To ask at what point you stop 'raising' your kids?

[insideoutsider]

My daughter recently turned 16 and I've started to ask this. She is in college now.

I've read here how some people move out of home to a flat with friends at 16, some traveling all over the world and of course some having kids at this age.

Thing is my 16 year old feels she can do all this. I still look at her like a child that can't look after herself so we fight about all things ranging from her refusing to wear a coat when going for a trip at 2c temperature to her wanting to go to Uni in Australia! She wants to do some Europe travel now and I can't bear the thought.

She is very bright, really kind and helpful. Very responsible too. All teachers sing her praises so I'm not worried about her behaviour. I'm just worried that she is too young to do anything! I still insist she is home by 7pm during the winter and she thinks this is ridiculous.
I'm bringing it here because I'm starting to think it's me. I grew up in a place where a 16year old is very much a child and must be protected from everything out there. I don't want to stifle her growth.

So what kind of freedoms do you give your 16year olds? How far can they travel? What time must they be home? How can I start to look away???

My 17 y/o fends for himself for breakfast and lunch. We encourage a protein breakfast as we all have blood sugar issues.
We usually make extra for dinner so he can warm it up if he wants or be can chuck something in the air fryer. I'm not a fan of the air fryer/Iceland combination but with teenagers fed is best!

As for curfew. We encourage him to keep us up to date with what time he thinks he'll be home and how. We encourage him to walk with friends. Sometimes if we know he's quite far away we'll ask if he needs help getting home and tell him the latest time we can pick him up - usually around 11.30 but there's often some negotiation.

It's a two way street. We ask for communication so we know he's making safe choices and he knows we have his back. After a year of being quite reassured that he has good friends who'll help each other home, we're more hands off than last year.
If we were completely hands off he'd feel uncared about. There is a balance.

They either eat out with their friends or they make something before they go. One of the things they need to learn is self regulation and that includes, eating out is expensive so it's better to eat at home!

You do have to be firm when they come to you with "I've run out of money can you sub me please" but they quickly learn.

I'm not sure you ever stop raising your children completely and few (good) parents ever stop being concerned about their offspring. My eldest is nearly 27 and about to get married. She's very bright and capable but she still calls me for advice or just to chat through her plans. A couple of weeks ago she phoned me for advice on the best way to handle a difficult colleague for instance. She doesn't need me to micromanage her life but I do have a lot more experience of some things than her and I'm always happy if I can help. I'm still Mum but my job has changed.
I would say that from the mid teens on there is a transition. Well it's a continuous change really but I think there is a big step around that age. When our DC are babies we literally do everything for them and make every decision and by the time they are adults we've morphed into a more advisory capacity! That happens gradually and the teens is a difficult phase because they are growing up quickly but in some ways are still children, and they are often not quite as grown up as they think. I'm sure most of us can look back on ourselves at that stage and see that we weren't always as mature as we thought we were. But our teens won't listen to that any more than we would have believed our parents. It's not easy, but you do need to loosen the reins OP, especially over things like the curfew. Your DD needs to feel she has some control over her own life or she will almost certainly rebel. If you want her to come to you and listen over the big things you need to be willing to listen to her too and to show that you trust her by allowing her more independence in the day to day things.

My 17 year old son acts grown up until he suddenly needs me, this year I had to take a step back and remember what I was like at 16/17. My son is studying A-levels and works so he doesn’t have a curfew apart from when the last trains are running…I try not to probe too much but the way I know roughly what time he is going to be home is by asking whether he is eating out or coming home for dinner. For the last couple of months, my daughter (15) has walked around without her coat to school, she has a coat but didn’t want to wear that one to school so I said I’d buy her another one but she needed to choose it as every one I suggested or sent links to she disliked…I said that if she didn’t choose a coat then that would be on her and she’d walk around in the cold, she then finally chose one she liked but only when she finally started to feel the cold!

At 16 how does she socialise and do hobbies with 7pm curfew?
I’d encourage a small pt job, it did mine world of good. Not too many hours to interfere with studying. Mine worked at McDonalds from 16.
You can still eat together most of time.
I agree with encouraging skills and independence. There’s a uni facebook group where some teens have been mollycoddled and parents drop them off at uni and seem surprised they can’t cope it’s downright cruel. Using public transport, being able to make appointments, washing, cooking, shopping etc are all things to do at sixth form so they can thrive at uni.

My now 17 year old went to Dorset (250 miles from home) for a week with three friends just after GCSEs when they were all 16. It was a year earlier than I was comfortable with but they are pretty sensible and they loved it. They are going to France next year.

My 15 year old takes himself all over the country to see his footie team, sometimes on the supporters coach but often on the train and has done since he was 14. I was really unwell in 2023 when he was 13/14 and he d take himself to the next city an hour away to meet friends by train. Me not driving for a year really helped them develop their independence.

I have no concerns about my two living their lives and spreading their wings.

