DD ran away - back now - advice please

[TheYakWanders]

On Saturday, my DD14 had a "playdate" with a friend, so I took her over there and left to go home. The child's mother was in the house but doing her own thing - they are teens and doing normal teen stuff or so we thought. The girls say they are going to the park... And the mother then gets a notification on her phone that a transaction has occurred on her card for the bus company. She rings me and immediately I felt my heart drop and guess they've run away to the city centre which is 20 minutes away. I drove like a bat out of hell to the city, parked in the bus station, started to wander and found them - unbelievable luck that I found them. They had two packed bags, and later we discovered they had stolen the mother's credit and debit cards and 2 knives (!!!!) for "self defence".
This has come out of the blue - my DD has never shown any indication of unhappiness or wanting to run away. She has an incredibly comfortable home life. How on earth do I navigate this fear and terror of someone running away who had absolutely no home life problems?? Please help. I feel totally adrift. She could have died.

Play date? Panicking because they’ve got the bus to the city centre 20 minutes away?

Sounds like she “ran away” in reaction to having such strict rules and being treated like a young child still. Does she not have any independence at all?

You say your daughter has no home life problems but something made her want to run away and take a knife with her.
Having a play date at 14 does sound unusual. You need to sit her down and talk to her and find out what is going on.

Thank you for this, I needed this attitude after such an awful day. Are you always this callous?
I called it a playdate because I didn't know what else to call it - hanging out with a friend then?
Also we live in villages - small villages where the kids naturally tend to stay in the villages. No they don't catch the bus to town right now. It's a big city and they tend to go telling us, and without packing bags and knives. HTH

Were their plans to go further? Just talk to her. Playmate is a weird term for 14 year olds. I was always travelling to the city with mates at 14. The knives are a bit strange.

I have of course sat her down and spoken to her at length. She says she doesn't know why she ran away. This friend has had some personal life issues - some really sad stuff last year - and apparently wanted to run away and my DD didn't want her to go alone - this is what she said.

What is her reason for doing it? Perhaps you can compromise on a solution.

As for the knives I’d be putting the fear of god into her about the law for carrying knives.

But I still think it’s a cry for freedom/independence. Do they have access to money and they just ran out, or why did they pay with friends mum’s credit card?

Also do they have mobiles?

So were they planning to stay there or just going for the day?

It sounds like they were just playing at running away tbh. They'd have been home in time for dinner.

My question is why, given that she has no history of running away and no problems at home, did you immediately assume she had run away when you heard they'd got a bus into town? I think most parents hearing that their 14 year old had taken a 20 minute bus journey would have assumed they'd gone shopping/to meet friends/the cinema and given them a call to check-in rather than immediately assuming they're trying to escape and driven into town to start a search party. What made you assume she was running away?

Are they in love but feel that wouldn't be accepted by you? Teens feel everything hugely and make irrational choices.

She's 14 and never been into town on the bus in her own?!

They have phones - my DD has family link and she's left her phone in this girls house.
The other girl doesn't have family link or tracking.
To answer the other question, they do have bank cards but hadn't taken them with them, so my DD had left her card here at home. I'd given her a few quid from my purse for the shop because of this

They are quite sheltered and I would say very young immature girls. A lot of the girls around here are the same. It's hard to make sense of it but they are all a lot more young minded than I was. So no, the majority of children in this area tend to stay local and don't go to the city alone. I know that sounds weird.

Did you miss the part where they were found with two packed bags, stolen cards and knives for self defence?

This isn’t an overreaction to kids going someplace they’re not allowed to go, this was calculated. And the first thing I would want to find out is why they felt the need to run away and where they found the idea of packing knives from.

OP, that sounds really frightening but please try to keep a cool head. Don’t shout, don’t punish, you need her to open up to you and give you answers. What’s bothering her? What’s the root cause of all of this?

Maybe you are way too controlling and treat her like she is 9, and she can't express it. It sounds like she wanted out of the strict watchful gaze.

I get it though, Mama, it's scary shit letting our kids out into a world that is fed to us to be terrifying.

But we have to let them grow into independent street smart kids, for their own future protection.

Catching a bus is a life skill.

The knives sound like she has absorbed your terror of the world and felt she needed to carry one just to step into the scary city.

My panic was because the mother said the phone had been left behind - my DD like most teens loves her phones and my mind immediately went to her not being able to be tracked. And my DD would tell me if she wanted to go into town and I would be fine with it - we had a fairly communicative relationship or so I thought. I think this other mother would also expect them to at least say to her, we are going into the city. She's probably offer a lift rather than the bus

@PinkFrogss she is 14, if i found my 14 year old had bought a bus ticket to the city without telling me (on a stolen card no less) i would be worried too, its nothing to do with being too strict.
OP she probably just wanted to support her friend but it was obviously preplanned for her to have her own bagged packed too, i think maybe both mothers need to have a sit down with both daughters and find out what is behind this sudden want to run away, not in a accusatory or telling off way but in a find out what has gone wrong sort of way xx

Hmmmm

I’d be making it clear she needs to have her mobile and money on her at all times as well, especially when going out.

But I agree with pp that they sound like they were playing at running away and wouldn’t have been out long, and they’ve done the sheltered teenager version of what little kids to.

If you have concerns about the girls home life I would ring the school and make them aware.

Thank you - this is exactly it. It was calculated and when I spoke to my DD, she said they've been planning this for weeks. They had two packed rucksacks of clothes. They had toothbrushes for god's sake - at least I should be glad they would take care of their teeth. And I didn't know about the knives until the mother unpacked the bags and told me.
What has shaken my core is that my previously trusted DD has become someone I cannot trust. She is extremely immature and childish. She does not understand that she could have had something extremely awful happen to her and we might never have found them. It was sheer luck that I found them

God what a stressful event. Luckily you found them and now have a chance to speak with your daughter. No real advice but good luck, hopefully it will calm down and get to bottom of it all. Maybe they are just naive and daft and thought it would be exciting.

I hate replies like yours. So quick to criticise the mum. Of course you are the cool mum who this would never happen to.....

Ive been through the teenage daughter stage - and yes my hair began to go grey.

After dealing with the fallout from this you need to start structuring a programme to help her develop more independence. I'm guessing one reason they took the knives is that the city is a scary place for them right now - you need to give her the tools to deal with that.

i took mine into "the big city", with me, and then let them wander off for increasing amounts of time and meeting up with me for coffee/cakes at the end of that. I was doing that from the start of secondary school. Mobile phones had just become a thing and were a godsend at that point.

My adult DD is with me this weekend - I just asked her if she could remember when she started going into the city totally on her own - she reckons 15, before that they went in groups. I would often drop them off and they could get the bus back, or visa versa.

It does sound as though the relationship with the other girl might be problematic - good luck with that one! I'm not sure I ever managed to successfully handle those kinds of friendships my DC had.

The knives thing would worry me more than the running away from home. What kind of mindset are they in that they think carrying knives is acceptable? I’d be ramming home the consequences of that.

As awful as it sounds, it may be the other girl is the instigator if you say she’s had some personal issues. It might be best for your daughter if she has some time apart from her, otherwise I fear she may lead her into even worse situations. It’s not your daughters responsibility to fix the other girl.

At what point will you stop tracking her, OP? 16, 18, 35?