19 Year Old Lying to me

[hollyberrytree]

It was my daughter‘s idea to install Life360 on our phones so that it will be easy for meeting up when we were away. She knows I seldom look at my mobile as I work on aPC or I use an iPad.

She’s a second year university student living 4 hours from home and I have realised that she thinks I can no longer see the Life360 details. But I can.

She’s told me ( We have an ongoing chat on Facebook messenger, we don’t phone) -she’s in her university hometown but I can see she’s gone to stay with her boyfriend. And now today they’ve left there and gone on another long journey about 150 miles away.
We havent met the boyfriend yet. But I’ve expressed no disapproval whatsoever in fact he sounds quite nice. They have been together since September

This isn’t the first time I’ve caught a lie A few weeks ago she went to stay at the boyfriend’s university which is four hours away from her uni but again she pretended she was still at uni. This was over a weekend so perhaps less important.
The following weekend she was there again but told me and I didn’t let on. I just said have a lovely time and paid for their lunch at Wetherspoons!

If she wants to miss uni then that’s one thing but it’s the lying that is another. She is actively telling me she’s doing something so it’s not as if she’s just not mentioned she’s gone somewhere

What shall I do? She supposed to be coming home on Saturday for Christmas.

But what difference does it make? Your other children have probably lied to you at various points too.

Did you never lie to your parents?

The only way you’ll find out is to ask her. 🤷
sorry, didn’t mean to quote your response @OriginalSkang

I don’t think you should be tracking her. Lying isn’t great but she is entitled to her privacy and obviously doesn’t want you to know where she is for whatever reason. That’s her right.

Yep and then as soon as the daughter knows she's being tracked, she'll switch her Life360 off anyway.

It’s very distressing to find out that one is being lied to. One never knows how much of it is happening, or why. My son lied to me when he was your daughters age, I thought he did it to enjoy privacy that our usual level of sharing didnt really allow space for.
its a rite of passage, to be lied to like this, ime. One never quite looks at them entirely the same way again.
of course I didn’t tell my parents everything, far from it. It’s odd to be the one that info is withheld from. I truly think they need their little zone of privacy, despite the fact that they are generally very chatty and open. Hey ho. It doesn’t really change much.. sceptical now one knows one might be excluded from certain truths… hopefully not significant ones.

I’m not surprised people don’t like Life 360
but I am extremely surprised most people would be ok with their young adults outright lying.

Butt out. Jeez the idea that my parents might have kept tabs on me once I was at uni is ridiculous and horrifying.
Personally, once my children went to uni, I stopped thinking about their academic progress. If they wanted to attain their degrees, they would (and did) but if they wanted to skip lectures and go away with partners, it was their life.

Edited to add: she is lying to you because she thinks you won't approve. You have a right to your feelings, but no right to impose those feelings on her.

How would you want her to respond if she’s going somewhere / doing something she doesn’t want to tell you about (which is perfectly fine and understandable)?

If it was me i would tell her that the app was still connected and I've now deleted it because she is an adult and it's not necessary for me to be able to see where she is at any given time.

I don't think people are saying they would be okay with it, but many young adults lie to their parents so you just kind of accept it.

So your DD is outright lying to you, but what about you tracking her and not telling her that you are doing so? Do you think your DD would be okay with you doing that if she knew?

You seem to just be focusing solely on her lying and not your snooping.

@hollyberrytree none of us are happy to be lied to by our own young. But - when the facts are set out - most of us (as on this thread) can see why other young adults are lying to their parents.

The difficulty is that you won’t accept what we can all see.

Tell her her you are 5 minutes away and have come to suprise her....

Jeez - she didn’t tell you she was with the bf for the weekend/during the week because you’d not have approved and/or have interrogated her. Or she just doesn’t want to tell you the minutiae of her life. Because she’s entitled to privacy. It’s some big scheming lie. She just didn’t want her nosy mum knowing everything.

If she wants to miss uni then that’s one thing but it’s the lying that is another.

I wouldn’t be impressed if I was paying for university and my kid was skipping class to visit a boyfriend four hours away. Surely her university has boys she can date? How well is she doing overall? If she’s regularly lying about being at her uni I would also be concerned that she’s lying about her progress/grades.

Yip 😂

So if someone texts you asking what you’re up to, and you’re sat on the loo, is it lying if you say you’re doing the laundry?
Or is it you protecting your privacy because you don’t want to share what you’re doing?

It only really qualifies as lying if you are owed the truth.

You're dodging explaining what you mean by that? You can be offended she lied to you, but obviously you can't do anything about it?

What do you mean about people being okay with it?

And she will absolutely be offended if she finds out you are tracking her!

Most people realise that their teenagers and young adults do lie to them on occasion. And if the lie is not serious (which this isn't) they don't do anything about it.

If she’d said I’m going to X for a few days with BF I’d just have said.
ok let me know when you get there, are you ok for money and be careful.

I would find this horrendously suffocating.
Imposing on her the requirement to let you know when she gets there - as if she was doing something dangerous like rafting the Nile. Then if she forgets to let you know she has arrived, you start worrying, so you have imposed on her the requirement to stop you worrying. That is just messed-up controlling nonsense.

Enquiring about her financial situation - simply not appropriate.
She is an adult who doesn't even live with you. Why on earth are you inserting yourself into her journeys and her finances?
And then a vague warning to "be careful" - what on earth is that supposed to mean? It is just infantilising.

You want to know why she lied? Simple: because she didn't want you to know what you have no business knowing. It is not even your business to know that there might exist something she doesn't want you to know.
You have no right not to be lied to.

You need to start respecting her and treating her like an adult.

Her finances are my business as she’s a student and can’t support herself without parental input. I don’t ask what she spends on, just that she has enough to live off and have a social life

You clearly dont like the responses you are getting. What is it you want to read here?

She’s 19. She doesn’t have to tell you what she’s doing.

I’d speak to her when she gets home.
Id say I have de-installed the app. I am guessing she had forgotten I had the opportunity to see her whereabouts.
and you dont like her lying, particularly when there is no reason to hide her movements. As long as her course work is getting done & she is safe. You trusted her not to bare faced lie but it looks like confidence is a thing of the past.
Then Stop.

She doesnt have to tell you anything
She also doesnt have to lie