Rules for a 14 year old?

[shell96]

My DSD came to live with us unexpectedly yesterday. We want to put some house rules in place right from the start so she knows what is expected from her in terms of behaviour, etc.

So, not being especially experienced in parenting a teenager, can anyone tell me:

1. What is a reasonable hometime/bedtime? I am thinking home by 9.30 and in bed by 10 but is this too late or early? and how much later at weekends?

2. Is £5 a week reasonable pocket money these days? I know its not a huge amount but it would be enough to buy a magazine and some sweets/juice/etc? If she wanted CDs/clothes/etc she could save for them.

3. Household chores: At 14 I was responsible for doing my own washing, helping with the dishes, making my packed lunch and doing bits and pieces of housework for my mum. In return I got my pocket money. I am thinking along the same lines for my DSD but as she never lifted a finger at her mums I dont think she's going to like this idea much! Is it asking too much of her?

4. She used to get £3 a day lunch money but was always nagging her mum for more. £15 a week is quite a lot of money for us as my DP has recently gone self employed (after being unemployed most of last 2 years because of recession) and due to the costs in setting up his business has not made any profit yet and I am only recently back to work after mat leave so would it be horribly unfair of us to expect her to take sandwiches from home for her lunch when (I think) all her friends get money to buy food at school?

We are going to sit down with her tonight to discuss these things and I feel she is old enough to have some input into the rules but I just want to know I am not being overly strict or too soft

1. I would not let her be out until 9.30 on a weekday, and even at the weekend I would want to do a safety assessment: where is she? who is she with? etc. Bedtime seems reasonable.

2. no problem that I can see; my own dd gets a little less, but it's about what you can afford

3. is it economical to have each person do their separate washing- will you fill the machine that way? (thinking of the environment rather than of your dsd);

maybe start in gently on chores, let her do her own lunch and gradually work up to helping in the house

4. at dd's school, £2.50 is ample lunch money; try to find out what things cost at her school and how much you need to get a reasonable meal; we give dd enough to buy a cooked lunch with meat and veg, but not enough for endless drinks and snacks at breaktime; ask her what £3 will actually buy

being the only one taking sandwiches can be quite divisive as you end up in different queues/not sitting with your friends

I have a 16 year old and a 13 year old.

I had just typed a long reply about what we do, but realised it was probably not overly helpful.

In your situation I'd sit down with her and her Dad and talk through all of these issues and try to come to an agreement. You might be surprised at how willing she is to set some rules in place. For example, explain that she will have to help around the house a bit, so what things would she prefer to do.

Re the lunch money. Find out from the school how much lunch should cost - might be on the website. DD1 gets £2 per day for lunch. Their canteen is also open for break time, so £2 only really covers lunch. She also usually takes something from the house as a snack, fruit etc. for break. Maybe your DSD could take a drink with her for example as this eats into their lunch money.

I think if you handle this well from the start it could be quite pain free. Good luck.

my children left secondary school last year.

they got 2 quid dinner money - they couldnt have a feast on it - but they would,t starve until tea time.

pocket money - listeni have tried everything i truly have - and i have come to the conclusion that you dont just give them money.

yes she should help around the house

you could perhaps linkthis to the pocket money.

no she shouldnt get paid to help with the family - but give her some choresspecific to her - but ensure she is clear that there are chores she would get money for, an chores she is expected to do as a matter of course.

now if you get her to write the listof what she will do for a fiver and discuss it - i swear to god they always offer to do more ( surprisingly) than if you were to just give them 2 or 3 things.

Just to add re staying out in the evening. My DDs don't go out to just hang out, so when they go out it's to something specific which has a finishing time. Sometimes they are out late on school nights, but it doesn't happen often, so I'm quite relaxed about it. I think 10 o' clock bedtime for a 14 year old is fine. DD2 often takes herself off to bed before this.

I have to agree with MissAnneElk on sitting her down and asking. Even though you are 'inflicting chores' on her (as a 14yo would think ), you are giving her the choice as to what she wants to do, but mae sure that she knows that they must be done and slacking won't be appreciated.

