Do you allow your 17-year-old to…

[Topray]

Have completely unrestricted and unsupervised phone access (so not even having to leave phone downstairs at nighttime)

Work part-time if still at school or college.

Learn to drive (either self-funded from wages or with parental help)

Travel in a car driven by a 17-year-old

Stay overnight at the home of a friend you do not know

Use public transport alone at night

Regulate their own sleep, even if this means getting out of bed at 3pm on a weekend

Stay home alone overnight or for multiple days

Be out and about without you know really knowing exactly where they are at any given moment

@Itslegitimatesalvage
Jesus. You’d go through the phone of your 17 year old just because you pay the bill? You pay the mortgage too; would you go through their room?

I haven't got a 17 year old but if I did have, yes I would. And maybe if the parents of the girl who killed Brianna ghey had checked her phone they might have spotted what she was looking at. With regards to the room, yes I'd still go through it.

Yes to all except the last one.
It is a 2 way street though. I know where they are going and I tell them where I am going. It is safer.

Yea to all of them. I was an adult and living in my own at 17. Many are off to uni at 18 and potentially living in a city that’s unfamiliar to them and completely self regulating. They need to get the hang of independence in the safety of their own home before they’re out on their own.

I have a 17 year old boy. He hasn’t stayed alone yet, and I want to know where he is, I have a tracker app on him.
the rest .. yes.

Yes to all but the sleep thing. Not a chance in hell will I ever allow any of my kids to waste a day by sleeping through it. Plus, if I’m grafting my arse off the least they can do is get out of bed and look useful!

Yes to most of it - don’t think you can get insurance under 18 that allows you to have passengers in the car in your first year post passing the test? So, no to the being ina car driven by an 17 year old.

I tend to give mine a b*llocking once it gets to 12noon and encourage her to always travel with a friend as far as possible on public transport at night.

Otherwise, yes, have to let her stumble in the knowledge we’ll be here to help pick her up.

In this day and age I want to keep my child safe

Pretty sure we all want that @MrsRClark but I guess we have different ways of getting there.

FWIW I would always offer (and always did) to pick up my DC - still goes for DD who is now 22 but still at home for example. But if they preferred or for some other reason it was appropriate, I have and had no issue with a 10pm bus. I don't consider this was an unsafe thing to do..

As a PP said, it's about scaffolding the steps to independence. Mine were allowed to use the local buses from secondary age, and as they got older that extended into later trips, as they were out in town later (at the movies for example - more likely at age 14 than age 11).

I am surprised that some on this thread do not trust their DC. Try it - they may impress you. DS in his week home had some mates round one night, but no, no party. He lives here too and wanted to take care of his home. He was old enough to do that. I did speak to him each day we were away tho. He was fine.

Tbh I was more worried about him at a festival aged 16 - but that was also fine.

yes

Just reading a sad news story about a 16 year old girl dying in a crash this weekend. Driver was 17. I think it's so scary. My girls learned to drive young as we are rural with no public transport but it was a constant worry. So much can go wrong but you can't stop them forever.

yes

MIne are now past this but,

Have completely unrestricted and unsupervised phone access (so not even having to leave phone downstairs at nighttime) YES

Work part-time if still at school or college. YES, if they could have got one at 17 - they're like gold dust around here

Learn to drive (either self-funded from wages or with parental help) NO, at least I wouldn't have encouraged it if they'd been asking at that age. We live in London, they don't need to learn at 17. We live in one of the most expensive post codes for car insurance, it would have been prohibitively expensive. Eldest is learning now, at 26 as it will help with his career progression.

Travel in a car driven by a 17-year-old NO. At 17 my brother and his friend got into an awful smash - permanent life changing injuries. The driver's age and inexperience played a big part in how bad the accident was.

Stay overnight at the home of a friend you do not know YES. I didn't know any of their school friends except in passing

Use public transport alone at night. YES, to a certain degree. I generally knew when they were on their way back and they kept in touch. Again, London, public transport was still busy at the time they were getting back. We used to meet DD at the bus stop at her request.

Regulate their own sleep, even if this means getting out of bed at 3pm on a weekend YES?

Stay home alone overnight or for multiple days. I lived on my own at 17, so if it had come up and they were comfortable then YES, but it never actually came up,

Be out and about without you know really knowing exactly where they are at any given moment YES, they have phones. I had more contact and knowledge of what they were up to than my parents ever did.

All these answers might have been different though if we lived in the arse end of nowhere with no reliable PT.

yes to all !

Yes.

Yes to all of the above. Although none of their mates passed at 17 thus far so that one hasn’t come up. It also wasn’t a perfect situation, but I left ds for six weeks just before he turned 17 and he coped pretty well all things considered. Overnight I can’t see why anyone would have an issue (notwithstanding SEN or MH conditions).

