Control/boundaries - the battle between an anxious parent vs defiant 14 year old

[Alvah]

I assume there is nothing that is 'normal' when it comes to teenagers, however I am struggling at the moment with a power play between being the responsible parent (setting clear boundaries) and the tornado force my of my son's mood when these boundaries squash his plans. I would really like your thoughts and opinions.

Single parent of two DS 14 & 12 and DD 10. Two youngest go to their dad at weekends, but DS 14 is refusing to go to dad for last 3 months. So I am now having to deal with weekend negotiations for the first time.

I am quite an anxious person by nature (as well as relatively quiet, introspective, calm and patient). I want to please and I like to avoid conflicts as much as possible. With a lively, sociable, streetwise, clever (defiant, angry, moody, 'I'll find a way to get what I want') 14 year old son, this is causing my nerves to completely fray.

He considers me very strict, I won't allow him to go for sleep overs (unless I know them and his friends parent phones me to tell me he is there). This is too embarrassing and leads to endless arguments (although I don't like arguments, I will not let him do whatever he wants). So he has had years of having to leave his friends who are going to sleepovers, and come home alone. (All he has to do is get them to phone me!)

I consider myself very lenient, although with certain conditions. He is allowed out until 10.30 at weekends, but have until 11 to make it home before I freak out. He has been allowed to go out during the Easter Holidays from afternoon until late (this is new! He used to always have to come home for dinner and not allowed to be out from morning until night, although all his friends are allowed, of course). When school is on he has to be home at 9.30 but has until 10 before I freak, and has to have dinner here before he goes out, expect on Friday when he has dinner out.

Bedtime at the moment I have changed from turning off wifi at 10.30 about a year ago, to becoming 11.30 gradually, to becoming his responsibility lately. Easter Holidays he has turned day to night. I am not happy about it but am choosing not to fight about that as I am just glad he is safely in the house. So I would consider myself lenient and flexible and understanding of his needs.... am I?

Last two weeks however, we had an argument, he told me to shut up and so I logged him out of Netflix. When he came home he freaked at me and punched his walls and called be every horrible name under the sun. The next day he went out at lunchtime and announced by text he would be staying at a friends that night for a sleepover (it would be best for the both of us). Last time he threatened to do this I said I would phone the police if he didn't come home + phone round all his friends parents. He came home with his tail between his legs. This time he text me and asked for me to please trust him on this one, I said I don't even know where you are, so he eventually told me. I didn't know what to do, on the one hand he was communicating on the other he was still breaking my rules. I didn't want him to get away with it. But somehow I felt I shouldn't fight this one just now. He ended up coming home on his own accord at 10.30. I was so glad to see him I forgot to be angry.

Last night he asked if he could stay at a friends house, I know who they are but don't have contact details. I said 'if his mum texts/phones me and tells me you are there'. After lots of arguments over text I got a text on my DS' phone 'apparently' from his friends dad. I don't believe it was him for a minute. Later he said 'stop worrying mum, I can look after myself, just trust me on this one, I love you - I'll be home in the morning'.

It is now morning. I have hardly slept. I had a nightmare he and his friends had dumped a body in the river, my son saying that 'if they don't find out we'll get away with it!' My stomach has been churning and I have been in tears. I feel awful. I feel he is slipping out of my grasp, and I don't known what to do about it. Punishing him seems to make things worse. Talking to him calmly seems to work much better, but he still just pushes and pushes the boundaries. I am getting so anxious that I don't know when I am over reacting and when I need to DO something.

Sorry for it to be so long. Just needed to get this off my chest :(

Re trust.
I trust my husband implicitly- he's (obviously!) an adult too, but that doesn't mean I double lock the doors and switch my phone off when he's out for the night, or travelling home from overseas. I'd still answer at 2am, keep half an eye on the weather and be prepared to collect him if travel plans fail. Not because I don't trust him but because I keep him in mind; as teenagers become more independent it's about keeping them in mind and being available.

