To ground dd(13) all summer?

[becausesam]

Dd(13) hasn’t had her finest week. To be fair to her, she’s polite and helpful at home, doing well at school and has never been in trouble before.

-She lied about where she was and who she was with ( or at least plans changed and she didn’t tell us) which meant meeting up with older kids.

-Dh was supposed to pick her up and she wasn’t there or answering her phone because it was dead, it took her 20 minutes to to contact us on her friends phone then another 20 minutes to actually turn up.

-She’s supposed to hand her phone in at night which she has been doing but found out she’s been using her sisters old phone instead to message through the night.

-she then last night climbed out of her bedroom window to meet her friend at our gate which we saw on our security camera. It looked like something was handed over during their short talk which she has denied.

Dh thinks she’s broken all trust and she should be grounded for the rest of the summer.
he has an older dd (my dsd) who had several traumatic experiences as a teen and so as a result tends to be overprotective and easily panicked.

I think 13 is a really important age for friendships, gaining responsibilities and pushing boundaries. If she’s isolated from her friends all summer its going to leave her out of the loop by the time school starts, lonely and depressed.

I also think if we ground her all summer when she eventually is allowed back out she’s going to be just be more sneaky and less likely to talk to us if she thinks we're likely to overreact.

Who is unreasonable? Him for wanting to ground her all summer or me for not? What would you do?

Definitive consequences absolutely needed but I'm not convinced being grounded for the entire summer is right

To be fair to your daughter grounding her all summer seems a bit harsh ,you could impose some form of punishment and tell her if she keeps to an agreed improved behaviour then the punishment will stop .She may well sneak out again if she is grounded Do you think a lock on windows would be useful.?.

Not all summer but I’d put the onus on it not being all summer on her.

So ground for a week. Remind her of the boundaries. Next time she’s grounded for 8 days, then 9 etc.

but you need to make it clear you understand her may for freedom nd maybe compromise on some things. But no to phone after X time and definitely no sneaking out.

Aside from the fact that no grounding her all summer is too excessive and won’t work, are you realistically actually going to maintain that all summer?! Because if not you are just undermining the whole thing…

Absolutely not.
But you do sit down with her and tell her she has broken your trust and that she is on her last chance.
Insist on a tracker on her phone.
Talk about her safety, alcohol and boys.
Talk about loving her, wanting to trust her and how her safety is so important.

Don't isolate her from her friends.

Grounding for the whole summer is overkill and won’t teach her anything.

Changes happen so I wouldn’t be too worked up about that, but I would give her a power bank and insist that she texts any potential changes immediately.

I would be turning WiFi off at a certain time.

I would be giving a warning to her that sneaking out will lead to consequences.

She’s at an age where she’s supposed to be pushing boundaries, but at the same time it’s your job to keep her safe, so it’s a balance that needs to be found, and not push her away in the process.

Not sure the punishment fits the crime. You say she's normally well behaved and she's just pushing some boundaries now. Week of grounding would be more appropriate imo, will feel like forever at 13. I'd also give her a bollocking but that's completely non MN.

I wouldn't ground her all summer. My DD went through a similar phase at that age, she has always been well behaved and lovely so it was a bit of a shock but I remember being that age myself and being out and involved with friends was literally the most important thing in the world. I don't necessarily think you should completely let her get away with it but I do think a bit of leeway is needed considering her age. I did that with DD and she's now 18 and we have a really strong relationship and she's a lovely person, I think had I been really harsh on her at 13/14 it could have ruined any chance of that.

her most recent behaviour is the least of your worries if you’ve just discovered she’s been going behind your back with phone access.

she needs a sanction to fit the crime, and grounding seems reasonable. But for the whole summer is likely to just make everyone’s lives hell.

id suggest a week at most. Plus reestablish boundaries around phone use. It is really easy to put apps/software on that renders them useless during certain time periods.

I think you need to be realistic that your dd may be getting involved with things she shouldn’t at her age - especially if she is sneaking out, seeing different people and being other than where she said. drinking. Smoking. county lines is a real possibility. Even good kids get pulled in.

Do you really want her under your feet for the whole Summer 🤣.
I mean she sounds like she’s being a bit scally but no, would not ground her for the entire Summer.

It wouldn't be useful if there was a fire.🙄

I agree with the pp that consequences are fine but grounding for a whole summer is OTT and will make for a very unpleasant summer for all of you.

I'd wait until everyone's feeling calmer and have a proper conversation where you genuinely listen to her and try to get her to listen to you. Try to find out exactly what she did and why. Explain your worries. Explain that your anger comes from a place of love and genuine concern.

When my dd was a few years older than yours, she lied about where she was and did something extremely stupid. Luckily, she confessed a little while later (which I'm really grateful for - she didn't need to as we didn't have any suspicions).

We didn't put any consequences or punishments in place and in hindsight, that worked out really well. She was a pretty good kid and because we thanked her for being honest and had a very long, open conversation with her, we kept her trust and she didn't start sneaking around. it also meant that when she had problems/got into difficult situations later on, she came to us for help.

I think it would BU to ground all summer because then there’s no motivation nor opportunity to do better.

Personally I think a bit of time (days not months) without her phone to reset would help. She can tell the friends she’ll be back the following week or whatever. Then hand the phone over. She can treat it as if she’s going on holiday somewhere remote.