Mine are much older. Much as I tried at the time when they were teenagers, they were difficult to control. Can’t imagine taking a phone off one. Did try to limit internet access. They just got into settings and changed it all - me baffled. Many scrapes later, they are now fine young productive adults who help out their still baffled mother.

There weren’t any restrictions on my DC having passengers in the car when they passed their test and DD has had passengers since she passed aged 17 (18 now). She’s only been on local journeys but has been insured to have passengers.

@Newchapterbeckons Yes, we can certainly encourage our 18-year-olds to think about their safety, but as @Phial’s pointing out, once they turn 18, we parents can’t prevent them from doing anything on the list. If they decide to stay overnight with someone we don’t know and choose not to tell us where they are, we have to put up with it! Although when my DD’s home for holidays, she always tells if she’s staying out as she knows that her old Mum worries.

What happens at uni is her business, just as it was mine back in the 1990’s. 😂

Yes to all, although thankfully the going in the car with another 17 year old didn't happen (not that I would have stopped it but I would have worried) because none of their friends could drive!

Have completely unrestricted and unsupervised phone access (so not even having to leave phone downstairs at nighttime)

Work part-time if still at school or college. - YES

Learn to drive (either self-funded from wages or with parental help) - YES

Travel in a car driven by a 17-year-old - NO

Stay overnight at the home of a friend you do not know - PROBABLY NOT

Use public transport alone at night - DEPENDS

Regulate their own sleep, even if this means getting out of bed at 3pm on a weekend - YES

Stay home alone overnight or for multiple days - YES

Be out and about without you know really knowing exactly where they are at any given moment - NO, ALWAYS HAVE AN IDEA WHERE MINE ARE (16 an 17) .

We don’t have many rules and all of us can see where we all are on Find my phone.

SW3 is definitely one hundred percent Chelsea

Most of this.

Regarding phones, DC always prefers his downstairs overnight anyway. I kept mine upstairs when my elderly parents were still around but otherwise we all distance ourselves from phones overnight.

As regards work - I made the suggestion that working in Yr13 could distract from studies and he agreed.

Driving - doesn’t feel ready yet. This week got a lift with a college pal. Pal clipped a bollard at a well known tight turn. Even more out off driving.

All the rest he is fairly good with. But now in Yr 13 I would not go away overnight as we get closer to A Levels.

Yes. My eldest is about to turn 22 but all those things were allowed.

In this day and age I want to keep my child safe

Pretty sure we all want that@MrsRClarkbut I guess we have different ways of getting there.

Yes.

Some people believe they will keep their child safe by restricting their movements and limiting their independence so they don't have the opportunity to find themselves in trouble.

Others keep them safe by equipping them with the skills they will need whilst they are still living at home and have parents nearby to help them navigate and make choices.

I said I would allow my daughter to do all those things in the OP.

And I would.

That doesn't mean she does all of them or does them all the time. Or I never have a clue where she is. Eg the friends I don't know who she stays with overnight are girls from school I've never met, not a crowd she's just met hanging out in the local park. None of her friends can drive yet but her ex boyfriend could and he drove her around. But he was a nice sensible lad and not a boy racer etc.

I suppose a lot of it depends on what sort of person your 17 year old is; how mature they are; how reliable their decision making is. How good your relationship is - whether you can trust them to make sensible decisions and judgements (even if they don't always turn out to be the right ones).

My daughter and her brother have arranged a weekend away in August to see Taylor Swift. They've booked the hotel, sorted travel, planned an itinerary... she's paid for it herself from the earnings from her part time job. Her brother is older but she is the one who organised most of it. He booked the hotel as he is over 18.

The first I knew of it is when it was presented as a fait accompli! Yes, she'll be 18 when they go but I'd have let her go anyway.

I would probably have reservations about her travelling overseas as shes not well travelled or experienced in that. But that's where judgement and knowing your child comes into it.

People who allow their 17 those freedoms aren't doing it because they don't care but our role as parents is to equip our children for adult life. They don't suddenly get to 18 and just know what to do and how to manage situations if they've never had the chance to learn.

When I was 17 I was married with 2 children, running a home, albeit not very efficiently. I'm glad that such situations are more unusual these days, as despite my views at the time, I can now see that I was far too young. Nonetheless, 17 years old are capable of more than they are generally credited with, and need to develop 'adult' skills and judgement.

This is how we are going to approach this. Our oldest is 17 later this year (in year 11). We plan to follow what you have said, and to some of it we already do.

this weekend he is being left for 3 nights for the first time. He is excited about the responsibility, although nervous about getting himself up for school on Monday as he relies on mr a lot. We will be up as coming home that day so I plan many calls and Alexa announcements to make sure he gets out in time!