DS not home yet

@SheinIsShite

those of us with adult kids have been there and learned to let go, it’s hard to sleep with them out! I don’t think trackers are helping either, people become obsessed with knowing where young adults are. I wouldn’t have had a clue about my dd on a Saturday night most the time because she boarded for sixth form and they regularly climbed out of windows and through the hole in the fence (found out after!) but they looked after each other and are still close with some

That's lovely. I'd have liked to have had the trackers. Mine have always let me know, luckily. I have always tried not to pry into their lives too much and it's worked out well for us. They know I care about them and am interested. It's a very fine line. Yes I agree about the difference a year can make and that it can vary so much as they mature at different ages.

Embarrassing him might make him more likely to turn off his location or leave his phone somewhere he's not.
And she did know where he is, due to the location.

DS is 18 (still at school) so I'm obviously not going to go looking for him, but I do still worry a lot! Sometimes he's goes out, says he'll be home at 11 and I wake up at 4 am and he's not home. Doesn't answer the text - until I say "Is everything ok, would you like me to come and pick you up?". Usually an immediate informative response!

When was this, if you had no landline?

Great news he is ok, you need to talk to him and tell him what you expect if he is staying out etc.

I’m reading this and dread this stage of parenting. I think you dealt with it well x

1. explain to me how she would have attempted to find out
2. explain to me how I could have kept her informed.

Would have landed her in care? I understand from your PP that you're looking at things from the perspective of a child who was neglected but this is a totally inaccurate thing to say. I'm a social worker and I assure you that a teenager being out of home for 48 hours because she's busy working/socialising wouldn't 'land in care'.

Not at 17 it wouldn’t.

This in spades.

Teens/young adults absolutely should tell their parents where they are or if their plans change and if they don’t, or disrespect the boundaries then firm words should be had and plans come up with. (But not be punished or told “I do this for you so you should do this for me”.)

But chasing your kids down is not going to do anyone any favours.

And just because we aren’t getting in the car and chasing them down doesn’t mean we aren’t worried, cross, frustrated. And not going chasing them down doesn’t make us “cool parents”.

I was going to say, I’m pretty sure when I was 17 my parents didn’t stay awake to see if I came home or decided to stay at a friend’s or at my boyfriend’s, and I don’t think they’d have thanked me for a phone call after midnight either! Not to say they didn’t care - they would still pick me up from various places if needed (sometimes in their pyjamas!) but they weren’t constantly checking up on me. Mind you, that was before mobile phones, so it would have much harder to do so.

I was a teenager in the mid to late 90s and actually Mum would collect us sometimes, when she didn't as gone to a club and said we were staying at each others homes we had some quite risky experiences including having to get rid of some men we didn't like at a London station as we had missed the last train home and had to wait for the first one to run! I suppose DH and I are informed by our own youth. Our youngest is 15 and wanting to go to parties now but all of the parents collect, or DD gets offered a lift by other parents who I haven't met but nobody would let their DD's walk home alone across the City as the houses are dispersed all over the City. I think the tracker has worried me more with DD but then again helpful.

I would have said your set up was unusual at such a young age. And would have landed you in care these days.

Some of us were working full time and didn’t need molly coddling. Too busy being out 5 nights a week.

Is he broadly sensible with decent friends? Also have a 17 year old she seems really grown up. We trust her now and will go to bed if she’s out after checking she’s ok. They often stay up late after the pub chatting or playing board games. She either stays over or gets an uber back if she’s working the next day. She’s 17 going on 25 though. .

Plus I was 17. I’d been working since I was 15. I lived far away from the city and couldn’t afford taxis home all the time by myself. It was absolutely no big deal.

I was cared for properly. We had no methods of communication in those days.

My DS is 18 but asked me to have the tracker when he was a sixth former not the other way around as he wanted to see where we (DH & I) were and preferred it to me texting him all the time, I was hesitant as I work in Privacy/info security and was worried about the ethics.

I would have been worried because of the lack of contact as he could have been very drunk and being sick. At 18 it's not like you stop worrying, my DS went to a music event in East London last week we live an hour and a bit away from that part of London and he came home in the early hours, I had work the next day as did he but there's definitely a shift in maturity between now and sixth form days, he even looks like a young man not a boy, the fact is, there is a reason 18 is an adult and there isn't really much you can do about it at 17 they are not. However, DS would let me know if he was staying out later or over someone's house as there is a maturity of thought that he had less of in the sixth form.

Once I adjusted to my oldest son being out late I did too to be honest. He did get really good at keeping in touch so I'd wake up to a string of messages like;
"just in town with John still"
"heading to Jane's now"
"still at Janes"
"back home"
He would message me when he got home so I didn't even have to get up to check when I woke up!

I say that as someone left to run free, I had no idea now to look after myself. Or how much harm could come to me. It felt like neglect rather than freedom, and I envied the teens that were valued enough due their parents to come out and get them, making sure they were alright.

They had the benefit of that love and care. Being left to roam has its limits, and you are definitely exposed to more than most.

No I didn't I said Being able to track our kids and text them for immediate responses is making our generation of parents vastly overprotective. and I stand by that. I didn't say I don't track my DS, I do, with his consent, which he is fine with at the moment. But I'm very mindful of the potential to become overly involved, overprotective and paranoid about his whereabouts. I try very hard to keep it in proportion. I do not want to limit his life because of my maternal anxieties. Those are my responsibility to keep a hold on, and not allow to impact on him.

Staying out to late (11pm/12pm) is not being treated like a child. Easing your child into adulthood slowly is the bare minimum of parenting.

Teens tend to feel safe rather than suffocated with some light boundaries and limitations. It does actually keep them safer, they sense they are loved, valued and worthy because their parents care about them.

So?
he's 17. Why does she need to know exactly who's house he is staying at or with whom?

Suffocated and stressed

I didn’t feel like that in the slightest
and my son… we’ll never given a whiff he does either. Sitting in the car waiting to take him to rugby!

Yes and no. I acknowledge that parenting a boy is different to parenting a girl. But I've also been a 17 year old girl and can imagine how suffocated and stressed I would have felt if treated like a child at that age. There's still a balance to strike.