How independent are 14 year old girls..

[Purplesammyx]

My daughter is 14 years old and her friends travel from Oxford where we live to different cities on a train without adult supervision. (I.e. Theme parks, reading shopping centre, high Wycombe TGI FRIDAY.)
They go for meals or shopping and so far I have not allowed her to go with them.

She's feeling left out but I am
So worried for her. She's not streetwise like them and she fools around a lot. I'm scared she will annoy someone with her loudness and they hit her, or that she will fall into the tracks or she will get hurt or worse somehow and it's not in our own town.
I'm really nervous and half my friends tell me it's no different than travelling on a bus and she's fine and the other half say no way she's too Young.

I honestly don't know what the right thing to do is as there isn't a parenting manual better than a parent in the same situation.

Please can you help me make up my mind.

I was a teacher for 35 years, of which ten was as a houseparent in a boarding school, and I also spent 13 years in girls' schools (for some of which I was a Year 9 form tutor). I also did voluntary work with teenagers (Scouts and DofE).

In my experience girls do a huge amount of growing up between 13 and 14, and I would say she needs to practise doing more grown-up things and being independent.

At only a year older, DS2 travelled from Lesotho to North Yorkshire by himself without any problems (apart from being very tired after a 24-hour journey).

So you should probably let her go. She won't be completely alone anyway, because she'll have her friends with her. Bear in mind also that in less than two years - when she's 16 - she can legally leave home and live independently. Get married, even. She probably won't, but worth being prepared, I think. The function of parents is to help their children to grow up, after all.

Thank you for your reply and advice.
I think you are right. I have to let go.
It's scary. I'm a single mum who's mother died a few years back and it's just me and my 2 kids.
I live for them and would die for them.
It terrifies me that I could lose my babies to this violent world. 😞

They can vary hugely at this age and I understand why it's difficult for you.
What I would say though is that independence is a skill which requires practice.
You should be thinking of challenges for her to get her used to some independence in day to day life.
We started with our with walking to the supermarket to get milk. Then cooking with increasingly little independence. Then short trips with sensible friends etc etc.

Your daughter is probably as sensible as her friends but has no experience and the thought of a theme park therefore seems immense.

It's not a gift to your child to think in terms of 'she's not as sensible as her friends' when you are not working to improve her independence.

Have a think about what she could start doing. Let her experience little hiccups and start to problem solve and keep you informed.
The longer you just wait for her to develop these skills without giving her any experience at all, the more you disadvantage her.
That just makes her more vulnerable rather than less.

*Cooking with increasing independence

Do you let her do things in your own city with her friends? That might be a way to start.
I think at 14 though she really should be able to go out with friends during the day quite happily.
Does she have a mobile so that she can contact you if there is a problem? I encourage mine to keep in touch if they are out and about so that I know vaguely where they are. We normally have a time to be home by as well, with strict instructions to let me know if things don't go to plan eg train cancelled.
Is she used to train travel - my DS has used it for school since he was 11 so I have no worries there. Maybe a few family trips to familiarise her with trains/platform safety etc would be useful.

Pagwatch - she is inderpendent in the way that she takes a bus with friends and walks to their house and shops and all of that. She makes pancakes and beans on toast but she is really clumsy and heavy handed. She has boarderline ADHD and has no shame. She will talk to strangers and play on the train.
HOWEVER.. I do wonder if she has one personality for me and one for her friends socially.
I'm so scared that I will let her go and then be kicking myself when she gets hurt or something.
Terrorism scares me. Other people scare me. Society scares me because the violence I read about daily.
She went to Africa with her friend and friends mum about a month ago and I cried for days with worry.
She's my life. She's 14. I was 14 and went to pubs and concerts so I know I'm being a hypocrite but things are different these days.
Their are some terrible people out there that could harm my girl.

Should this be the time I tell you that I suffer from agoraphobia\social phobia? sigh

PurpleSammy

I understand all of that - I really do.
I have anxiety and my middle son has autism.

We let my son walk into town to go to the shops. He has virtually no language and finds unfamiliar situations difficult so I get really, incredibly nervous but it's important that he is as independent as possible because, unfortunately I'm not immortal and the more he can manage alone the better his life will be.

Only you can judge what she is capeable of but I would try S much as you can to put aside irrational fear and huge 'but what ifs'
The chances of her being affected by terrorism or 'stranger danger' type scenarios is so ridiculously small you just cannot let it control this kind of decision.

But I do understand the anxiety. We just have to try and deal with it nd not let it affect our children

The best way to make her more street wise is to allow her more independence.

Allow her to grow up, and learn to gauge situations for herself.

Hi there. What I hear is your anxiety and as a fellow sufferer I get that 'your' anxiety is your reality. However you have to believe that it is not hers or THE reality.

I have a 13 yr old DD and I am letting her get more independent. She has to be able to know how to travel, what to do in a crisis etc and be able to trust her own judgement. My DD is very dyspraxic and can't organise her self to get ready for school effectively so I do have some insight into your worries.