To be fair the party in a unknown house have only been on two occasions in the last few months. One was a girl in his class the other a boy. As I said I had the full address, emergency phone number, on one occasion I dropped him off and on another occasion Ds' friend's mum dropped them off.

On one occasion I had a long chat by text with one of the mothers of his friends trying to decide if to let them go. It felt good to talk to another parent in doubt and both decided to allow them in the end.

Bottom line is that I agree with the fact that your doubts and ultimately tears should not be seen by them. They need to feel there is a responsible parent who knows what he's doing behind their back.

We have rules but the ones we have are explained to ensure he understands why they are in place.

To add, dd once slept at the house of a family friend who we know well. Unfortunately, they had no restrictions on their internet. The child 'hosting' the sleepover showed dd pornography on the laptop. Dd went to the toilet, called me for advice, then said she was feeling unwell and I collected her.
It's this kind of trusting and open relationship that gives me confidence in her decision making. And also proves that wherever your children are, whether with strangers or those you know well, they need to be able to rely on safeguarding themselves to some degree.

Seriously, just because I trust my dd doesn't mean I don't make myself available for support. I simply don't feel the need to confirm she is telling the truth through a third party.

MoreCrack you must be very proud. She sounds like a fantastic DD.

Mine would not share so openly regarding what made him not go to a party recently or about his friend (whom I thought was an angel) asking him to drink some spirits. I discovered this myself and now I feel proud at his power to make the right decision.

I still don't know what it was with the last party, he asked, was allowed, two hours later he said he'll use the excuse of me asking him to come home. But I trust whatever it was that bothered him he obviously new how to get out of that situation.

seriously I sleep with my phone next to my pillow when DS is not home. I drive at 5 in the morning to pick him up when he asks. Trust doesn't mean not to care, trust means that you built up to a moment when you can hand on heart believe your child he is where he said he would be. Until proven otherwise obviously.

*knew, sorry for the mistakes, I am on my phone.

And trust is not something that you force yourself to have. You just find yourself there one day, you just believe what your child is telling you not because you are naive but because over time you got to know your child, they proved they can be trusted.

But you need to get there first. The op didn't give herself the occasion to trust her DS with sleepovers.

I on the other hand cannot be relaxed passed 8 pm if he is not indoors. Home or at his friends. So I am puzzled by the fact that op's Ds is allowed out so late.

Fleur I ask myself every day how I managed to produce such a kind, trustworthy and brilliant daughter

Wrt to your son, I'm not sure it matters that he didn't share with you why he didn't want to go. It's just fantastic that he can make those kinds of decisions on his own, with the knowledge of your expectations at the forefront of his mind.

You should be very proud that he made that decision, not through fear of being "caught", but because he knew it was the right thing to do. His own moral compass, if you like. That's what we aim for our children to develop, surely.

In 4 short years dd will be out in the world and that compass will be all she has to rely upon.

And I strongly agree wrt the late curfew.
Totally unacceptable to be out until after 10, hanging around on the streets or in parks.

Mine have been to sleepovers since they were young children (5-6 up). It's the done thing here and how friendships are conducted. That is how I developed the code for 'I am feeling wobbly/miss my teddy and I want to go home.' I would ask to talk to the parent, tell them I would come to pick up the DC as they were feeling the start of a tummy thing, and bring them home. 99% of the sleepovers they went on (always one visiting child, never a houseful) went smoothly, and when I had children over (again, never a houseful, just one at a time) it was also mostly smooth sailing. They got to know their classmates very well as a result and also got used to just calling and having me deal with their problem in a discreet way.

