To be livid with DS - or should I be chalking this up to youthful silliness?

[GerbilsForever24]

DS is 13. He has a friend over for a sleepover. I've long given up policing bed time during sleepovers so am used to them all being up until all hours.

I just woke up and clearly my spidey senses were tingling as I went to check on them. Only to discover they were nowhere in the house. Turns out they'd climbed out of the window in the lounge and were sitting on a small footbridge just down from our house.

I am furious on about 50 different levels. I am not really the paranoid type, but let's face it - 2 13 year old boys wondering around on a Saturday night is not a no-risk scenario and even if they didn't get into "trouble" or nothing bad happened to them, if anyone had seen them coming out the window that would have likely generated a call to the police. Not least because we have a known gang of young teenage boys around here who are an absolute menace and the entire neighbourhood are on watch for them - no one would have known these were just two stupid 13 year olds sneaking out rather than this existing group of twits. Plus, because they went out the window and it was therefore left open, I am pretty unhappy about being left alone, asleep upstairs while my house was completely exposed.

I have taken their phones and sent them both to bed. I was livid. And yes, there was some shouting - although I think the super scary type where I'm clearly furious but am not screaming like a banshee.

DS has come in to my room crying and apologising and saying he didn't think about the risk. I've told him I accept that but there will still be consequences.

Full disclosure, he has ADHD as well so that adds an element of thoughtless to things.

It's not unreasonable to be this angry is it? Part of me thinks "isn't this just normal silliness"? And am I over reacting because DS is in a phase of thinking every rule and boundary in place is just to irritate him, vs because there's an actua reason.

No I have just been outed as dumb af 😂
Felt so stupid I deleted my reply.
Didn’t read it properly.
That’ll teach me!

Mine would be getting a bollocking and there'd be no more sleepovers until they'd regained my trust.

@KaleQueen god feel terrible now, I'm so sorry! My DH always tells me no-one likes a smartarse so I'm the twat here.

You are without a doubt the most sanctimonious, uppity poster I've ever seen on Mumsnet. For someone pontificating about how wonderful you are and how you'd have dealt with this...you sure do seem to have a load of pent up 'emotion' dripping from your posts.

Maybe a little bit of shouting would release all that negative energy oozing from you. You don't have to go through life 'acting' as if you've no emotions. The fact that you claim you'd be calm if you woke up to find your child gone from their bed in the middle of the night is just farcical. If that is in fact true, that you'd remain calm in the same situation, well there's something badly wrong in your life. OP did not 'lose her shit' she also wasn't 'screaming'. No need to embellish OPs words.

When I was a teen, if we got caught doing something we shouldn't - being shouted at was seen as 'getting away with it'

"What did your mum/dad say?"
"Oh not much, she just shouted at me for a bit"
So much better than being 'grounded'. (Not allowed out)

Well if I’m afraid you’d be spending the rest of your life whistling Dixie for your apology.

It’s entirely relevant. Those were the risks they took by doing what they did. Had the OP not wakened to find them gone they could have gone further afield and got into all kinds of difficulties - they only came back because they heard the loft window open. And she’s already explained that they left a front downstairs window completely open, and even used it to climb back in - that brings home that it’s sheer luck no-one else did the same. There are opportunists out at night looking for exactly this kind of thing. Not to mention the teenage gangs OP says are regularly out at that time of night - her own DS realised the significance of this himself.

Any one of these could have been a consequence of their actions, and l’ve no doubt that OP ran all of the possible scenarios while she was looking for them, and of course what could have happened needs to be explained to them. Or do you think we should all let our kids do what they like regardless of the risks - anything goes, nothing bad has happened so far ?

Did you ever sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, leaving a downstairs front window wide open, and your mother asleep alone in the house? Because if not, it’s absolutely not the same thing in terms of the possible consequences.

I remember lots of similar stories in the press and on consumer programmes at the time, highlighting what was happening with these games. Children were routinely running up bills of hundreds of pounds without realising what they were doing, and it made TV news when a child ran up a bill in excess of £2000. I think some families were refunded after consumer advice sources stepped in because the games were intentionally designed so that kids got so caught up in them that it didn’t register that they were spending money to access different levels or add ins. I think tighter parental controls were introduced as a result.

