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Original poster

To ground dd(13) all summer?

132 replies

becausesam · 03/08/2025 15:58

Dd(13) hasn’t had her finest week. To be fair to her, she’s polite and helpful at home, doing well at school and has never been in trouble before.

-She lied about where she was and who she was with ( or at least plans changed and she didn’t tell us) which meant meeting up with older kids.

-Dh was supposed to pick her up and she wasn’t there or answering her phone because it was dead, it took her 20 minutes to to contact us on her friends phone then another 20 minutes to actually turn up.

-She’s supposed to hand her phone in at night which she has been doing but found out she’s been using her sisters old phone instead to message through the night.

-she then last night climbed out of her bedroom window to meet her friend at our gate which we saw on our security camera. It looked like something was handed over during their short talk which she has denied.

Dh thinks she’s broken all trust and she should be grounded for the rest of the summer.
he has an older dd (my dsd) who had several traumatic experiences as a teen and so as a result tends to be overprotective and easily panicked.

I think 13 is a really important age for friendships, gaining responsibilities and pushing boundaries. If she’s isolated from her friends all summer its going to leave her out of the loop by the time school starts, lonely and depressed.

I also think if we ground her all summer when she eventually is allowed back out she’s going to be just be more sneaky and less likely to talk to us if she thinks we're likely to overreact.

Who is unreasonable? Him for wanting to ground her all summer or me for not? What would you do?

OP posts:
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SparklesGlitter · 10/08/2025 15:57

Batherssss · 03/08/2025 16:06

Absolutely not.
But you do sit down with her and tell her she has broken your trust and that she is on her last chance.
Insist on a tracker on her phone.
Talk about her safety, alcohol and boys.
Talk about loving her, wanting to trust her and how her safety is so important.

Don't isolate her from her friends.

This is perfect. She needs to know that you love her but that doesn’t automatically mean you trust her. You need to learn to trust her again and that she has to work to build that up. Then you can loosen the reins. It’s such a scary world out there. My first response would absolutely be to ground her for the summer. I almost think a bit of reverse psychology is needed. Grounding her would give her the excuse to climb out of the window? What you want to get to is her not doing that. And to her going out in the ‘right’ way? She also needs to see that not showing up is disrespectful so you need her to agree with you on some boundaries and dos and don’t’s etc (I hope this makes sense)
My heart goes out to you OP. This is such a tricky time but hopefully on the other side of this, you’ll have a daughter who’s not a pushover when she’s older ❤️ and one who is resourceful in taking care of herself

DarkForces · 10/08/2025 11:07

Surely grounding for a whole summer and having to be a prison guard to a grumpy bored teenager is as much a punishment on you?

Coco1379 · 10/08/2025 11:03

I used to tell my children that I would not punish late homecoming if they called before the curfew and told me where they were and why they would be late, simply because I needed to know they were safe - if anything bad happened to them - accident etc it would not be good to wait hours before sounding the alarm.
I also think a curfew is helpful for a child who does not feel comfortable in doing what friends are doing - s/he can then ‘blame’ parent’s curfew rather than friends deriding them for not going along with the crowd.
A whole summer grounding seems harsh to me, perhaps a warning that if anything like that happened again then the penalty would be more severe.

theGooHasGone · 10/08/2025 04:08

If she's ordinarily very well behaved but has started acting out to this degree, that's cause for concern IMO. It's probably best to encourage her to confide in you rather than administering a draconian punishment like grounding for six weeks. That said, I do believe there should be at least some consequence for her recent actions here otherwise she won't think twice about doing it again.

I agree with others that getting to go on the trip is supposed to be a high value reward and she hasn't really earned that with recent actions, so can be used to reinforce that while she lives with you she has to abide by your house rules, and not doing so puts fun things she wants to do such as trips like this in jeopardy, because you can't trust her.

Skybluepinky · 09/08/2025 20:52

County lines alarm bells ringing!!!!!

FriendIsAngry · 09/08/2025 20:12

Rather than grounding her, maybe look on it as needing much tighter measures for keeping her safe.

So she must leave the house with her phone fully charged and a battery pack.

She gets collected at the specified time. Preferably on foot.

You call or go around to the parents of the friend she met up with.

She doesn’t know how to, or will not keep herself safe. So her parents need to intervene rather than punish.

