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?

I don’t think real-life grounding is a good idea if she has free, unsupervised roaming on the internet as a replacement.

I would let her out but take her phones off her and give her a Nokia. You also need to think about the package handed over. Vape or drugs?

Several alarm bells here. I would be taking steps to work out why the lying and sneaking off as you seem pretty lenient so no need for her to do this. I wonder what she is doing that she thinks she would otherwise not be allowed to do? The fact it seemed something was handed over rings a very big alarm for me.

I wouldn’t be grounding her. I would be checking both phones to see what the night time comms were and having some conversations with her.

Teenagers often do better in side by side conversations (eg driving, while you’re washing up etc) rather than face to face, opposite each other set ups.

Thats a batshit overreaction from your dh. As a parent of teens, you need to pick your battles and honestly all of this sounds run of the mill. Crack down too hard and kiss goodbye to any trust or chances of her confiding in you in the future.

I think you need to talk to her honestly and brutally about why you have rules in place, that it isn't to spoil her fun but she could find herself in a situation she is unprepared for. There are plenty of grown women posting on TikTok their interactions with men who will not leave them alone and how terrifying that is.

Punishment is a bit shit if there is no explanation to why. I wouldn't ground her for the summer but I would educate her. This has been made with the permission of Kayleigh's family. Show her this https://www.leics.police.uk/kayleighslovestory "Over the course of two weeks they exchanged 2643 messages" Kayleigh was 15 he was 28, she was raped and murdered. This is why we check phones of teens because they make mistakes and we want to ensure they are safe.

For you as parents, you need to be smarter than your DD with her phone.

I wouldn’t ground her all summer, I would change the rules of supervision. She isn’t ready for as much freedom as she was given, so you are going to be watching her more closely.

Punishment isn’t the solution here.
Her phone was dead so you were out of the loop on meeting times and places- solution get her a power bank so her phone won’t be dead in future.

I personally don’t see the issue with talking to a friend through the gate of your home at night? Why did she feel the need to do that? Perhaps confiscating her phone so she can’t message friends at night was a bad idea? Perhaps there is a happy compromise that can be found?

Even if I agreed with you that your DD13 had been really bad and “broken all trust” I still think grounding for the entire summer is an unduly harsh punishment and that will not improve things but worsen them.

I think you need to give consequences. If it were me I'd ground her a week. Then make her earn privileges back, shed only be allowed places you were happy she was safe and prove herself to earn more freedom

TALK TO HER. Like an adult. If she wants to act like an adult she needs to know the risks of what comes with being an adult.

But really TALK TO HER. Grounding her is silly. It treats her like a baby and everything she is doing is saying she wants to be an adult. So talk to her about all the risks, about sex, about consent about porn, about knives, about drugs, about addiction about everything.
TALK TO HER. Stop babyfying her. She's growing up and you're not keeping up.

Have you checked the phone that she’s been using behind your back? Probably too late if not as she’ll have deleted anything compromising now she knows you know about it.
What is worrying is you don’t actually know what she’s up to or what the handover at the gate was. County lines is a possibility as a PP said.
I don’t think grounding is the answer but you need to get to the bottom of this.

Check what she has been saying on her sister's old phone. Remove that phone. How old was the friend at the gate? Talk to her about why she climbed out the window.

Grounding for the whole summer is ridiculous but you need to know more about what has been going on and why. Then tell her she's broken your trust, you are thinking of grounding her and see what she considers fair punishment for the loss of trust.

As for the big trip - where and can you trust who she is going with?

Hi OP some good advise here. I think you and DH need to think about what you’re aiming for. I’m assuming it’s safety and the comfort of a good relationship which means knowing (as much as you can) that your daughter will turn to you for help and to foster a high level of trust. Unfortunately a punitive approach doesn’t work well and your daughter may well just rebel.

1. I would have a family meeting and decide on some ground rules with her input.
2. Tell her that if she is ever worried or in trouble you should always be her first point of call. You will never be cross if she calls you no matter what time etc
3. Put her on a tracking Life 360 is something similar and tell her she is on probation for the next 2 weeks. Lots of communication with you and make sure that her friends have your numbers just in case her phone dies - she can always text you. Get her to text them your mum be in front of you or when you next see them. I’ve done that and told the parents we are happy to do the same.
4. Reinforce the motto “The more communication and trust the more freedom you will be given.”
5. Have a proper heart to heart about the sneaking out / handing over package incident and try and get to the bottom of it.

