Teenager lying

[TheLovingRubyStork]

Hi all, my 14 year old was staying overnight with a friend at home alone, I came home earlier in the day before I was due to leave for the overnight stay and she had an extra friend round, she tried to hide the shoes after I had seen them, so we spoke about the sneaky behaviour, fast forward 9 hours later, I checked the camera as I set one up for just in case, she obviously didn’t know it was there, I caught her with a further friend round who I had no idea who it was, she purposely left her phone at home and went out, so when I eventually got hold of her, she lied through her teeth, so I said to her to send her friends home, I went and fetched her and brought back with me, she’s now grounded and banned from her phone.

I am not angry, just disappointed, AIBU??

I don’t need any comments regarding being left alone at 14 years old, I’m not going into that detail as it’s irrelevant 🙂

only here to say the staying alone is relevant , surprised you can't see that.

You were irresponsible to leave 14 year olds home alone. I'm not surprised they got up to no good. Your punishment seems over the top tbh.

It absolutely is relevant. She clearly isn’t mature enough to handle that responsibility.

I guess it depends on the ground rules you have in place? What’s the issue you have with friends coming over? Why is she only allowed one. Etc

Without that context I’m not sure what she’s done wrong.

So you were away she as allowed on friend and another came over? And then she went out? Are these male friends?

Well, this is what happens when you leave two 14 year olds alone overnight 🙄

The fact that you don’t think it’s relevant speaks volumes, tbh.

you gave her far too much freedom. 14 and allowed to stay at home with a friend. Was this a full overnight stay alone or were you coming back?

YANBU!

Thats a HUGE betrayal of trust and absolutely needs a big punishment.

If my 14 year old did that I'd be beyond furious at both the defiance but particularly the lying.

I wouldn't, however, leave a 14 year old overnight without a grown up.

I don’t need any comments regarding being left alone at 14 years old,

It really is ridiculous when OP's start a thread and then try and dictate to posters what they can or can't comment on.
And generally, as in this case, the part of the discussion OP wants to ban is very central to the issue she is posting about.

In this case it would be very interesting to hear the 14 year olds side of the story.

So many things wrong in this post. Leaving a 14 year old alone overnight is wrong (although no legal age, there are guidelines which say under 16 shouldn’t be left overnight without an adult present), a hidden camera to spy on her (how would you like that in reverse?), massive overreaction to having 2 friends round instead of 1 (I could understand if she was throwing a huge party, but really, what is the issue with 3 instead of 2?)….

The fact you were then able to collect her and take her with you suggests you didn’t even need to leave her overnight alone - so why were you?

She shouldn’t have lied to you, but you need to ask why she lied - why were you so uptight about the idea of the extra friend that she felt she couldn’t ask if they could stay too?