Hi, thanks for all the replies - it's really useful to hear what people think and how others do things.

Another quick question - what are views on TV/laptop/mobile phones after bedtime?

We have often seen DSD on social networking sites late at night during the week and want to avoid this so is it reasonable to tell her she is not allowed to use her phone or laptop after 10pm?

Also what do people think about teens watching tv to fall asleep? I personally do not like it (not just for teens - i find it distracting rather than relaxing) but DP needs to have tv on to fall asleep at night so I feel it would not be fair to tell DSD that she cant.

When I was 14 I was allowed to read until lights out time (cant remember what that was now) and that was all - no tv or music or anything. But I do realise times have changed...

Phone, tv, laptop must NOT live in her room. They must be taken out before bedtime. Prefably they must not be in her room at all, but in a public part of your house.

10pm plenty late enough for bed, if not 9.30pm during termtime.
£5 pocket ok ...but then if she doesnt do any jobs to help at home then reduce it.
My two older ones are 19 and 22 and they were lazy at home but then i couldnt afford to give them pocket money being a single parent. They had to earn it at 16 +
Watch out with girls and using the phone....my bill shot up to £140 once, all due to my DD 15yrs then.
Am afraid i cant see ANY teenager doing own washing especially if out at school all day. Maybe the odd occasion during the long hols.
Also whatever area in the house she makes a real mess in generally, i would ask her that she cleans up after herself.

Plus, the more input she has in negotiating the house rules m, the more she will comply with them. Teenagers love to be in control,,,,,somewhat . !
Realise how costly she will be with female sanitary protection...etc, razors, hair products, clothing, mobile phone , make up ..lotions and potions etc !!

I have a 14 year old.

1. She is not allowed at in the evening - she must be back at 7pm at the weekend (we live in a city centre), and she is not allowed out at all after school in the week. If she has friends around/goes to friends it finishes at 8pm. She has clubs twice a week. The broadband goes off at 7.30 and bedtime is at 9.

1. She gets £80 a month allowance (I give her the child benefit) which goes straight into her bank every month. This is for everything - clothes (I buy essentials), cinema, treats, assorted crap. I also pay an extra £20 per week - this is to buy her school bus ticket (£10 a week) and her school dinner money, £2 a day. In summer she takes packed lunches so she gets £10 less a week if she does this. She makes her own packed lunch.

1. She does a lot of chores for her allowance. If she doesn't do them, kicks up a fuss about doing them, or does them craply she knows that I will reduce her allwoeance. She does the dishes once a day, cleans the bathroom every other day, cleans 2 cars at the weekend, polishes the sitting room once a week and changes her sheets once a week. She also has to keep her room reasonable. I do all the laundry - she did try to do it herself but it ended up that she would wash one top on its own. It's more economical for me to wash the families laundry together. She does her own ironing.

I think it's iomportant that teenagres are asked to contribute to the general running of the house. Me, DP and DD have all our chores and it works pretty well.

Make it clear that the amount of freedom and the number of privileges she has will be directly proportional to the maturity of her behaviour and her general willingness to be helpful and pleasant.

It's hard to generalise re specific rules without knowing the child's personality and the kind of parenting she has been used to. My dd1 has quite a lot of freedom because I know that she is actually extremely sensible and reliable, and v. motivated and hardworking wrt schoolwork. If I saw that schoolwork was not getting done and/or she was taking advantage of freedom to drink, smoke and hang out with people I didn't know or approve of then I would tighten up very swiftly.

I can already see that my second child is going to need a great deal more intervention wrt schoolwork because left to his own devices he will do the bare minimum. He's also more affected by peer pressure than his older sister.

I would agree re not having TV, computer or phone in her room after bedtime, particularly if you think she's using it late at night. I also don't let my dc hang out in the evening -- after school they come straight home unless they have specifically arranged to go somewhere else. Teenagers randomly hanging out after school into the evening is a recipe for uncompleted homework and an invitation to experiment with fags, booze and gawd knows what else.

