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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ground dd(13) all summer?

132 replies

becausesam · 03/08/2025 15:58

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?

OP posts:
Atina321 · 09/08/2025 20:07

Consequences doesn’t have to mean being grounded. But she does need to earn your trust back - increased chores to earn freedom would be fair and teach her some responsibility.

FriendIsAngry · 09/08/2025 20:12

Rather than grounding her, maybe look on it as needing much tighter measures for keeping her safe.

So she must leave the house with her phone fully charged and a battery pack.

She gets collected at the specified time. Preferably on foot.

You call or go around to the parents of the friend she met up with.

She doesn’t know how to, or will not keep herself safe. So her parents need to intervene rather than punish.

Skybluepinky · 09/08/2025 20:52

County lines alarm bells ringing!!!!!

theGooHasGone · 10/08/2025 04:08

If she's ordinarily very well behaved but has started acting out to this degree, that's cause for concern IMO. It's probably best to encourage her to confide in you rather than administering a draconian punishment like grounding for six weeks. That said, I do believe there should be at least some consequence for her recent actions here otherwise she won't think twice about doing it again.

I agree with others that getting to go on the trip is supposed to be a high value reward and she hasn't really earned that with recent actions, so can be used to reinforce that while she lives with you she has to abide by your house rules, and not doing so puts fun things she wants to do such as trips like this in jeopardy, because you can't trust her.

Coco1379 · 10/08/2025 11:03

I used to tell my children that I would not punish late homecoming if they called before the curfew and told me where they were and why they would be late, simply because I needed to know they were safe - if anything bad happened to them - accident etc it would not be good to wait hours before sounding the alarm.
I also think a curfew is helpful for a child who does not feel comfortable in doing what friends are doing - s/he can then ‘blame’ parent’s curfew rather than friends deriding them for not going along with the crowd.
A whole summer grounding seems harsh to me, perhaps a warning that if anything like that happened again then the penalty would be more severe.

DarkForces · 10/08/2025 11:07

Surely grounding for a whole summer and having to be a prison guard to a grumpy bored teenager is as much a punishment on you?

SparklesGlitter · 10/08/2025 15:57

Batherssss · 03/08/2025 16:06

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.

This is perfect. She needs to know that you love her but that doesn’t automatically mean you trust her. You need to learn to trust her again and that she has to work to build that up. Then you can loosen the reins. It’s such a scary world out there. My first response would absolutely be to ground her for the summer. I almost think a bit of reverse psychology is needed. Grounding her would give her the excuse to climb out of the window? What you want to get to is her not doing that. And to her going out in the ‘right’ way? She also needs to see that not showing up is disrespectful so you need her to agree with you on some boundaries and dos and don’t’s etc (I hope this makes sense)
My heart goes out to you OP. This is such a tricky time but hopefully on the other side of this, you’ll have a daughter who’s not a pushover when she’s older ❤️ and one who is resourceful in taking care of herself

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