The same code continued to be useful when they were teens and they just wanted to get out of wherever they were, party, sleepover, etc. I leave my phone on and will always respond if they call or text. I have pulled on sweatpants and a coat and have gone to homes where they were at parties three times so far since the mid 2000s, texted from the car, and they have left and been driven home, with some friends too, occasionally. No questions asked -- if they want to talk about it fine but if not that is fine too. The important thing is they have made a solid decision. The times they have talked to me they have mentioned reasons like groups of people they didn't know crashing the party, people starting to get really loud and crazy, friend being harassed by a boy, boys being obnoxious/aggressive, and smoking (DD1 gets asthma from cigarette smoke). Wrt sleepovers, the main reasons were bona fide health issues and in one case suddenly remembering a complicated homework project due on a Monday that had been on the long finger so long it had become part of the wallpaper.

DD1's asthma (and DD3 also has it) meant learning to trust them from quite an early age with their inhalers, and feeling confident they would use them if needed when they went to school, or to parties or on trips to the beach with friends, etc. It also meant they had to be able to speak up responsibly to adults who were with them if they were having difficulties. Plus I had to be able to contact people and explain about the inhalers and symptoms of an asthma attack, and to make myself available for parents who wanted to contact me. DD3 is a sleepwalker and I had to warn sleepover hosts about this too. I didn't want their social lives curtailed by their health issues or weird quirks.

Currently I am having a discussion with DD4(13) about plans she and a friend have been trying to hatch about a shopping trip on their own to a local mall. She told me she and the friend wanted to go alone and spend a few hours trying on dresses as they are both going to a dress-up event and need something to wear. I got the impression her friend was suggesting something she was not completely happy with but that is not something I would say out loud. I contacted the friend's DSM only to find we were both on the same page -- neither of us wants the girls to shop on their own for a whole morning as the mall attracts a pretty rough crowd at weekends, but we are both willing to go with them to the mall and shop for a while, then let them go off on their own for a bit, and meet up at a designated time and come home. The friend's DSM is going to do this on Saturday as she would like to get away for a while from her younger children . DD4 is happy with the compromise.

I very much agree that DCs need to be able to keep their eyes open and to be confident that they can and should contact a parent if they are uncomfortable. They need to be able to do their own safeguarding and not to fear they will never be let out again when they in effect tell you the situation that they thought looked ok before they actually experienced it has not been what it seemed. I don't think anyone should be hauled over the coals for essentially admitting a mistake. Teens generally don't want any long discussions about things they themselves have recognised to be a problem either, just to move on with life.

Yes, ds has also been on sleepovers since he was 6 so obviously I knew back then who he was staying with as they were friends of mine and we often have kids staying over but again, these are children we've known since ds was 5 or so. We had one invitation when he was about 9 from a child we'd never even heard of and they didn't live locally. I said no to that but the child could come here after school and take it from there, but that didn't happen and ds didn't seem that bothered.

Wow, lots of new posts on here now. I will need to take some to read through them. It is really helpful to have so many different takes on the subject.

Just to clarify, DS is 14 and in year 9, got muddled earlier.

I think things may be different here as most of the kids are allowed out until 9.30 on school nights and 10 maybe weekends. It is if they are at a friends house that they may stay there until 11. For example he'll call and say he's at a friends house, can he stay until 11 when the others are going home. So I've said yes to that, and trusted he is where he said he was. On school nights they may be just going to the shops for a treat/ costa coffee for a chat etc. We live in a smallish town. Although his curfew is quite late, most nights he stays in or comes home early. If he's not happy, he will call and ask me to pick him up. I do that happily as I prefer to have him home.

So most of the time things unfold smoothly and he is mostly on the same page as friends his age.

However my original question was in regard to the difficulties in setting appropriate boundaries in situations where the teen pushes forcefully for more freedom (like staying out all night somewhere you don't know where is/or who with) but it is completely unacceptable (as not knowing where your teen is all night is); how do we deal with it. When saying No leads to them rebelling causing further risk and saying Yes is neglect....this is why I asked, it feels like a loose loose situation in those circumstances.

My DS has always been tricky to handle, as in continuously wanting to move onto the next stage of development in life. At 1.5 he went and stood outside our home with a backpack. When I asked him what he was doing there he said 'I'm waiting for the bus, I'm going to school' . Very early talking and walking. He was never afraid to venture out on his own. And although we have a lovely and open relationship, in conflict it is like fighting a whole army, he battles like there's no tomorrow.