Perhaps she can do something productive - gardening, sorting her room, helping to cook etc. Screen-free. Try to spend time with her during it and speak to her about whats been going on and your concerns. Expect her to be mature enough to empathise and come up with ideas.

After the initial reset could she gradually be allowed more independence but with boundaries? Eg location app on phone or you must show us your phone when you go out and it needs to be above 80 percent or you will have to wait until it’s charged to go out or you must be home by X (a bit earlier than usual) or whatever you can brainstorm.

If, during that, there are incidences of her not getting in touch or not informing you of changing plans or secretly using phones she’s not allowed to then you can limit freedoms a bit more again.

Basically you’ll need to come up with specifics but I think a bit of a reset followed by gradually giving freedoms and pulling them back for consequences of breaking rules is much more likely to be effective (and seem fair) than the nuclear option of the entire holiday grounded.

Consequences yes, but not grounding. Do you really want her under your feet all summer break? You need something shorter and snappier.

I personally don’t love the idea of grounding at all. Her friendship group have a big trip planned next week so even if she’s only grounded for a week I wouldn’t want her to miss that.

I would probably be happy with reduced access to phone at home and need to text/call at regular agreed times while she’s out.

I can understand the worry and upset, but you're just at the start here and how you react really matters. Explaining to her the risks she is running by you not knowing where she is nor who she's with is important. Talking about sex, rape, drugs, etc is important, so that she understands what scrapes she might get into, and that you are mature enough for her to confide in you. I would have some consequences, but would want to talk about how to balance between you this surging hormonal desire for independence with your need to keep her safe. My mum did this with me as older sibling went a bit wild, and I did stick to most of her immensely reasonable requests. Always stay with a friend or bring them back, phone her if we couldn't get a taxi, tell her when something bad has happened etc.

Agree the whole summer is too much. Grounded for a week or two, and a serious talk about consequences.
When DD was 8, she was having a sleepover with her friend right at the beginning of the summer holidays, her friend must have got homesick or something but instead of waking me up to ask me to take her home, they snuck out of the house and walked to her friends house (via the park, for a bit of a play). This was around 2am. Luckily someone driving past saw them and called the police, and the police picked her up when she was walking back by herself and brought her home. I felt so angry and scared at that moment that I wanted to ground her the whole summer and ban sleepovers forever but I calmed down overnight and decided that was not the best approach. Instead I grounded her for two weeks, we had a serious talk about what could have happened and the consequences even though nothing serious had happened (police obviously reported to social services). Sleepovers were gradually reintroduced and she has never done something like that since (14 now)

I really think a lot of unclenching is needed here. I wouldn't expect a 13 year old to be giving constant updates on what they are doing and exactly who they are with. That sounds absolutely ludicrous and frankly stifling.

The fact her phone ran out of charge isn't ideal, but these things happen and she got in touch 20 minutes later. It's hardly like she just decided to go awol.

My view is that ultra-prescriptive phone rules are counterproductive. You say she is responsible and hard-working, so why not give her a bit of independence? She seems to have good friends and is getting out and about.

To me you and your DH sound ridiculously mollycoddling to the extent you are going to make her afraid of making a mistake for fear of ridiculously harsh consequences.

Do you have access to her phone at any time?

Do you check it?

No - it's exaggerated and believe me, she will remember this.

What do you think will happen if DH's announces 'you are grounded for the whole summer?'

Because my first instinct will be that tonight she climbs out her bedroom window, climbs OVER the gate, rather than just meeting a friend at it, and fucks off who knows where for as long as she feels like.

It's what I'd have done at that age if I'd been told that.

Well we though we had access to her phone every night which we would occasionally check but she’s been duping us by using a different one

Talk to her. Communication is key at this point - clamping down too hard just leads to increased proficiency at lying and sneaking and a child who feels they can't call you/ tell you if she gets herself into a situation she needs help with.

Do the old speech on your job as parents being firstly to keep her safe, but the way to do that changes as she gets older, and the absolute most important thing is that you know where she is just in case she needs you. If she can guarantee she'll be honest, you can negotiate age appropriate rules.

Punishing just leads to fear of getting caught and consequently being better at lying.

Punishments like grounding aren’t effective, so no, it’s not an appropriate consequence. The issue with these types of punishment is that they continually escalate to a point where you can’t escalate further.

She's experimenting with autonomy without the maturity or safety awareness to handle it yet. So not malicious, but it’s risky.

Grounding for the whole summer doesn’t teach her better decision-making or help her build internal motivation to be honest. It will likely breed resentment and may push her to go even more underground, and it will kill off any trust-building with you, because she's not out practicing responsible behaviour under your guidance.

What would I do? Short-term grounding and screen breaking to reset expectations. Then allow her to rebuild the trust by a structured return to going out – handing in her phone(s) at night, sharing location, honest communication about whereabouts, being responsive when contacted. Let her rebuild trust in stages and if she steps out then she goes back a stage.

If there’s no path back to trust and only punishment then she will have no incentive to try.

You also need to talk to her about what’s really going on in her head.

All this.
The speech. Preferably with both parents sitting down to make it as serious as possible.
Ask her what she would consider fair consequences for her behaviour and negotiate.