You may also wish to establish rules re answering phones. In the frogpond, failing to answer a phone call or reply to a text within a reasonable time is a grounding offence. Otherwise when you phone to find out where they are they can just go, "Oh, I didn't hear the phone", or "Oh it was turned off", which is infuriating.

Wrt chores, ask her what she feels she can contribute to. Doing her own laundry is unlikely to be v. efficient, as you won't fill the machine properly. My 14yo cleans the bathroom thoroughly once a week and empties the dishwasher in the morning. She also picks up my younger dc from after-school club. Horses for courses, really.

Re the money -- my older ones get £2 a day lunch money, which they can either spend on lunch or they can save it by making their own lunch from the contents of the fridge and taking it in with them. Helpfully this encourages them to budget and plan ahead as well as saving me money. [bingo]

Re phones, I let her have her phone in her room. She plugs it in away from the bed. Also TV goes off at 9pm. Like I say the broadband gets switched off at 7.30. There are no problems enforcing these rules, I am pretty strict and she is pretty good anyway.

At 14 I didn't have a bedtime but this was mostly because my parents were crap at ever getting me to stick to my bedtime [I always had trouble with getting to sleep at night so I resented the idea of having to go to bed and be bored for a couple of hours, so I would just stay quiet and they'd forget about me]. I put myself to bed when I got tired. I think a good idea would be to arm yourself with a bit of knowledge about how many hours' sleep average 14 year olds need, ask herself first how long she thinks she needs, then mention the research and work those two together to get an acceptable bedtime.

I have never, ever had a curfew because...it just wasn't necessary? If I was staying out later than about seven it tended to be at a gig so my dad or someone else's parents were picking me up anyway. Same with at friends houses - I never really 'hung around' as a teenager [did more of that in primary school really] but I suppose you might want a curfew if she tends to do that.

She might see £5 as hardly anything [I would have, I got £10 at that age] but it is probably just about enough, unless she has expensive hobbies [gigs used to be my major spend and they cleaned me out]. Is there a possibility of her doing standard jobs for the £5 every week and then occasionally doing something extra for a further bit of money when she needs it?

I think splitting up washing is a bit pointless to be honest [to get a full washload with one person you'd have to wait a few days, and she may well want to wear certain clothes more often than that, if you see what I mean] but she could do one of the family loads a couple times a week. I didn't do much - set the table, made my own packed lunch - but would have actually been happier to do more regularly. I was more annoyed when I suddenly got asked to do something and then my mum would get annoyed if I didn't do it RIGHT AWAY, like I was meant to have known that she wanted me to do it and therefore not have been doing anything important myself. Someone else's idea of asking her what she thinks is acceptable and you might be surprised is a good idea.

If you are prepared to pay £3 a day lunch money [or whatever you find out is actually necessary for a decent lunch at her school, and agree with bringing her own drink in] then I would just say firmly that nagging will not get it raised and if she doesn't like it she can have sandwiches instead. Most secondary canteens IME tend not to bother regulating where people sit, so even if all her friends buy lunch she should be able to sit with them and she can still queue with them if she wants.

If I had had the internet in my room at 14 I would have been on it all night long. I did have my own computer but with no internet, so although I did a bit of late night fiction writing, it was nowhere near as tempting as the world wide web. But if she does have her own laptop/phone then I would start with agreeing with her a time when they have to be off by - i.e. bedtime - and then trusting her at first to stick to that and turn them off herself. If you subsequently find out she's been abusing that trust and you can hear her late at night or see browsing in her history or whatever, then you'd have to remove them yourself for a while and say to her she can have them back for a trial period again later to see if she has now learnt to control her impulses. She won't like the implication that she can't be trusted, even if it's true, so hopefully if she does break trust the first time will get it the second time.

TV is a tricky one - I use mine to get to sleep too. Depends I think - ask her if she uses it to get to sleep and if not have that go off at certain time too. If she does, go with the request that whatever she puts on is not too stimulating - i.e. something dull like News 24, or a DVD she's seen hundreds of times, so it is background noise but she won't be tempted to stay awake to watch it. Again, if you find she's up till one am every night watching movies or whatever, take it away [she'll have to learn to sleep without it or be very tired for a week].