I think from 16 - 18 you have to hope that you've laid the right foundations in early life (sounds like you have) and it's time to start trusting them to make the right decisions themselves. That said you also want to make sure they are safe and getting home at a reasonable time for college the next day. I would say for us that was around 9.30-10pm on a school night and 11.30 on a weekend. This assumed they were with others at a house etc or cinema and not randomly roaming streets at night. We've always had our family on life 360 so we can keep a general eye and neither of my children were bothered by this. That said we have also always been very open about alcohol / sex etc so they maybe feel they had nothing else to hide! These are the years that they have to start being prepared for university and freedom so it's time to let the years of hard work pay dividends and trust them to adult.

My two are expected to let us know in advance if they won’t be home for dinner. Depending on how late they will be I either set aside a plate for them or they sort themselves out (either eating out with friends or cooking something when they get home)

Also, a teenager needs to start to take responsibility for themselves in the years running up to 18 when they may well go away to university or start work and have to look after themselves and take their own decisions. It is better for everyone - including parents - if they leave home equipped reasonably well for more independent living.
My youngest has long term medical issues so from about 16 he started going to appointments on his own, ordering his own prescriptions and so on. Obviously I was still around to help and I did have to give him a nudge from time to time, but by the time he left for University this year we were both confident that he could manage his conditions completely on his own. I could have done I all for him til he was 18 but that would not have been I his best interests.
My DD had a flat mate in her first year who could do next to nothing for herself. She didn't know how to boil pasta, had never done her own laundry, had bee taken to school every morning by her Mum so had never had to organise herself for a business the morning or anything like that. She did learn of course but it took time and was very stressful for her and for the other girls in the flat. She was also not streetwise at all and did a few scary things - drank far too much, went off with dodgy people etc - that her friends had to save her from. I'm sure that is not what you want for your DD OP, so give her a bit more freedom and responsibility now, even if that involves making a few mistakes.

Just to add OP, when they have the freedom to come and go as they please (within reason) the novelty wears off pretty quickly. DD is usually home for dinner 3/4 nights a week and 9/10 on a Sunday afternoon.

Enjoy your time alone - as someone with a younger child the thought of an occasionally empty house is lovely!!

As they get older the parenting should shift from a rules based approach to a principals based approach.

My similarly aged daughter doesn’t have a set curfew or rules about screen-time or rules about what she can and cannot wear. She used to, obviously, but she is too old for that approach now. But I have taught her to be considerate and not make me worry so she’s always home at a reasonable time or keeps me up to date regarding her movements. She know how to keep herself safe. She knows she is better with more sleep rather than less etc etc.

You need to prepare them to go out into the world without you.

Food is a slight issue, I admit. I try to always make her a plate up for when she gets in. I could leave her to sort herself out when she gets home but she is lazy and would end up not eating so I do fuss a little regarding getting some good food inside her.

I've said this before on other threads but you are not doing your daughter any favours by being the typical helicopter parent. She's not going to be able to handle the workplace when the time comes and we see this over and over again in the store I work at. I have parents phoning on behalf of their adult child saying they don't like doing a particular task which I don't pay any attention to because I don't like doing certain things but have to suck it up and get on with it. They are so used to having everything done for them they can't prioritise their workload because they've never had to make decisions for themselves, you can spot the one that's been mollycoddled a mile off and the one who's been allowed more freedom. I say this nicely but please start to cut the apron strings now to prepare her for adult life.

Youl let her decide the mealtimes. She can reheat the food when she gets home or she can decide to eat out or not at all. You don't need to worry about 16 year old mealtimes either!

Insisting a 16 year old has a 7pm curfew is absolutely insane and I can't imagine what her friends make of it.

She'll be an adult in 2 years and you're not setting her up for independence in any way

Thank you for all your advice, even those that sounded a little harsh! I am really taking it all in.

To the questions around how she socializes, she does lots. She has lots of friends. We live about 3 min walk from college which is in a vibrant town centre, they finish at 12 some days or 4pm at others, she hangs out, shops, eats and hangs out with her friends, even has time to get on the train to the next town. Many times, they all come back to ours and hang out some more or she comes home alone when she likes. She also needs time to study which she already complains she doesn't have enough time to do! Also, she attends parties that she needs picking up about 10pm and I will pick her and her friends from there.

She is quite travelwise, gets on buses, train and uses public transport easily, loves to cook and does that well.

She has struggled to keep up finding a job because she gets a 'healthy' allowance from her dad so doesn't need money as such. But she's very ambitious and has big but fulfill-able dreams. She volunteers on Saturday mornings.

It doesn't look like she's suffering much but she does complain that she'd like to stay out longer and stresses out when she's running late to be home. I hate that for her so I'm going to give her freedom like you lot have described above.

The cold issue, it was really hard understanding that other people don't suffer from the cold like I do. I lived in a very hot country and the cold here has always felt painful for me. She keeps telling me she's not cold. I just need to hear that a leave her to it!

To those who think she is trying to run away from me to Australia, not the case. There is a very 'big' life painted for her over there with lots of adventure. It has been a long term dream of hers. Also she has seen that her parents have lived in many different countries throughout and she sees that for herself too. I'm okay with that. I hope to relocate again when she's at uni, wherever she goes. I mentioned it in my op just to say the different things we fight about (when, where, managing expectations, etc)

Thank you all 🤗