Daughter not where she says

[NoFP]

I am a single Father of a teen daughter, so I really need some advice from you mums!

I won custody of my daughter about 3 years ago, her mother is no longer in contact and daughter is now 15 years old. The hardest thing is not having someone else to talk through the problems with to get a different perspective.

Daughter and myself have had several 'discussions' about fibbing in the past, usually ending up with mobile phone/facebook restrictions for a few days and a period where she is grounded.

It doesn't happen too often, she's a pretty sweet kid really. I suppose that in the grand scheme of things we are not talking major lying.

Today, her best friends mum called and told me that daughter did not spend the night at her house last week as I was told. She had found out from her daughter that my "sweet innocent child" had been smuggled into a male friends house late at night, to spend the night with his friend.
Apparently she is head-over-heels for this other guy who does not live in the area and so has to stay over with a local friend when he sees her.

I spoke to her the other day, showing concern that she was withdrawn and tired recently, and was something wrong? She said she planned to dump her boyfriend (really nice kid who treats her well) but she still really liked him as a friend. "Is there anyone else?" I said - "no Dad"

So what do I do? She has no idea she has been found out yet

This morning I disabled her access to Facebook and will be grounding her for a while once I talk to her, but am I being a bit stupid expecting her to be open with me? I'm really disappointed in her.

Thanks Pixie

She is on the pill, though not for sexual reasons - she has a hormonal issue that causes irregular bleeding.

I do actively encourage discussion, though I guess it's difficult for a daughter to be open with her Dad. So, I think she understands her boundaries.

So she fibs to cover her tracks. I think she would do this even if I were her mum.

I'm a bit sharper than she realises though, I've already found out who it is and the town he lives in. I just need to check the mobile phone bill website later to get his number too!

Good of her friend's mum; I would hope someone would do this for me if I was in your shoes.

No advice - hoping to benefit from what is given to you! Good luck.

I would say that you sound like you are doing really well so far so don't beat yourself up.
She is obviously happy to talk to you as she has told you about her wanting to dump the current fella.

I would sit her down and let her know that you know. Expain that you are not angry but upset that she felt the need to lie to you.
ask her why she needed to lie.

I have a theory that you only lie to hide something, and you only need to hide the things you know are wrong.

If it is not wrong then why hide or lie about it? it is just silly.

Let her know that you don't mind her seeing whichever boy she chooses but that it is your job as dad to make sure she is safe, and as such you need to know where she is.
I will go against probably the majority and wouldn't offer a punishment this time.

I would have a good talk with her as above and get some common ground. Tell her that you considered taking away facebook priveleges but that you reconsidered because you don't want to have bad feeling
but you do need to trust her, and she needs to be able to trust you not to get angry if she tells you something that is possibly difficult to hear (yes i am thinking sex/drink)

don't invade her privacy too much, but drop in that youknow she lied to you so that she could see xx from YY.

it will freak her out that you know all this already. I have always told my DC that no matter what they do mum see's everything.

Thankyou all, it's a relief to know I'm not being over-protective or too hard on her.

When we have had lying in the, past, the removed privelages are handed back after a while, but I tie the leash shorter until she gains my trust again.

When she is trusted, I don't monitor facebook and I'm not on her friends list. She gets full internet access, but I restrict to no later than 8pm and nag her about being sensible if I notice she is going brain-dead. As long as she tells me where she will be I have no problem with her visiting (reasonably local) friends on the bus. I wonder if I'm actually being too trusting?

She goes to school about 5 miles from where we live (where her mum used to live) so all her mates are some distance away - I feel she needs more freedom because of this. I don't want her to feel trapped and lonely.

I am quite (surprisingly!) comfortable with the idea of her being sexually active, I just hope she is not yet. Maybe when she gets to 25

The issue here is more about lying, ignoring boundaries and my own self-doubt that I'm not doing a good enough job being a parent. I remember fibbing to my parents when I was her age, I know it's normal. The rest of our family live over 100 miles away so I am pretty much the only adult in her life of any consequence, so it's not that I can rely on anyone else to re-inforce my rules or to be an open ear for my daughter.

Do you think putting her up for adoption is a little extreme?

Had a similar experience with my dd when she was about the same age.

I opened the discussion with "Do you want to tell me where you really were on Saturday". I also had a piece of paper sitting in front of me with a name on it that she could clearly see. So dd knew that I knew, but she couldn't guess how much I knew.

She went sheeet white, cried a lot and confessed to it all. I emphasised her safety, my need to know where she was if she got into trouble or had a problem, and told her about an experience from my own teen years when I put myself at risk.

I did punish her, but made clear that she was being punished for being dishonest with me, not for what she'd got up to.

Good luck - and it does get better.

I have one of these too (albeit a boy) and it's really infuriating.

It sounds like you're doing the right things.

I push the line that Trust = Freedom. I tell him I need to know where he is, who he's with and when he's coming home. If he gives me that information honestly he can go out. Who knows what happens in the interim as long as he's home on time

I handsomely praise any phone call, text or note to me saying where he is. When he lies or is late back he's not allowed out the next time he wants.

Mostly this works. But there are bad spells when it all goes out the window.

However I'm not so sure you should reveal your evidence when you know she's lying. In my experience teenagers are really good at defending outright lies even when evidence is laid in front of them.

I would tend to keep my sources to myself so at least you know the truth. That way you can continue to get covert information from that source in future - without having to meet on a bridge in East Berlin.