Atina321 · 09/08/2025 20:07

Consequences doesn’t have to mean being grounded. But she does need to earn your trust back - increased chores to earn freedom would be fair and teach her some responsibility.

BooBooDoodle · 09/08/2025 18:51

Confiscate both phones. Buy her a basic phone, not a smartphone, so she can still contact you if she needs to but has no means of social media or app use. If she wants a different phone then she has to earn it. I’d be livid at the sneaking around and abuse of trust and you have to make her accountable. There are apps you can put on your phones to shut other phones down and monitor their usage if you don’t get her a basic phone. Google Family link or if on Apple, set her age to 12 and control her apps and usage from another iPhone under a family account. You can also zone off your internet and shut parts of the house down, ie kids rooms or upstairs and you can shut down smart TVs, tablets etc. worth looking into.

WendyA22 · 09/08/2025 18:40

becausesam · 03/08/2025 15:58

Dd(13) hasn’t had her finest week. To be fair to her, she’s polite and helpful at home, doing well at school and has never been in trouble before.

-She lied about where she was and who she was with ( or at least plans changed and she didn’t tell us) which meant meeting up with older kids.

-Dh was supposed to pick her up and she wasn’t there or answering her phone because it was dead, it took her 20 minutes to to contact us on her friends phone then another 20 minutes to actually turn up.

-She’s supposed to hand her phone in at night which she has been doing but found out she’s been using her sisters old phone instead to message through the night.

-she then last night climbed out of her bedroom window to meet her friend at our gate which we saw on our security camera. It looked like something was handed over during their short talk which she has denied.

Dh thinks she’s broken all trust and she should be grounded for the rest of the summer.
he has an older dd (my dsd) who had several traumatic experiences as a teen and so as a result tends to be overprotective and easily panicked.

I think 13 is a really important age for friendships, gaining responsibilities and pushing boundaries. If she’s isolated from her friends all summer its going to leave her out of the loop by the time school starts, lonely and depressed.

I also think if we ground her all summer when she eventually is allowed back out she’s going to be just be more sneaky and less likely to talk to us if she thinks we're likely to overreact.

Who is unreasonable? Him for wanting to ground her all summer or me for not? What would you do?

What do you think your relationship will be like with your daughter if you ground her for the whole holidays?

I think your husband probably wants to ground her so he knows where she is and she'll be safe.

I don't think grounding her for that long will help anything.

NavyTurtle · 07/08/2025 16:44

becausesam · 03/08/2025 16:38

Well we though we had access to her phone every night which we would occasionally check but she’s been duping us by using a different one

Show quote history

Genius ! 😂

Madamum18 · 05/08/2025 17:53

I think you need to sit down and talk to her:

1.Ask her to explain why she did each of those things. Listen without interrupting

  1. Explain to her how things she did made you feel; how scared etc. Point out this in the context of you love her and want her to be safe AND you also want to trust her and for her to trust you. She must not interrupt.
  2. Check her understanding of what you have said whilst acknowledging her perspective on her actions
  3. Work out a way forward together whilst emphasising the non negotiable from you as the adult like:
No phone after ...o'clock...because. and no cheating on this because of building trust No climbing out of windows etc but agreed friends meet up ...days per week as a compromise .....etc etc.

Also clarify the consequences for the future if trust is broken again!!

BeachLife2 · 05/08/2025 12:10

@MoveOverToTheSea

I don't think the OP has any chance of getting to the bottom of what she was doing in the garden though, as her DH effectively has her under house arrest as it is.

The relationship seems to be based on restrictions and punishments rather than open communication, so there is no way her DD is going to open up about something like county lines.

MoveOverToTheSea · 05/08/2025 11:54

@BeachLife2 i agree.
However, this is a teen who got up in the middle of the night to get an unknown packet. For me, unless this is cleared up, you’re getting into safety territory where checking a 13yo phone is ok (after telling her, explaining why etc…..)

I also feel that this is ok to do IF phone was given with the agreement that a parent might check it from time to time. Ie the teen will know it’s a possibiliy which is vastly different than going to read a diary that is supposed to be and stay personal.

BeachLife2 · 05/08/2025 11:47

Frankly I don't agree with snooping on teens' phones at all. It is an invasion of privacy and the equivalent of checking diaries.

