To ask 12 year old to come home at 6pm

[Zombieof3]

Hi all,

This whole parenting a preteen is facing me with a whole load of dilemmas.
my 12 year old is going out with her school friends but I have asked her to come home by 6pm, is this unreasonably early as she states that it is. She regularly hangs out in this park area which is a 15 minute walk from the house. I’m so unsure on what time to ask her to be home by. I know what type of people are out and about and I just want to keep her safe but I also know I can’t keep her wrapped up in cotton wool. Any ideas?

She is quite sensible and is always with friends but I’m not sure she would deal well with a conflict if one was to happen.

The parents of the house party did not want the kids there till midnight. He watched Big Ben and the fireworks with us at home 😊

Absolutely not the point of the thread but are the people talking about lighter evenings and coming back at 8pm, in the UK?
At the moment here (South east) it's dark before 7pm?

I think people are thinking towards clocks changing in a week or two. At the moment it's light until about 7pm.

I'm with you OP.

I don't care what other parents do. The people change in the evenings and we do not live in the nicest of areas. (not the worst, but not the nicest)

I am dreading my first going to senior school in September. We have county lines in the area. I know I can't trap him in forever and I won't but my god these people who are like 'yeah whatever' must live in really nice places and had idyllic childhoods because I know what I was getting up to at 12/13 and I am lucky to be as unscathed as I am.

I do not want that for my kids.

It's not getting dark where I am till after 730pm (Scotland)

They are now in secondary school, but it's a tricky time as they are in that inbetween stage of not being primary children, but not being quiet old enough/mature enough to give them more freedom.

At that age I tended to go with "when it gets dark" or "dinner time" which was 6.00 usually. Nine times out of 10 he was back by dinner time, but when he wasn't, his dinner sat on the side. It was that, toast or nothing. I didn't make to much fuss about him being late, but I didn't put myself out to cater for him either.

In the summer he might ask to go back out, in which case, around that age I would usually say "when it gets dark" or 8.p.m.

I say 6pm for my 12 year-old daughter at this time of year too.

If she's playing out and not a someone's house then home by the time it's dark. If she's at her friend's house then 8:30 on a school night 10 at the weekend and I pick her up / walk to meet her if local.

You need to become the 'teen' house, make it welcoming so they all pile around yours instead.

I would definitely stick to 6 o'clock. The kids hanging around the park in the evenings were the kids getting up to things they shouldn't when I was young -and I doubt much has changed.

Back in the day I had to be home before dark, at this time of year that's about 7.00pm. I suspect this is because when I was given a time to come home both my watch and that of the girl next door I was friends with would amazingly stop working.

Strangely our watches worked in winter when it got dark much earlier.

I think a conversation about why you want her home at a certain time is probably the most sensible thing. Ask what time other people have to be home so she is in a group or at least a pair not walking alone.

My DD is 13 and I say home by dark. Obviously in the summer I wouldn't let her be out until sunset (10pm or something) but for now it's dark around 6.30pm so that's when she comes in. As the weeks go by I'll let her stay out a bit later.

My 12 year old is home for 6:30 and has dinner when she comes in. She stayed out until 8pm last weekend but that was because she had dinner at her friend's house and then hung out there for a bit. I picked her up though.

I think we will look at it again in the May half term when it's lighter nights. However it will still be 6:30 on a school night.

She must be either having a super early dinner and be starving by bedtime or she's not going out for very long.

What time is she eating? To me, dinner can't be earlier than 5pm, it's the law 😂and even if she's eating at 4pm, surely by the time she goes out she's only getting like an hour and a half minus however long it takes her to get there, if she comes back at 6. So it seems only fair to give her longer so it's worth going.
And if she doesn't eat before she goes then yeah she needs to be back by 6 so she's not having dinner super late.

Sorry maybe its cause I'm autistic but the timings don't add up to me and are making me twitch.

Could you compromise and say 6.15pm with an extra 15 minutes being added on every 3 months or so as she's getting a bit older. She'll feel a bit better with the extra 15 mins but also because she'll have another half hour in 6 months time . Also means you don't have to massively change things too quickly.