What fairly normal things do you not let your DC do?

[Mayflyoff]

I won't let my DC have candles, my 14 yo is not impressed. I also don't let them go on fairground rides, though I'm OK with permanent rides at theme parks. Are there things you don't let your DC do, that their friends seem to do?

That’s the law
manufacturers often give higher threshold, which was my point

Because a lot are in this thread often driven by anxiety rather than teaching

Not surprising given most of us love our children more than ourselves!

Loving your children doesn’t mean giving into any and all anxieties.

Indeed

but it does explain why some might doesn’t it

This is why I had a rule where if they came to be about something - either something they'd done, something someone else had done or something I'd see on their phone - then they got help and advice. No sanctions. Just help and guidance.

It stood us in very good stead and even though there was two occasions where I wanted to ground them forever and remove all tech it meant they came to me early and we could sort things before they got worse.

I'm hoping it works as well again with our younger kids.

We always said that it wasn’t so much what they did but how they dealt with it that really mattered, so the most important thing was not to tell lies or blame someone else, those were the things they would have been in trouble for, rather than whatever it was that had happened. Also to pick your battles, so many things don’t really matter in the long run or can be flexible rather than rigid rules, eg we never had a strict time to go to bed, it was flexible within reason and no one was ever made to go to bed at the exact same time every night. We followed a routine, but there was flexibility around actual timings depending what was happening that evening and the next day. Never had any bother getting them to go to bed and they are sensible about it as young adults.

This is why I had a rule where if they came to be about something - either something they'd done, something someone else had done or something I'd see on their phone - then they got help and advice. No sanctions. Just help and guidance.

Absolutely. When my DD was younger I did remove her phone for safety reasons, she needed a bit of a reset and understood it wasn’t intended as a punishment - we talked a lot about what had happened, why and the impact on her including her feelings about losing her phone. She’s now responsible and brings anything unusual immediately because she knows it won’t end in shame and punishment.

We have clear boundaries but discuss things and I’m open to adjusting things as they get older. My two are open, respectful kids with a usual level of teenage push back - keeping that relationship open and transparent is my key focus over the next few years.

Yes I do.

Parenting that's based entirely on the parent's own anxieties and fears also isn't love.

Well yes but that is exactly why we need to protect them from our anxieties - they need to live their lives and that will at times be messy and it will mean at time mistakes and doing things they regret. Our role isn’t to stop them it is to both equip them as much as we can to deal with what life throws at them but also be there instantly and without judgment when they need us to be.

one of the stories we have in my family is when my uncle got so drunk at 15 he passed out. His friends went straight to my grandad who walked up the road with his wheelbarrow put him in and wheeled him home. He told the friends how proud he was that they didn’t leave him and that he should be pleased they trusted him enough to get him.

As much as we would like to keep them little and young and where we can see them we can’t.

for me any rule or boundaries driven by anxiety and fear is a bad one

No tattoos, vaping or hard drugs.

But in MN it's "perfectly normal" to do hard drugs and "we all did it when we were young and now we are still fine"

Bit late on this one, but a recent chat with 15 year old resulted in finding out we had banned Little Mix at some point in her Primary Years! I have no recollection of this, but she regaled me with tales of Primary School discos dancing to them and feeling very rebellious!
Oh and Snapchat is still not allowed, mainly due to unsolicited d**k pics, but we talked about the reasons and she was happy enough with that - for now!

I don't let my girls sleepover at their friends' 11 & 13. I was abused by a friend's dad when I was 12 but have never told anyone.

I wouldn't let mine go on sleepovers/holidays with anyone .
I was SA as a child and it's affected my thinking of course .

Sleepovers, fizzy drinks/squash - unless we are out for a meal/event, slime used to be banned, but they are more sensible now. We do allow the eldest diluted wine (spritz) with meals, her Italian cousins are allowed. They have a much more sensible drinking culture over there and alcohol is taken responsibly as part of a meal.

Cartoons. Or any computer/iPad games.

oh also, play the recorder. Cannot stand the horrible shrill sound of those things 😂

Not at all. 12 year old here and we don’t have it in the house. We don’t drink it so when she’s tried it she’d not been keen so is happy with water and a cup of tea!

How do you stop tattoos?! They aren’t allowed a tattoo until 18 anyway then they can get one if they want and there is sod all you can do about it!

I didn’t let mine say toilet or pardon.

Definitely with you on that! Tattoos yes pardon absolutely not.

You can’t stop tattoos. I hate them but DD now has several. You can only get them when you’re an adult, so a parent has no say.

I just show them the tattoo DH got when he was 18. It's enough for them to understand that 18 year olds can be idiots.