I would far rather have an open and honest relationship where they know they can come to me with any issues they are having on or offline without fear of harsh punishments.

Ime teens with parents like the OP often end up having to be extremely secretive due to overbearing parents, which can cause serious issues if they do end up in trouble.

Abcmum34 · 05/08/2025 10:45

I wouldn’t go for grounding all summer. I was grounded for a whole year when I was 13 - I know that’s more extreme! But, it definitely didn’t stop the behaviours I was being punished for if anything it made me worse and I just learned to lie better and had a really difficult relationship with my mum. I don’t know what the answer is though!

MellersSmellers · 05/08/2025 10:44

Grounding all summer is excessive and will.only encourage her to find ways round it, and likely lead to more conflict. I think 1 week is enough.
You need to sit her down and explain why you're concerned, what the rules are, and the fact that the more you can trust her the greater freedom she will have.

Hankunamatata · 05/08/2025 10:37

So each one gets a consequnce. Lying alone would be grounding for a week.

-She lied about where she was and who she was with ( or at least plans changed and she didn’t tell us) which meant meeting up with older kids.
GROUNDED

-Dh was supposed to pick her up and she wasn’t there or answering her phone because it was dead, it took her 20 minutes to to contact us on her friends phone then another 20 minutes to actually turn up.
EXTRA CHORES

-She’s supposed to hand her phone in at night which she has been doing but found out she’s been using her sisters old phone instead to message through the night.
NO PHONE FOR A WEEK

-she then last night climbed out of her bedroom window to meet her friend at our gate which we saw on our security camera. It looked like something was handed over during their short talk which she has denied.
PUNISHEMENT THAT HITS HARDEST FOR AT LEAST A WEEK

check your WiFi you can see if devices connected. Im suspecting she was given a phone

Hankunamatata · 05/08/2025 10:34

Wee bit of grounding, lots of chores and id be tempted to give her a brick phone for a couple of weeks

Sunshineandgrapefruit · 05/08/2025 10:29

I would take her phone off her for a week ( and use the time to lock it down/ check messages etc), enforce a curfew and tell her sister not to go giving her old phones. Explain she can win her phone back by showing she can stick to the rules but every time she doesn't you keep the phone for an extra week. I would however crack down hard on the sneaking out. I would phone the other girls parents to tell them what happened and not allow her out with that friend. She's 13! Completely unacceptable behaviour from her and very dangerous.

MageQueen · 05/08/2025 08:42

Agree with everyone else this is extreme. I also can't help thinking that this level of behaviour from a usually well behaved child screams that the rules have been too restrictive for a while and she's pushing back, most likely because all of her friends have more independence and/or becuase she's not had much independence before so doesn't actually know how to handle what she's now getting.

Constant never ending checking of phones at this age is, in my opinion, not fair. yes, you have to do some checking - but it should be spot checks. At that age, we didn't have mobile phones but we did spend hours talking on the phone, writing notes, writing in our diaries, talking to each other and if our parents had been reading/listening to all of those conversations it would have been mortifiying. We'd have done ANYTHING to hide the details of our interactions from them if that had been the case.

I think you and your DH need to wind back some of the restrictions frankly. Use this as an opportunity to reset boundaries. Agree what is and isn't okay, be a bit more flexible, and set up a new process for the future.

BeachLife2 · 05/08/2025 08:36

It sounds like your DH wants her living in a prison camp tbh due to her anxiety.

It is not appropriate to expect a running commentary on exactly who she's with and what she's doing. It's infantilising.

Chompingatthebeat · 05/08/2025 08:29

I have never grounded any of my kids, its a terrible concept

NoisyLemonDog · 05/08/2025 08:25

She's 13 not 15 or 16, very much a vulnerable young teenager that needs your protection. The window, older kids and lying would worry me a lot, the rest might be normal. Going back to basics with a curfew and vastly reduced, heavily monitored phone access would be good. I wouldn't want her going on the big trip if she lies and is hanging around with older kids.

TheaBrandt1 · 05/08/2025 08:15

Friends have a Dd with autism who displayed these behaviours the very expensive professionals they see did not advise “grounding” as a solution. You need to work with the young person in keeping themselves safe as some pp have set out.

Pottedpalm · 05/08/2025 08:02

I would be concerned about what happened at the gate. Why did she need to meet the friend in person if nothing was handed over?