Is DH or DS?

[bumpsoon]

DS is 17 and my DH has told him that through the week he has to be in by 11pm , he doesnt have a curfew on friday or saturday as such ,except that if he is staying over somewhere he needs to let us know in advance so we can lock up . DH's reasoning is that he isnt on holiday and has to get up early ,well 8am ,and when DS comes in he isnt the quietest child and will wake DH up . I on the otherhand can sleep through anything . I think DH is being reasonable ,but DS doesnt .

This has not gone as i expected ,so wont be showing this thread to DS! Im a terrible mother in that i dont wait up for him , i also have an 18 month old who likes to get up to listen to the dawn chorus , plus the way i see it , if he is in a horrible accident ,the police will come regardless of whether im asleep or not ,so i usually just leave the door unlocked if DH is away .

oh God I am not looking forward to my boys being 17yrs old

the thought of worrying about what they are doing until midnight.......

ferrying them around in the early hours.............

Urg!

Oh Christ when I was at 17 the idea of having a curfew would have been ridiculous. I was just very quiet when I came in, answered any calls/texts asking if I was safe and learnt to navigate the creaky stairs according to my father's snoring!

I'm surprised to hear about 17 year olds not being 'allowed' to have a key! I had keys from the age of 11 at least (maybe younger, I can't remember exactly). It's not just for coming home late at night, but also during the day, if they get home from school while you're out, or in the holidays or at weekends if you and them are out doing separate things and they might get home first? I can understand the reasoning if they keep losing them, but surely it would be very awkward to manage?

I don't think I'd try to impose a curfew on a 17 year old, but they should come in quietly and try not to wake anyone up! I wouldn't leave my door unlocked at night either.

I don't see a problem with a curfew at his age in the week, after all if he can't come in quietly/ keeps loosing his keys then he's bought it on himself! how ever when he turns 18 it would be unreasonable to set a curfew

Yes, DoMeDon, my two children are now 22 and 19. I think a lot of parents get a really rude awakening when their children hit their teenage years. It's not the same as when you (the royal 'you'!) were young.

Many, many teenagers live their lives in a different time zone to the rest of us, sleeping till late and up till late. It's hard to live with but even harder to fight. The way I look at it is that it's a relatively short period of time when they are old enough to go out but too young to have their own place. It takes a hell of a lot of compromise and anyone who says they won't have certain behaviour is more than likely in for a battle.

I sleep quite lightly and hate it if I'm expecting them home but they are late as I can't sleep until then. I've found it a lot easier if I know roughly when they'll be back - so if they say they'll be in at 2am I won't bother staying awake.

OP, does your husband sleep lightly because he is expecting him back at any minute?

DS1 only had a curfew on a school night at 17, and that was 11pm. Holidays and weekends, it's up to him what he does. He's very good at letting me know what he's up to and where he is, and even at 18 he sleeps late. If your DS has lost keys, then he has to pay for new ones.

YANBU. I'm amazed how many are saying YABU. IMO while he lives at home and doesn't pay rent and doesn't take care of all his own stuff then he is not an adult.

If he wants to be an adult, he can be a lodger - start paying rent, buying his own food, clearing up after himself etc. Then he won't have a curfew.

To paraphrase Spiderman - with adult privileges come adult responsibilities.

I'm eldest of 4, youngest is currently 17, and all curfews stopped when we left secondary school. We just had to say where we were going, who with and when we were coming back. I would have laughed my ass off had my parents tried to curfew me (and I'm the most sweet & sensible of the lot of us.)

But if I was rocking in the small hours of the morning, making and row and generally being a lazy, messy sod, I would have been told to leave. In fact, my sister was told to leave.

I think your DS must be quiet when he comes in, otherwise he's not adult enough to stay out. Why does he keep losing his front door key? Also, you can tell him, he's obviously not adult enough to stay out until when he wants. He can't have it all his own way.

My DS is 16 and, so long as I know where he is going, he can basically do what he likes. I have only said about once/twice that I don't want him to go somewhere and that has proved to be a good choice as events got out of hand at those places. He has had a front door key since he was 10 and has never lost it. He knows it's up to him to ensure that he has it with him at all times (having learnt the hard way that I'm not always here, and neither are the neighbours. I have friends, but he didn't want to go there and look stupid, so he had to wait outside in not good weather for me!)