So to stop me worrying myself into the ground this is what we do. Any new journey we practice together before hand. This weekend we are going to do a new train journey that involves a change of trains. We write it down before hand so has a reference point if she gets muddled. She has the train app on her phone. We have find my iPhone turned on so I can watch (stalk) her whereabouts. If it's a new place or experience we set a silent reminder on her phone for her to text me to let me know she is ok. She has a spare battery pack in her bag for her phone. We have a code expression that she can use if she is feeling incomfterble or is being eves dropped on so if she calls me I know that she needs help.

Things have gone wrong. Nothing drastic but things like missing her train stop. She calls me, i calm her down, and we make a plan to solve the problem. I stay in the phone or text until she feels comfortable.

For me I don't want her to be anxious about this stuff when she is an adult. I want her to be included but I also need to feel comfortable.

I have to let her go

My DD (ADHD) told me once, when I worried about her coping in traffic, that she didn't pay attention, when I was with her, because I was there to do it for her.
When she was on her own (ex. half an hour underground commute to and from school at 6y), she could even take care of others.
So the behaviour you see might well be very different from her behaviour when she's on her own.

I would look at whichever journey is the shortest or easiest (fewest changes or shortest waits on the platform) and let her do that one a few times to begin with.

Could you do a few of the journeys with her (I mean just her, not with her friends) so that you can see how capable she is and it reassures you that she will be doing a familiar route?

"things are different these days."

errr... they're not actually

there is absolutely no evidence that young girls are more at risk than they were 30 or 40 years ago

violence was always around

terrorists are not a new problem (remember the IRA) and our grandparents' generation dealt with the war instead

But the dangers that might threaten your 14yo are going to be an equal threat to your 17yo and by that time you will have much less control over her, so the safest thing is to start training her up gently, as pp have suggested, while she is still young enough to take your advice.

It is terrifying . The odds of anything bad happening to a particular child (terrorism, abduction, fatal accident etc) are tiny. But if it did.... I spend far too much time worrying, especially if DD14 is late home, or her phone is dead, but I am trying to train myself to stop worrying. It only makes your life a misery. 5 minutes late home and I'm imagining the scenes of dead in a ditch, police, headlines on the news. You can't live like this. They'll be grown up before we know it and getting up to allsorts, taking risks, etc. just like we did... (and our parents didn't have us at the end of a phone 24/7)
You can't wrap them up in cotton wool forever. Take precautions (like phone and spare charger) Find my iPhone is a massive comfort to me..!! Teach them to be sensible, explain dangers of doing stupid things like getting into cars with people they don't know or walking around at night alone. And then just set rules you feel comfortable with, let them go and learn about life, try not to think about anything bad happening when it hasn't happened yet. Easier said than done I know. I'm a work in progress. I tell myself everything will probably be OK. There is no point in worrying over things that haven't happened, and probably never will.
Educate them without scaring them out of their wits so they never do anything. Then have a nice big glass of wine and enjoy your day!

Keehar

That's all so true..
it's a battle between your heart and your mind.
I sometimes have to make myself be calm and stop my imagination running riot.

Mine is 14, nearly 15 (in year 10) so most of her friends are older than her. Bear in mind we live in London suburbs.
She travels on the tube with a friend or without (during the day). I was going on tube from age 11 to school and into west end during day at age 13 (meeting friends to go shopping).
She pretty much travels independently now, but I wouldn't let her on tube at night or let her walk back from anywhere in the dark (obv don't count when it gets dark early in winter as it's often dark when they get home from school - but it's different then as busy).
Leave her at home all day and also in evenings either on own or with younger brother. She also babysits for some of our friends.
Obv she goes shopping & anything else social. We take her if too far or awkward to get to by public transport.
Ds is 13 and his much less independent. He did get tube with friend in half term and I made him text me a lot(!). He will now get bus on his own locally and walk to local friends. Not sure I'd leave him all day yet, msinly cos he'd plug into tech!!!
All the leavings, etc with DD have been very gradual over the past few years. In some ways she is very capable, but she still can be immature in others. You have to go by her lead too, but if other mums are fine with their kids going shopping or whatever, there is no reason to not let her go.

As a PP said, independence needs to be rehearsed. It must start somewhere though and a trip with friends sounds a good start. Ask her to text you, say, after an hour or so. Resist temptation to keep sending texts to her. There are issues of trust and if she feels you have let her go without really trusting her or she feels you are worrying the whole time, it will not help your relationship. 'I am worried about you,' is all about 'I' and not about 'you.'

Ok I totally understand how you feel. I've always encouraged my kids to be independent when I get they were ready and D'S was taking a local bus to school with a 10mns walk to the station when he was just shy of 10yo. At 12 DD was taking the train for 1/2 journey on her own.

But I hate It :) She's now 17 but I still get anxious waiting for her to walk the 10mbs walk from babysitting at 9pm! I get this anxiety in the pit of my stomach once a week or so.

Still it is my problem and can't let it hold them back. They are confident and reliable and it's important that I let them experience the world for their self-esteem. I am lucky that they respect how I feel and overall are good at letting me know where they are and responding to my texts within reasonable time.

