to tell DD she can't visit this friend again

[missimperfect]

DD has just finished year 7 and just turned 12. I am finding it a bit of a shock getting used to being "out of the loop" when I was quite involved at primary school and knew the other parents etc. So maybe I just don't know the etiquette here and am being unreasonable but...

DD asked if she could visit a friend today - arranged by text. I have never met this friend. So I took her over to the house expecting to see the mum (or dad) when I dropped her off. This is what I would usually do. Quite often the parent will even say "come in" etc when we first meet.

But today we turn up, the girl answers the door and clearly just expects DD to go in and me to leave. No sign of a parent. I hang around for a moment and ask a couple of friendly questions hoping that a parent might come to the door if they hear us chatting, but no.

Now I know I will get slated for this but I am not comfortable - the hallway is dark, dirty and reeks of smoke. No other rooms are visible as there is only stairs and a closed door through to the rest of the house. Empty beer bottles piled in a box by the door.

But I decide to risk it - tell DD to call if any problems, say I will be back in a couple of hours to collect her. When I return to collect - again no sign of any parent. I ask DD how it went etc, seems fairly harmless although they mostly just sat around. She saw the dad once briefly in the kitchen. No one else.

So should I not let her visit again? I just don't feel comfortable about it but am I just being a bit precious?

cormoran, me and my dcs always arrange a 'safe word' so if they not happy and want to come home then they text me and act ill.

I pik them up. has been used a few times and works well.

just, what do the other parents say? would agree that's defiantly a case for talking to them if possible also where are they getting it from?

My parents were also happy for me to use them as the "excuse" if I ever wasn't happy/didn't want to do something.

As a child I was very happy to use 'my mother won't let me' - but I was the one choosing to use it.
Now that there are mobile phones it is so much easier to get out of situations- they can even do as thebody suggests with illness or have a code word where you can phone them and say 'sorry you will have to come home because .............. With a reason.

Half the problem is that OP's DD is only just 12 yrs old. It in 6 weeks time her year group will be turning 13yrs. If she was to write my DD is almost 13yrs rather than just 12yrs, people would be expecting greater freedom. I found, with DS with August birthday, that it was much harder because he had to go with the freedoms of those who were almost a year older- you can't say ' you are the baby if the class- wait 6 months or so'.
It was for that reason he went camping after his GCSEs and he was still only 15yrs.

When my DCs were younger i told theym could say they had a headache if ever they wanted to come home and I wouldn't mind.

thebody, we too used a safeword, it was "lasagne". My DCs would say something like "are we still having lasagne?" and that was my cue to kick in and say "you have to come home now". That way I got the blame and they still looked "cool" in front of their mates, lol.

When I was at secondary school my parents didn't meet any of my friends parents, why would they? I also went to their houses after school when their parents were at work.

You have to gradually allow independence and try to ensure that you have installed morals and good judgement skills in your own children.

cory and celticclan - I like what you are saying about trusting them to use their judgement but (and DC are still just coming up to the relevant age so I've not put it to the test yet) I am still not sure how that works. Do you think it is better for your DC to go to a house where they feel unsafe, and register that they feel that way, and learn from that experience how to handle themselves in an unpleasant situation rather than have a parent on hand to check first and to whisk them away from any danger or uncertainty?

I had a very free childhood, borderline neglect, and got into endless dodgy situations from the age of about 12. I survived them all, living on wits, but when I went to uni lots of people found me very brittle and abrasive. Several people even confided that they thought something awful must have happened in my past to make me so difficult. It hadn't! But I had too many defenses put up due to surviving without back up from a youngish age, and didn't know how to lark around and be silly and carefree, like the rest of them.

I used to long for a set of parents who cared where I was, who with and what I was doing, so have been that way with DC. But perhaps however we are, over protective or underprotective - our DC will want whatever we don't offer.

I'm not sure you can tell from dropping them off that they are likely to encounter dangerous situations, there is nothing in the OP to suggest that this was a risky situation.

I think you have to drum values and common sense into your children and hope that it works. I'm not sure what else you can do. I think it's great that we have mobile phones these days because it does make it easier to keep tabs on your children.