I disagree with the notion that showing weakness/tears are harmful. I think it shows strength to be honest with DC how you feel, it allows them also to express their feelings. I agree that being a 'victim' in your relationship to DC is harmful for DC, but this is very different to being upset that your child stayed out all night at an unknown location. The child created and unsafe situation and by doing so should know that.

I asked for advice because I feel my DS is getting out if hand. I wonder what is normal to expect at this age by 'rebellious' 14 year olds. Some of you will find this very strange, if you do mot suffer from "Rebellious Teenage-itis". My other two DC are not like this.

On the sleepover issue, I've spoken to two of DS's friends mums, who both announced they were having similar issues and were no longer allowing sleepovers. I already know that some of his other friends don't do sleepovers either, so here it is not such an unusual rule. They also confirm with other parent if in doubt.

Do your 14 year olds go to parties? Mine has just asked if he could stay out half an hour longer on Saturday night because it is someone's party. Trust vs boundaries. Here we go again...

Mathanxiety - I feel you have a lot of experience and clearly a lot to say, however it comes across as you making a lot of assumptions about me as a parent/person which you are basing on an extreme example of my specific experience with my DS described here. I appreciate your input and am reading every word, but feel you are projecting a lot of your own issues onto my situation.

Thanks to all for making this a stimulating and helpful resource

Your DS is a teenager and is allowed out at night so he is going to meet lots of new people.

Actually, in a smallish town, he is going to run out of new people to meet who are teenagers, and there is therefore very little reason for you to not know who he might end up sleeping over with.

If you do not think allowing him out at night is a problem (and bear in mind you only see those who do this and probably do not know how many do not go out at night) then your job is to get to know the people he is meeting, find out their parents' phone numbers, and facilitate a social life.

I personally think allowing him out at night is leading to all the trouble with him hanging around with people you do not think highly of how else would he have managed to associate with the kids you think are into drugs after all and you should rein him in but allow him to sleep over in homes where you have made the effort to contact the parents yourself.. It may well be that that ship has sailed however. Once teens have had a taste of being allowed out at night it is hard to get them back in again without seeming to be punitive.

There is a huge amount of space between saying No and saying Yes. In the middle there is the willingness to negotiate and meet each other half way that was missing from the sleepover standoff. You have had 14 years to accept your DS as he is but you have not developed a sensible approach to him. He is a child who wants to get out there and live his life, beginning at age 1.5 with the backpack as you describe, and you have not managed to find a way to incorporate his basic personality into your parenting style. The best you have come up with has backfired spectacularly -- unreasonable demands wrt sleepovers has pushed him away from friends and into the arms of older teens who may be doing drugs. That and playing for sympathy. The middle ground includes approaches such as sitting your DS down and discussing what he sees as the problem and what you see, and asking for him to suggest compromises that work for everyone.

You can't try the tearful mum on the couch routine again. It won't have an effect the second time. It's like a joke -- not funny the second time you tell it to the same person. And the unreasonable butting of heads has not been much use either. You have a situation on your hands that needs a new approach but you seem determined to listen only to people who agree with you (some of the local parents) and to continue with the manipulative approach that has got you exactly nowhere up to now. You seem determined not to take on board what is really hard won wisdom from many posters here, most of whom are familiar names from this board.

I assume you are referring to the advice I offer about DS's father and the issue of the relationship there when you tell me I am projecting my 'issues' onto your problem? Just because someone has gone through similar experiences does not mean they are projecting. A boy simply does not cut his father out of his life at age 14 without reason and without experiencing fallout, and a boy who has been exposed to an authoritarian style of parenting is going to have perceptions of authority and authority figures arising from that in the teen years that must be addressed. I assure you that crying is just as bad as losing your temper/flying into a rage. Every single episode a child witnesses chips away at the respect he has for you.

