What are your house rules when no parent is home?

[LongTimeNoNC]

I'm in new territory!
What are your rules for your teenagers when there is no parent home for the day? Are they allowed a friend over? Friends? Boy/girlfriend?

Are they allowed out for the whole day? Do you expect them to stay the majority of the day at home and go out for a couple of hours?

What's reasonable or normal here?

Erm, just to treat the place respectfully and let me or dh know if they’re planning on being out.
He’s not got any friends that are girls so not worried about him having girls round and he’s got 3 lads he’s friends with who we’re fine with coming round.
But he’s quite unsociable really and doesn’t do much of his own back!

Well it doesn’t really matter because you won’t be there to know if they break them or not.

Just ask that they clean up after themselves and don’t eat all the food.

Can’t see why you would want to police how long they went out for / stayed in for!

Argh! That's a bit like my DC1, doesn't want to invite anyone over, perfectly happy to stay home all day. DC2 however has just moved schools and I don't know any of her new friends or their families. (Wouldn't have had an issue with some of her friends from her old school coming over as I knew them).
Also now has a "boyfriend".

Before she'd have just stayed home with DC1 but they no longer have the same inset days.

Depends on the age and how responsible they are I suppose, you know your kids best.
Mine are allowed to go out but to let me know when they're nipping out.
No using the stove especially if they have friends over as its a gas stove. They can use the airfryer and oven if needed.
Ds doesn't really have friends who are girls so don't have that issue yet.

Dont burn the house down
No guests without permission
Clear up after yourself
Do any requested chores (like emptying the dishwasher, kerping an eye on washing etc, they arent scrubbing the house with a toothbrush!)
No candles.

You haven’t said how old they are which is crucial to the question.

DC2 is 14

To let me know if their friends have eaten us out of house and home so that I can get some top ups on the way home.

If they are going out I'd want to know where they were going if mid teen, obviously late teen, accept that you probably won't know.

"No wild parties; don't burn the house down"

Now standing joke in our house; the DC repeat it back to us when we are on our own.

Other than that, never had rules as such; we normally had a general discussion about what they planned to do. We'd expect them to treat the place respectfully and tidy up after themselves regardless. By 14, the "rules" weren't rules but just inbuilt norms.

Don't use the hob

Let us know if you're going out and when you get back in

Friends over is fine

Don't do anything that you wouldn't do if there was a parent present

DC don't have boy/girlfriends as yet. I wouldn't have a rule on this, but would be guided by their comfort - if DC didn't want a physical relationship yet, I would give them a rule to use as an excuse/buffer to protect them and make it easier for them to stick to their own limits.
If they do want a physical relationship, no rules I create will stop that from happening!

At 14/15 ours only had same sex friends really.

House as we left it on our return
No food upstairs
Nothing broken
No ball games inside the house
No booze - no fags

We had known most of their friends from the primary years.

Don't answer the door unless its someone you know and are expecting

If you cook clean the mess up afterwards

Don't leave the TV on the horror channels

16 year old DC

"The cat is in charge"

My DS was super sensible, more so that me 😆.

My only real rule was not to blast music and annoy the neighbours and limit to 2 friends at any one time so it didn't spill over to being a party.

My dad just used to say - don’t burn the house down, and if you do, don’t be there when I get back.

I think this depends on the children really. I expect Ds to clean up after himself, and will often leave with instructions to unload the dishwasher or whatever. Friends coming over is fine, but again, if they make a mess, it must be cleaned up. I don't expect him to tell me if he's in/out upt o a point - he feels that as we have tracking on his phone he doesn't have to tell me anything, I feel like if he's going beyond his usual huants in the village - friends houses, gym, town centre - he should just give me a heads up so I know. But basically, anything he's allowed to do when we're here, he's allowed to do when we're not.

Bigger issue in past has been things like not closing doors when going out etc. But I think we've mostly nipped that in the bud now. He's 15 (just)

mine were they had to ask permission for anyone to come into the house and no more than one person at a time.

Ds aged 15 at the time brought 3 of his mates into the house once, they thought it would be funny to mess around with lighters and papers, egging each other in to do god knows what and set fire to one of my kitchen units. Luckily they put it out and I came home to 3 very shaky and subdued boys. Ds should have known better and these lads weren’t bad lads at all just very immature.

since then I’ve been strict about who comes into the house . I also have a ring door bell too now so I Know!

No candles and dd3 wasn’t allowed to cook. She’s 16 now and still isn’t, she keeps leaving things on.

If they went out they had to tell me.

Yeh agree with others. We never had rules about going out or being in. If they were out, please lock the door! And let me know if they were going to be late or not in for dinner. Oh and please don't cook and eat the whole chicken that is there for Sunday. That was mostly to DS2 haha. Allowed to cook tho (I added that as I have read on MN of parents who say 'no cooking' which I find odd). I see a couple of posters say "don't use the hob" – really? You don't trust your 14yo to do that safely? I think if a 14 keeps leaving things on then that needs to be addressed. What will they do at uni?

I think if you trust them to be on their own in the house (totally fine at 14 obvs) then you trust them to sort themselves out. My DC were allowed to have friends over of course. None of them ever had a partner at 14 so that was not an issue.

Don’t eat all the food
Don’t open the front door unless it’s prearranged
I don’t mind if they want to cook but they need to clear up afterwards
Any problems contact me
They don’t tend to have friends over when I’m not in which solves that issue

At 14 - if you cook don't forget to turn the oven off. If you go out don't forget to shut all the doors (door has been left wide open in the past at the back!) Don't leave a massive mess in the kitchen.
Mine weren't prone to having big gatherings so I didn't ever think about that.

We don't have rules: she just behaves like she always would at home and her friends are very welcome. Surely DC1 will object/report back if DC2 is doing anything '.unacceptable'.

DD14 is very much encouraged to use the hob and is perfectly capable of cooking. If my 14 year old couldn't cook a meal I would be teaching them rather than prohibiting cooker use.

Have a shelf in the cupboard and fridge that they aren't allowed to eat from so you don't come home to the next few days meals gone. But have plenty they can eat.

DC2 is in charge of cooking when I'm not there, wouldn't trust DC1 and he'd probably just eat cereal anyway!
I'm torn between saying only one person over because if she asks for her boyfriend, I'm not sure that's a god idea. (At the moment it seems to be him walking her to school and inviting her to play football at the park level).
Each have their own key/phone.

I guess I'm a bit stuck due to the house move - I don't know the usual haunts of her new classmates, nor any of the classmates. I don't want to limit her freedom but I do want to have some boundaries.

I haven't spoken to her yet, wanted to get an idea of what's reasonable first.

@Bigtrapeze DC1 will be at school, he's still at their old school. (And to be fair, DC2 is more sensible in general)

Leave my booze alone!

tbh all my dc made new friends, or pretty much, at secondary, so I didn't met their parents as a rule. Or if I did it was more organic, like at a concert "here's Izzy's mum" rather than anything organised.
Why do you need to know the parents?