I will not let my children have as much freedom as I had because I think I had too much but I think it really important to find the right balance. Ds is 9 and is allowed to buy sweets at the local shop, go to the park with friends and walk to and from school on his own. My dn is nearly 15 and she isn't allowed to do anything on her own yet. I can't help thinking that she will rebel or struggle to make her own decisions as she gets older.

racingheart : I think there's a balance to be had. While you learnt to use your wits and developed "judgement" that way, it doesn't sound as if your parents actually cared where you were :(

Those of us on this thread advocating encouraging their children to develop their own resources and independence do care. My heart was in my mouth the first time I let ds (age 7) walk to school on his home and cycle back from school home from school (with its "dangerous" right turn) on his so I watched him in secret the first couple of times . The cycling from school was a difficult one (all the previous year, we had let him cycle to school on his own but had cycled back with him) but I realised that the only way he was going to learn to judge that junction for himself was to do it on his own

In the same way, my parents actively encouraged me not to apply to my "home" university as they wanted me to develop independence in a safe sort of half way house, which going away to Uni did.

It also depends on the kid too - some children have more common sense at an earlier age than others!

I remember reading a newspaper article in the Herald (a number of years ago) talking about how and why there was no legal minimum age for leaving children unaccompanied, although if something happens and you are deemed to be negligent you can still get prosecuted. The spokesperson for Strathclyde Police actually made the point that some 11 year olds are highly responsible whereas some 15 year olds you wouldn't trust your granny with!

I must admit I don't know all the parents of my secondary school children. If I do it's either because I knew them from primary or by sheer luck that I happen to come across at parents evening.

You have to trust to your child's judgement. They will chose friends themselves, you may never meet those friends unless they come to your house and even then they may just grunt at you and scuttle upstairs to play on the XBox or fester in front of YouTube. I have just tamed DS1's 'best' friend enough that he will say hello and exchange a few sentences and they have now finished yr 11. As for meeting their parents...... as I say it's down to luck.

It is all about trying to find the balance - that illusive balance between protecting them and allowing them to be independent. That means risk analysis.

In this instance the OP was risk checking with MN to see if her judgement was off / right & it is clear from the responses that we all risk analyse differently.

Every DC is different & each circumstance is slightly different too. To some degree, mobile phones offer a layer of comfort that none of us would have had, in that unless held at gun point, most DCs could use their mobile and phone a parent / friend and get help.

Someone further up the thread said that growing up she'd been to a friends house where they all smoked and they were lovely people - but times have changed. For those of us in our 30s and 40s, people smoked in their own homes without a second thought when we were kids and no one thought it was dangerous for kids to be surrounded by smoking adults. Nowadays everyone knows it is really unhealthy & it is really frowned upon for adults to smoke in rooms and cars with children - so I would be way more concerned about a house that reeked of fags, than my mother would have been 30 years ago. Different risk analysis!

It reminds me if an experience I had when I was about 12, maybe younger. My friend and I got dropped off and another friend's house by her parents. We had never been there before and were dropped off at the gate. Upon entering I felt immediately uncomfortable. I soon became very aware that the dad was v drunk (he was supposed to be driving us home at the end of the stay). He was also smoking heavily (maybe not just tobacco). There were vicious looking dogs and dog mess everywhere and a couple getting it on in one if the rooms. I felt very uncomfortable and trapped. I did pluck up the courage to call home and ask if my dad could come and get us (discretely not trying to say the dad was drunk off his head). My dad was cross and wasn't happy he was going to have to come out. I also didn't know the address or which part of town we were in even. It was a lucky escape and I will be very careful into whose care I deliver my children in future.

I had a minor feeling of panic when my nearly 16 year old was late back from her Work Experience placement. She's rung to say she was on her way at 4.30 the previous two days. This time it was 6 and her mobile just said to leave a message.

She is doing her placement with a group of barristers and part of me thought she'd be in court and the judge was sitting late. (This was the case. She rang me twenty minutes later) However what really rattled me was the idea that the chambers might be throwing a party or going out for post-work drinks and some young barristers might be plying her with wine.

This may not seem relevant. However my point is - again - that those who are perceived to be nice/'one of us' etc are likely to do us far more harm, than those who we recognise as 'not like us' and who we are likely to be on our guard with.