Teenagers are not 'rebellious' in the sense of defiant and contrarian and self destructive by nature. A boy does not up and cut contact with his father out of the blue, or persistently argue with teachers and underachieve in school for no reason. Something is going on with your son that you seem determined to ignore. If you have a script in your head that teenagers want to fight parents and it is the fate of all parents to spend the teen years locking horns with their teens (and you seem to) then it will be very easy for you to go on ignoring the undercurrents of your son's life, keep on being stubborn instead of sensible, and keep on manipulating (crying) with predictably diminishing returns in a doomed effort to control the behaviour your son.

Meantime he will not develop healthy boundaries, or if he does it will not be because of your input. If he ever chooses to behave he will only do it in order to 'manage' you. This is not the healthy emotional development into adulthood that you should be fostering.

In your OP you said that your ds goes out in the afternoon and doesn't come home at all until night time.
I struggle to imagine he is in Costa or at the shops the whole time he is out.
That, for me, would be much more of a problem than a pre arranged sleepover.

MoreCrack - he had more freedom in the holidays, than I have ever given him before, meaning he was out in late afternoon until evening. I'd rather him be out in the daytime rather than night time. Now that the holidays are over we are back to normal routines. This week for example he has not been out except one evening for an hour.

I wouldn't mind a pre-arranged sleepover with a family I know. The problem I'm having is that when he's asking, it is with strangers, or he said he was with someone when he was somewhere completely different.

The bottom line is I am feeling like I am loosing control of him and worry about who he has begun to hang out with. And as it stands, it is really hard to enforce/ consequence him, without pushing him further away.

He meets these other kids at school. Some of them class mates from Primary and some older kids from Primary in the past. I know he's attracted to the 'gritty' parts of life, and i am really trying to work with him and find compromises. That is exactly where the late curfew comes from. Allowing him time/ freedom, but just not ultimate freedom as he is too young to gave full responsibility.

Mathanxiety- we all need a critical voice to help us reflect on what we could have done better in the past. So thank you for being that for me.

I feel you have taken the post out of proportion by blowing up certain details and as you are filling in the gaps with assumptions, I reckon these must be your own issues you have dealt with in your life and projecting onto this situation. That is fine, we all do it, but it is good to be aware of it.

He is not underachieving at school. I said he is clever academically, but unmotivated. He struggles with authority, but gets on with it.

I have been compromising and negotiated with him plenty, which is why at this point he has a lot of freedom.

My ds is almost 16 and hugely argumentative, always has been. I am too and I don't see it as being a problematic trait, just one that needs harnessing. Of course there are times when it is quite boring to be arguing so much. Luckily for me all of my ds's friends are online, and he doesn't socialise much if it requires him to leave the house.

My 14 year old dd on the other hand is very sociable, and often has sleepovers. She has only a few very good friends, and goes to their houses or to town with them. I've met most of the parents too, but only very briefly, not to vet, and if she fixes a sleepover I assume that the other girl has cleared it with their parents and don't confirm. Nor do I expect her to check in with me while she is gone. I know if there is a problem she will be in touch very quickly, as she has migraines and sometimes does need to come home at very short notice.

They both have a 10pm bedtime, so I'd not be letting them stay out so late unless there is a very good reason as that just doesn't seem conducive to enough sleep. I'd also be very uncomfortable about the hanging out, I do think that is likely to lead to trouble.

Like math I advocate sitting down with your ds and working to draw up some new ground rules with him, if he feels he was involved in drawing them up he may well be much more likely to follow them. Explain your concerns, and allow him to talk about why the current rules cause him problems. But don't be afraid to put in place consequences for breaking the rules too.

My DS has always been tricky to handle, as in continuously wanting to move onto the next stage of development in life This is my DS too!

