AIBU to not let DS go out with friends unless he specifies where

[NimbleMintOrca]

Whenever DS16 asks whether he can go out with his friends I ask who is he going out with and where exactly he's going. DS often tells me who he's going with but for some reason refuses to say where exactly he's going. At most he'll give a vague answer, e.g. London. AIBU to not let DS go out unless he says where he's gone? Should I be asking DS what his plans are whilst he's with his friends?

How exactly are you planning on stopping a 16 year old going out?

it shouldn't have that burden, it's very selfish if his parents expect him to take it on.

Because it’s not healthy to rely on someone else’s behaviour to appease your own anxieties, nor is it healthy to teach your children that they need to to change their behaviour to make someone else’s irrational thoughts go away.

You only have to read all the threads on here from people whose kids/partners forget to text one day and the OP is spiralling because they think they’re dead in a ditch or something.

Relying on other people to change their behaviour to make you feel better isn’t helpful long term, regardless of how harmless you feel it is.

@TheZanyZebra@thisishowloween So are you saying that people in your family just come and go without any communication with each other? No “Let me know when you get there”? No “Trains are screwed-I’ll be late.” Just “Bye-see you when I see you”

I might say something like "I'm going round Jane's, don't wait up" - or "don't forget Susan and I are going for lunch so I'll not be here when you get back" - but I would never text him to say I'd arrived somewhere or that I was running late - unless it was going to impact our own plans in some way.

For example, I'm due back home from a pet-sitting job tonight, but I have no idea about times as it depends on the owners' flight times and traffic on the way back from the airport.

He knows I'll be back before bed - anything else is irrelevant, really. He's not my keeper.

If he's in central London you'd worry a bit about him getting mugged and/or stabbed with the way things are these days

He’s 16, surely you were 16 at one point too and weren’t created in a lab as an adult and just released into the wild?