He's not allowed to stay out till all hours during the week, because of school, but at the moment has just finished his GCSEs. This is the only time in his life that he will have this much holiday and so I have told him to enjoy it. He is responsible and hasn't gone to some parties/events as he has had to football ref the next day and knows that he must not be tired as then the game won't go well.

I think your DS needs to prove that he is responsible. Perhaps give him another key and tell him that if he does come in by the curfew during the week for a specified period and is quiet, then rules can be negotiated. Do you think DH will go with that?

What's wrong with the simple concept of revenge?
If your son wakes your husband after 11pm, your husband returns the compliment when he gets up at 4am.
He'll soon learn to come home quietly!

Oh you meant do I have experience of teenagers? Yes i do.

Don't assume not having my 'own' teenagers means I don't 'understand' - that's a fav teenager argument in fact

My 17 year old had no curfew. He is almost an adult 11pm is too early if he has no college or school.

There wasnt anywhere to go when I was 17, so I didnt go out in the week anycase. i suspect when our eldest is 17 we have a similar curfew.

I don't think it's appropriate for him to have a curfew at that age BUT he does need to learn responsibility (not losing keys) and respect. How about if he wakes your husband up, he has a curfew for the next 3 days; if he comes in without waking him up, no curfew? And there should be some other quid pro quo for losing a key. At 17 he should really be able to manage to keep a key safe.

I think it's an entirely reasonable time for him to be in on a week day.

Curfew of 11pm?? During holidays??!!?? The pubs ain't shut by that time FFS!

I had Saturday / holiday jobs from the age of 14 so had to get up but even so, I too would have thought my mum was cracking a joke if she'd curfewed me at 17. I had to let them know where I was and if I wasn't coming home, then where I was staying. Think I probably had a midnight curfew at that age during term time but to be honest, stayed in weekday evenings due to college work.

But yes, I had the courtesy to keep the noise down when I rolled came home steaming late.

Unfortunately for my son ,DH is a light sleeper, any noise wakes him ,i have suggested earplugs ! DS on the otherhand is very noisy when he comes in ,has to march into the bathroom to do his ablutions on returning home ,regardless of the hour , cannot walk upstairs has to stomp, oh and his bedroom door sticks so makes a loud noise when opening and shutting it . When i was his age and older if i came back later than 10.30pm and the lights were off ,i slept in the garage other than face the wrath of my mother

A lot of young people don't go out until 9pm so coming home for 11pm would give them no time at all. We can't leave our door unlocked here. Once it's shut it's locked so we would have to leave it wide open which we obviously can't do. When DD2 was out late she used to leave her keys down stairs when she came in so I wouldn't worry if I hadn't heard her. .

At 17, neither of my sons had curfews but as they were both at 6th Form College we had an understanding that week nights were for study/quieter time at home/reasonably sensible bedtimes. In return, they had absolutely no curfew at all at the weekends and in holidays. I liked to know if they planned to stay anywhere overnight and most Saturday nights involved partying till dawn - usually somewhere on top of the Downs with a sound system! As a result, a curfew would have been pointless because they usually came home for breakfast on Sundays, not at silly o'clock in the dead of night.

All this apparent liberality came with conditions though. The main one being that freedom came with responsibility. So there was no stomping around waking everyone else up, no losing keys, no vomiting on my stairs (or anywhere else other than the lavatory), and no requirement to collect anyone from police stations.

So, OP, I'd suggest to your ds that he, too, could have greater control over his life if he is prepared to exercise a spot of responsibility. If he can't cope with the idea of coming home quietly and not disturbing the household then he'll have to suffer being treated like a younger child and put up with curfews.

I have a 17 year old, and I'd set a curfew if her stomping around woke me up. It is my house after all. That said, she doesn't stay out after 11 anyway. I expect that may change when she hits 18 and can legally go to pubs. Luckily she lives in a granny flat with her own door.

so what age does the curfew seem unreasonable?
is 17 the magic number?