“get them to text them your number” not “mum” Sorry predictive texting !

I would be really worried that she has got mixed up in county lines. She has another phone and sneaking out to hand packages over?

Chores to be done - if she wants to go on the trip with friends next week then she can earn it through chores. If she doesn't do the chores she clearly doesn't want to go on the trip enough. Earning your privileges is, to my mind a far better way than sitting in the house grounded

Word of caution op, my ex is like your dh. Terrified of the world and went on exactly like that. My daughter is nearly 17 and now terrified to leave the house and has social anxiety to the max thanks to him. Tread carefully, your dh needs to manage his emotions around this and be proportionate or he’ll cause more damage than a bunch of older kids in the friend group ever will

You and your husband need to be on the same page, whatever you decide so dedintely have a conversation with him about the balance between safety and maintaining a good relationship. I understand his desire to ground her for whole summer, and probably for ever (!) as another parent who has seen their daughter harmed.
I would "ground" her till the trip but not as punishment, as a time to discuss and set boundaries, then review and monitor all together.

Why is she using a burner phone? Is it illegal activity or is it that she has a boyfriend and doesn't want parents to see messages?

My mum did this when I was a teen. It was not good. I resented her so much we didn’t talk and a bad situation got worse. It took a long time for our relationship to recover.

I agree with PP that plans change and it may not have been malicious on her part but rather poor communication. That's a skill which teens and young adults have to learn. However, the sneaking out is much more concerning. Don't push her away if that's already her MO. She needs consequences but they have to be enforceable and realistic. If she feels the punishment is so harsh that she's got 'nothing' to lose, then she might only get more devious. It's a tightrope OP. Having raised two teens already, I can only sympathise. Your DH's anxiety is not something she should suffer for. He needs to address the issues that his eldest's experiences have left him with. Your DD is not responsible for what happened to her sister, nor is history necessarily going to repeat itself.

How much older are the kids she is hanging out with? Climbing out a bedroom window in the middle of the night is not normal 13 year old behaviour. Do you know these older kids? Is she the only 13 year old hanging out with the older kids? I would be very concerned about sex or drugs.

I know you say she is usually very well behaved but have you been paying close enough attention? A 13 year old having a secret phone and messaging through the night is a huge deception when she knows she's not meant to be on the phone overnight.

You need to put some boundaries back in place as it sounds as though she is spiralling out of control. I do however think that grounding her for the entire summer is the wrong punishment and she would probably find a way round it given what you have already written about her behaviour.

She’s always done her chores with no problem, in fact she regularly just does extra chores that she doesn’t have to do.

I’d ground her but maybe not all summer. She’s obviously up to no good so I’d be finding out what she’s up to and take all devices off her at night xxx

Grounding a child who will climb out a window and has a burner phone is never going to work full stop.

You need a serious chat yes with consequences, she doesn’t need to check in every 20 minutes that’s overkill, all phones she has need to be left down of an evening and I’d be checking the wifi to make sure she’s not connected more because a friend could easily drop one off for her.

Taking away the phone full time and a grounding will just make a teen like her who’s already prepared to sneak out with a burner do more because she’s already lost everything. So she’s nothing lose by running away to jennys house for a week with a new burner.

Grounding only really works in short bursts in my opinion. Also grounding a 13 year old for the summer is unrealistic let’s face it and more of a punishment to yourself than her, unless you can be with her 24/7 this sounds like a total ball ache to me.

I think ground her for a week, if she misses the big trip, so be it. Then I would set a curfew, home by 6.00. Miss that you're grounded the next day. The second phone and sneaking out are very worrying. Window locks are an idea but my granddaughter smashed them off and still left. I would try to explain you and your dh's concerns to her but expect fireworks. Trust has to be earned and not betrayed, she's definitely done the latter. I understand her dad is very concerned but over reacting will probably make things worse not better.