To ask how to deal with this

[WhitePhantom]

DS (13) and a friend (14) went to another friend's last night, stayed over. It was the other friend's 14th birthday. They were just staying in, playing xbox, eating crap, no sleep - the usual.

Turns out they went out and about at 2am. DS is getting very annoyed when I ask where, for how long, what did they do. I don't like him being out at that hour - people coming out of pubs / clubs, etc.

What to do? I don't want to be so heavy handed that he never tells me anything again, don't want to make too big a deal, don't want to make too small a deal - just want him to know this is not OK, and why.

Help!

While they know that scissors are sharp it's entirely possible that they wouldn't know that drunk adults are likely to be roaming the streets at that hour for eg. Not the same thing.

Which has nothing to do with him getting 'very annoyed' that is mother has dared to question where he went, what he did and why.

That is the real issue here imo. He's 13, he doesn't get to be 'very annoyed' and refuse to answer.

He's had no consequence for that at all.

Worra is right - I did the same thing with a few friends at that age - we were stopped by the police and taken home when we couldn't give them a satisfactory explanation as to why we were roaming the streets at 3am. To say my parents were deeply unimpressed would be the understatement of the century.

Does he have a smartphone ? You'd be amazed how they track you ....

SexandDrugsandaNiceCuppa I did a similar thing but didn't get caught.

But OMG if I had, there would be no way I'd have dared to get very annoyed at my Mum when she questioned me!

In fact I would have been grovelling for weeks.

I remember my dad saying he was selling my pony, aka The Worst Threat Ever. (He didn't, but made me think he was going to for about a month). Never did it again!

So Pengggwn in a year and a bits time suddenly ‘doing nothing’ is a good idea and won’t send out the message that you’re ok with their behaviour? Makes sense

mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/well/family/why-your-grumpy-teenager-doesnt-want-to-talk-to-you.html

But Pengggwn it depends on what you meant by dealing with something firmly. The last thing I want to do is push him away and / or drive it underground. How would you define dealing with it firmly in a way that keeps him onside and keeps him talking to me? And I surely don't expect to only have one chat / deal with one incident that that's the end of it till he's an adult!!

I certainly didn't appreciate the dangers in many of the things that I did as a teen - eg. walking home alone after a night out - and having a tonne of bricks brought down on me wouldn't have helped.

I've talked to him and talked to both mums, and we're all in agreement. We're not going to have any sleepovers for a while, and are going to keep in close contact when they're getting together - try to keep one step ahead of them (or, more realistically, try not to fall more than one or two steps behind them!)

All sounds very sensible, OP.

You appear to be talking to yourself, Pengggwyn.