't be able to watch over her forever!

At 16 I expected them to do the following

Choose their college
Buy their own clothes, hair and body care products from an allowance
Do their own household chores (washing, ironing, washing up, cooking basic meals)

In return i turned a blind eye to

Late nights (providing they told me what time they were coming home and stuck to it)
Alcohol and smoking - I told them I wasn't impressed if they made these choices but they were theirs to make
Consensual sex with long term partners but this came with "a talk"

These are young people who are being prepared for independence, cut the apron strings.

I still insist she is home by 7pm during the winter and she thinks this is ridiculous.

You're setting her up to rebel with that rule.