When I read the title I was thinking. No underage drinking, no sex, no smoking or drugs. I went to live with my SM when I was 14 so I hope it works out better for you. Have you been in her life for a long time? Maybe you need to ease into the rule setting part of things if she has just been through a 'trauma'. Also I think you should ensure that your DH leads the discussion on your side of the table, but completely agree that she needs to have input to get her buy in. Re bed time and TV etc, there are heaps of studies to show that electronic media is having a huge impact on sleep of teenagers and definitely affects their ability to perform at school. I second the no TV, computer etc in her room. Falling to sleep to the TV is a bad habit at any age

I would be a bit careful about laying down rules too soon and too strictly. If she's come to live with you at short notice and unexpectedly, then I assume there's been some upset in her life. i would concentrate on making her feel loved and welcomed at the moment (without letting her take the p* of course)

I have a 14 year old, and while they seem all sophisticated and grown up, and in many ways they are, they are also still very close to childhood and need to be cared for and nurtured.

I don't think curfews are a good idea unless there have been problems in the past. My dd doesn't usually go out during the week except to organized activities, but if she does it's negotiated on a case by case basis - it's no point having a 9,00 curfew if whatever it is doesn't finish til 9.30.

Housework - i would ease into this gently if she hasn't done it before, and don't link it to pocket money. There are certain jobs that need to be done to keep a family going - and everybody contributes. You shouldn't be paid for clearing the table after dinner - you do it because you're part of a community.

They need a little money because you can't function in society without it. Maybe they can earn more by doing "above and beyond" jobs, but not have it taken away.

Ehey do still IMO need bedtimes at this age - they get very tired and may not be sensible enough to realize it. But once again, flexible - something good on the TV, a nice family evening, not tired that night - all these mean that bed time can be later.

It's all about balance and flexibility - and remembering that they are nearly adults, but nearly children as well!

I agree with Seeker. And also with MissAnneElk about getting her input into chores. I think flexibility is important.

The most useful thing a teenager can do is help with dinner, set the table, clear away, etc., and also babysitting, if there's a small child in your house. Laundry is not going to work, for all the reasons mentioned above, but a teenager could iron or fold and can definitely put clothes away. She should also be able to keep her room neat, clean up the bathroom after use, gather her laundry into a basket and not leave dirty clothes lying around. Teenagers can hoover and occasionally cook for the family too.

My DDs have been good students and have had the privilege of a small TV in their room. DS is not and does not. DD2 bought her own laptop and does homework and chats with friends in her room. She plays a sport that involves 5 afternoons a week during the season, and then homework takes a few hours -- there's no going out on school nights, except for babysitting jobs. Weekends are different, and at 14 she's been out until about 1 AM at the latest. I have a no questions asked policy about being called to rescue my DCs from any party or situation they're in that makes them uncomfortable.

I don't give pocket money, don't have any spare money to give. They buy school lunch with a card that I put money on. They all do jobs like babysitting to earn whatever they want to spend (hence DD2's laptop). I buy basic clothing and toiletries, and footwear required by school, and they buy the rest.

I agree on the flexibility. I would be inclined to help her settle in, see how it goes and then, when she feels comfortable and at home, sit down and discuss rules and expectations. It is all a bit much, and a bit cold, to do right at the start.

After reading this thread, I've come to the realization that I'm fairly relaxed concerning my DD. She is 13 y/o but is very mature for her age. She cycles to school everyday, does her homework and revises constantly without me asking her to, helps with her little brother and cleans and tidies.

We give her £20 a month , straight into her bank account. She does ask for a lot, but that's because all her friends are quite wealthy and she expects the same from us. We've talked to her about this and she's starting to get more and more understanding and less demanding.

We let her keep her phone with her at night, and we don't monitor her computer use. She watches programs on the family netflix including things that personally, I think, aren't appropriate. But at the end of the day, she only watches television about twice a week, and the rest of her time she devotes to her studies.

We don't have a particular set of rules but we do expect her to clean her room, clean the bathroom once a week, look after her brother , study and set the table most days. She does these tasks and I'm fairly happy with it.