You are worried about who your DS hangs about with. We are happy for DS to have friends round/for sleepovers a lot - this way we get to know his mates and get some idea of personalities and what they are all up to. They also go out and about together a lot during the day (yay for free /subsidised travel in London) if not having a kick-around in the park so not quite the same as "hanging about" We have the rule that DS must be phone-contactable at all times, and we do sometimes say no to things, but with good reason and he does comply.

You asked if our DC go to parties. Yes my DC do, but it's not every week or even every month. DS has been to a few where the parents seemed to be there supervising and checking re alcohol, etc, the most recent one got out of hand and he called DH at 10.45 to collect them and drop his mate (who was very drunk and had been very sick) home. DH was pretty sure DS hadn't been drinking, but I'm sure he will.

Wrt to parties, do you mean birthdays? If there's a party, we have an invitation with parent's number on it and we drop off and collect at the specified time.

Going to Costa means an hour or so then maybe to the park for a bit so out of the house for a couple of hours.

OP, when you describe your ds it's like you're describing a 16 year wrt what he's allowed to do/freedom he has.

Has he said why he doesn't wasn't to see his Dad? I'm surprised he's given the choice. Sorry if you've already explained this, I'm reading on my phone and it's fiddly to read back.

Dame, that kind of party invitation disappeared at the end of Primary school round here However, I do have the numbers of some of his friends mums and we always need to know where the party is (usually not too far away) and who they are going with.

As you say, the freedom is more like that of a 16yo in many places.
It is very difficult when your headstrong DS looks and acts like a 16/17yo, and when you live/they go to school in an area where most parents are pretty liberal about what they are allowed to do. And when they are used to travelling across cities/ on various buses/trains on their own to get to school/footy training/sports fixtures. You have to walk the knife-edge of allowing them some freedom and trying to keep them safe/not doing stuff you don't want them to do.

I think the last parties ds went to were when kids were turning 13 so that may well be it here too.

My DCs are 15, 16 and 19 (to give my teenage parenting credentials ).

I agree with all the posters saying about the hanging around til late with no purpose. From my own experience teenagers can get into every bit as much trouble during daylight hours as they can after dark. Being off the radar for hours on end is the same whether it is from day into evening or overnight at a sleepover.

You cannot police your teenagers' friendships. What you do is talk about risks, consequences and impressions given. This isnt a one-off big talk it is a constant dialogue. And it is always contextualised in terms of their own future plans (even if that future plan is only slightly formed).

It is about helping them to make decisions.

It is the development of wings over time with training and exercises rather than keeping them in the nest then letting them jump out to fall or fly when they turn 16/17/18.

Have you tried discussing with him why he would lie about where he is? Did you explain why it is important to know where he is?

Our discussions start with "I read this article with..." or "I read on MN about..." And here I insert whatever bothers me. Including dangers of being murdered. Things like "one Ds was drinking until he passed out and his mum didn't know where he was, a girl had sex at 14 but later on got scared and accused the boy of rape, and so on.

Regarding school: from what I read not many boys are motivated to study. They don't see the long term effect. My DS is also academic but lazy as I like to put it. He'll study last minute and with a lot of nagging. I try to give the short term effects to him, or rewards: do an hour studying a day and you will be allowed something you really want.

Fleur, so true about not many boys being motivated to study and the need for short-term rewards/chunking of tasks!

I don't think its unreasonable to drop a text to parents of where your DCs are sleeping. I always lied to my DM about sleeping at friends when in fact we were drinking vodka in parks all night!
In terms of sleepovers I'd start allowing DD rarely goes out at night time as I am fine with her having a friend here. Your curfew is very generous DD very rarely goes out after school on weekends I say 8 unless there is something specific planned. I am flexible with that if they are going to a party, cinema out for dinner etc.
Maybe he needs more discipline removal of phone is only thing that works here. I let lots of things go but if she is incredibly rude it goes (only for a very short period depending on whether she turns it around.)
DD had a bit of a dodgy crowd a while ago and I think she quite embraced being grounded as it gave her the opportunity to seperate from them. It is really difficult if you get in with a bad crowd to remove yourself with out becoming a target.