I’d tell them, out of respect to them. Otherwise, their son may tell them himself (his version, which may dwell on you going nuts at him) and they’ll find it odd you didn’t mention it. Or someone else may have seen them out.

But I wouldn’t make a big deal of it. I’d say it as a joke, e.g. “they gave me a bit of a fright, cheeky blighters”. But make it clear it was your DS’s idea and responsibility, as he knows the rules in your home. And say you’re pretty sure they’ve learned their lesson after they saw how panicked you were. Even though they’ve been naughty together a couple of times now, I’d make the lad feel he can come over any time, as your home may well be a respite for him if his home life is difficult.

Standard youth silliness.

But dangerous, and so long as you get that across and impose a suitable punishment, job done.

I think this post nails it. They didn’t fully appreciate the danger they put themselves and OP in. OP openly showing her anger when that’s not the norm for her, will reinforce that they’ve crossed a line, and explaining the potentially more serious consequences, and maybe calling a halt to sleepovers for a while will hopefully make them more cautious in future. Not to mention the rollicking her DS is in for from his dad - especially in light of the previous warnings about that particular window.

Needs repeating:

"None of those things happened though, so your comment is irrelevant. 😚"

None of these things happened, no. But the point is that these two boys need to know that they so easily could have. Recognising the potential danger they put themselves and OP in is what will make them think twice before doing it again. How is that irrelevant ?

Just because it didn’t happen then doesn’t mean something bad won’t happen the next time (or time after that etc). It’s best to nip this behaviour in the bud so it doesn’t happen at all.

I'm in the "tell them off and forget about it" camp. I wouldn't tell the parents.

I would definitely tell the parents. If he's putting himself at risk on sleepovers then his parents need to make the decision whether to trust him to go on sleepovers or not. If they know he does this kind of thing and still let him go on them then the fault lies with them if his risk taking increases and he ends up hurt. But if they don't know this is how he's behaving out of the house and he ends up hurt then the fault lies with the people who did know but who chose to keep the information from his parents.

• Needs repeating:

"None of those things happened though, so your comment is irrelevant. 😚"*

Nothing bad ever happens until it does. 🙄

Yeah. That’s the key to teaching kids safe behaviour- if you get away with it once without accident or injury, it’s definitely safe 🙄🙄🙄

Works a treat when teaching young kids not to run across the road.

Haven’t read the whole thread; the first 7 pages or so were hair-raising enough. For some reason the first two responses were from clowns insisting OP over-reacted, and off it went into an entirely mad realm where 13 year-olds wandering around in the small hours is just high jinx.

OP you didn’t over-react. Kids need boundaries. You don’t need to apologise or make it up to them with a slap-up breakfast (a suggestion from one of the MRAs who seem to have infiltrated yet another thread).

Shouting is detrimental if it’s unwarranted or endemic- but it’s an entirely appropriate response to this sort of drama in the middle of the night! Everyone knows this really.

As for taking phones - why on earth not?? When my early teens have been to sleepovers, we’ve agreed amongst the parents when phones should be removed. They’re not a human right. Do the cool parents all allow round-the-clock phone usage for 13 year-olds?? Explains a lot, I guess (I’m a teacher…).

Overreacted??? I don't think so! In what world is it OK for 13 year olds to go out at night without permission?
I used to work in police stations, and the sort of children who were being brought in were a) neglected and b) very quickly picked up by gangs. It is not safe for youngsters to be out late at night without supervision, and as for leaving the house without permission, so no one knew where they were, that's totally unacceptable.
Leaving the window open just goes to show how they didn't even consider any consequences, and just goes to prove that they are not mature enough to be able to keep themselves safe.
I'd be having lots of conversations with DS about safety, and would be stopping sleepovers for a long time. Of course you need to tell the parents of the other boy.
You did not overreact at all!
Disclaimer: as a 13 year old I used to sneak out while on holiday to go to Spanish nightclubs...