13 year Old

[miki14]

If you took your 13 year Old daughter and her friend - same age - to a resort of some kind, for a few days, and went to the movies, within the resort: would you notice (and react) if one of the girls went missing for almost 2 hours? (Long movie) or is she Old enough to handle whatever the reason for her leaving the movie (Cinema?) for almost 2 hours?

My DS is nearly 15 and he has a friend with anxiety, he knows this so will definitely be helpful when these scenarios arise. It is about being able to articulate her needs to her friends and understanding that some young people cannot cope with that responsibility, others can like my DS but he is older and very self assured, confident person. There is no right or wrong with friends at this age.

I think her Dad probably has very different ideas of supervision and that's where the issue lies. He was t being deliberately lax - that's what he would do with his DD.

I think definitely working on coping mechanisms is a must for DD so she can cope in situations such as this and others as she gets older.

I think wrapping her in cotton wool like some suggest wouldn't help and would make it worse.

I have suffered anxiety/depression from a young age so can totally relate to your DDs situation. As a parent I can also respect if her Dad doesn't normally supervise he wouldn't see a need to here.

Hope your DD enjoys the rest of the trip @miki14 🌸

I think it's hard to understand why her friend either didn't go with her or tell her dad what was happening.

It’s nothing to do with allowing 13 year olds to go to the cinema on their own. No matter of the age of the person, if someone in my company disappeared for 2 hours without telling me, I’d be worried and would attempt to contact them or look for them.

I would b disappointed if my child didn't alert me when a friend didn't return. From the time that they went out without adults, they were told to look out for the rest of the group. We role played situations like what would you do if you're at the park and your friend hurts themselves.

I think that the dad was more careful than usual when he watched the film too. Most secondary kids in the UK would only take an adult if they were under 12 but wanted to watch a 12A ime.

I think it's best that OP stick to outings close to her so she can pick up her dd if necessary and discuss future strategies. (Calling you was a good idea though)

One of the key ways therapists help people learn to cope with panic attacks is to help them cope, and see that nothing bad happened. Your daughter handled her panic attack well and nothing bad happened.

If you now stop her from going away as a result of her panic attack, you will reinforce her anxiety. It is about the worst thing you could do.

I would not stop her going. She go to lokal cities with friends etc and is coping fine. But if had any kid with be to Big resort, i would notice Them missing for 2 hours!
She coudnt go back in movie, wasnt sure where they sat, it was Dark and filled with people.
So she Called me, we chatted on of. All was good, no drama.
But i was/am pissed of they didnt react that she was gone for 2 hours.
She is happy today , no worries .

Any kid with me ..

I think your own anxiety and anger about this is more harmful to your daughter than anything the other family did.

She coudnt go back in movie, wasnt sure where they sat, it was Dark and filled with people.

I think it may be an idea to build some resilience in your DD. Has she never popped out of a movie for a wee before? At 13 going back in to a movie and finding her friend and sitting back down with her shouldn't be beyond her capability.

@Anoisagusaris

It’s nothing to do with allowing 13 year olds to go to the cinema on their own. No matter of the age of the person, if someone in my company disappeared for 2 hours without telling me, I’d be worried and would attempt to contact them or look for them.

It’s about going to the cinema on their own because the OP has said she thinks the dad should have been watching them in the cinema. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t in their company at the cinema. He’d left them to watch the movie together and was off watching by himself. He didn’t know DD was “missing”.

I agree with those saying the friend ought to have been more concerned and if she were my kid I’d have words with her about being a more responsible friend but OP is angry at the dad.

I would not stop her going. She go to lokal cities with friends etc and is coping fine. But if had any kid with be to Big resort, i would notice Them missing for 2 hours!

I do think this is unrealistic where teenagers are concerned, though.

It's normal for teenagers to go off on their own with friends all day and not be in constant contact.

If your DD needs more supervision than normal, then I really think you need clearly explain that to the parents and find out whether they're happy with that before allowing her to go off on holiday 200 miles from home.

The dad hasn't done anything wrong. He trusted two teenagers to go off and watch a film for a couple of hours - that's normal and something that happens everyday. He really shouldn't need to be next to them or right outside.

Did you specifically say to the dad she must be supervised at all times?

What strategies have you and your dd got when she finds herself in a difficult situation, she needs something more than phoning you to pass the time.

But i was/am pissed of they didnt react that she was gone for 2 hours.

Again OP you are blaming the other family and giving your DD a pass when your DD is just as responsible for what happened.

A 13 Yr old should be able to leave a cinema screen and remember where she was sitting - if she had nipped out for a wee during the film would she also have spent the rest of the movie outside? Equally in the 2 hours she sat outside talking to you, why did you not encourage her to approach a member of staff to help her? Even if it was a case of you explaining the situation on speakerphone?

Yes the friend should have noticed but she is also 13 - she may not have thought to follow her friend out of the film if she hadn't come back after X time or, if she knows about your DDs anxiety, she may have assumed she wanted space and would come back when she was ready and so didn't just go wandering out of the screen to find her. She may also have not known what to do - if the screen was full she may not have been able to get to her dad to tell him what had happened (or was embarrassed at the idea of making a scene or drawing attention to herself) or she may have been watching the film and lost track of how long her friend was gone until the end of the film and then she realised she'd been gone the whole length of the film.

The dad could have done better, but again if he hasn't been told there is an issue then he can't prepare or fix it - both from your DD having anxiety and leaving the cinema - and its not fair to complain he is uncontactable for the duration of a film, it is standard expected practice to have your phone on silent/off and put away so it doesn't disturb other people.

I don't understand that she was able to borrow a phone from a stranger to "update" you... But not ask a member of staff to help her get back to her seat/get friends dad

The dad made an appropriate decision based on two 13 year old girls. If you required him to make major adjustments, ie constant supervision and extra support, you should have been very clear with him before even agreeing for your daughter to go. Just saying your daughter has anxiety means nothing without further information. Don't stop your daughter doing things but if you expect extra support from others, make sure it's communicated in a clear way.

Possibly, if your 13 daughter is your eldest, you might unconsciously make adjustments for her anxiety, and consider them the norm when parenting children of that age. It's only when confronted with a different reality that you can see how you possibly change your parenting. It's not a bad thing but maybe something to bear in mind if she is going to be spending time in the care of others

Honestly I'm on the fence re this . I am at the stage where I don't sit with my older kids ( 12) year olds at cinema and I might not notice if one slipped our during the movie in the dark.
I think you're over reacting a bit .

@Shitfuckcommaetc - I think that the child would’ve got the phone in a mass of Adrenalin because it was that or die iyswim. Anything after the point of safely sitting with her mum on the phone is just too hard.

OP - I’m wondering if your daughter has a Dx of any sort? This is the kind of anxiety my son and my friends children experience, and they all have various kinds of neurodiversity.

She could hold it together for so long (masking, doing the sensible thing), and then, once she found a safe harbour (ie, you), she just fell apart. That doesn’t in anyway mean she should learn to be more resilient, or you should do less, it means that she finds certain situations completely overwhelming, and it might be worth exploring further.

HTH.

@wishtotravel - this is spot on, I had no idea how much I adjusted my behaviour to one of my children, until he was dx with ASC, and then I realised how much of his being “fine” for so long as because I had automatically smoothed the path.

On the one hand, it doesn’t change the way I parent because he will always be autistic, and there will always be things that he just cannot manage, but on the other, it means that he was relatively old when it all went pear shaped and we found out what was going on!