When I was 9 I got the train to Norwich from Bath as an 'unaccompanied child' to see a friend who'd moved away and her family for a long weekend. I was fine.

Very interested to read this thread because I was about to start one on the same subject. (I am also quite anxious generally and get very worried when dd is off somewhere with friends)!

Gosh that is admirably early LadyMonica - my dh had the same experience as you (also lived in Norfolk) and then commuted to school in London from the suburbs by himself every day from about the age of 11 yrs. He virtually ran his parents business from about the age of 15 yrs. He is an extremely confident and self-reliant person now. I had a much, much more sheltered upbringing and am overly cautious as an adult I think.

DD (nearly 14 yrs) looks quite mature and can be both very responsible and independent and rather naieve, all at the same time! I know that is the nature of adolescence but it is terrifying because you never know which side of them is going to emerge in any given situation.

DD usually travels to school on the underground tram/metro/bus to school and back by herself and with friends, she pops in to shops by herself and with friends, she goes to our local shop (5/10 min walk away) to buy something by herself, walks to her nearest friend's house by herself (10 mins) she operates an on-line lawn-mower/mini-tracker for half a day independently, she goes hacking with one or two friends on horse-back, goes off on (adult supervised) trips and camps with friends quite happily, but I am not sure she has had enough independence doing things on her own ifsywim.

I am desperately wracking my brains and looking for ways to give my dd more independence but within safe boundaries (bearing in mind we live in a capital city (not London) that has had quite a few incidences of terrorism recently). I'm a bit stumped how though to be honest. Maybe volunteering might be an option?

Having said all of the above, I firmly believe that sometimes you simply must leave them to it to work out things for themselves.

DD (and her friends) can be a bit lazy sometimes (it sometimes seems as if they go through life in a semi-dream, plugged in to Iphones or whatever, being ferried about here and there) and they will happily let all the responsibility for travel arrangements (for example) fall on parents if they are hovering around and then they don't even have to think or properly engage about the logistics and get down to the nitty gritty of travel ie when is the date, where are we going exactly, how do we get there, how long will it take overall working backwards from the start point allowing for delays, how do I access the train timetable, how much money do I need etc etc?

They won't even take proper responsibility for tasks at home such as cooking or washing, and they will never think about them properly, if us parents are hanging about and available to ask all the time and problem solve for them.

It's an incredibly difficult balance to strike though. I will be very interested to read how other parents are tackling this.

I mentioned earlier that I used to do voluntary work with DofE. DW and I were DofE expedition trainers, specialising in Silver level cycling expeditions. It's in the nature of DofE that the group do the planning themselves and we certainly insisted on it. We expected them to book campsites and to make their own travel arrangements.

One group did a one-way trip from Portsmouth to New Addington (near Croydon, and at the end of the Croydon Tramlink). We met them at the end with a van and took their bikes back to Portsmouth, leaving them to make their own way by tram and train.

This was during the Easter holidays of their Year 11, and most of the group were still aged 15, but one - very canny - girl had turned 16. She found out that she could get a 16 - 25 railcard and not only get a discount on her own ticket but also take four "children" (her friends) at a bargain price - I think it was £1 each!
We didn't help her with this, or even suggest it. I've often found that teenagers are very ready and capable of taking responsibility, given the opportunity.

I have the opposite problem,my dd is not even confident enough to buy milk.No idea why.I am starting on the if she wants it(iecream ATM) then I will give here the money but she must pay.
She wants to go into town with a friend to buy her first make up, I've told her to catch the bus and I will pick them up for the return.I will have to keep urging her.

Yes, keep urging her. It's a bit like birds pushing their chicks out of the nest to make them fly.
We started encouraging independence at a very young age with our two, asking "What would you do if..." questions to make them think. Teaching them risk assessment and management.

Hi op my ds is 14 and has AS. He has so much independence and I'm glad.
I mollycoddled him a lot when he was younger which didn't help him and when he started secondary school I had to let him go a bit.

This weekend gone he went into town with his friends, he does this usually every 2-3 weeks, they go to Nando's and have a walk around the shops ( we live in a big tourist city ) and often they go to a museum or to the docks.

He absolutely thrives on being independent, it took a lot for me, I have OCD, intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety.
He's off to Germany tomorrow with his school for 4 days and I'm trying to remain calm.

I would start off with something small, let you gain her trust, I give ds money for travel and lunch and always something to spend on himself, this helps him decide what is important as he used to think money grew on trees

It is very difficult but my son has grown up so much and we have a lovely close relationship, I know he's a good boy, his friends are all nice kids and he is not at the rebelling stage- yet!

We encouraged independence and she's always been fine,from pgls aged 7 onwards,will happily walk to friends house but has just developed a thing about dealing with simple stuff like shopping and spending her own money.

I presume she goes out shopping in Oxford with her friends?

My DD is 14 and while she meets up with friends in our very local town, so far hasn't really got the train to the bigger town with the better shops, or gone to a theme park alone with just her friends. She's met friends for meals out, again in our v local town.

Have you tried explaining to her that it's her silliness and fooling around that worries you?

like you, when I was 14 I had a lot more independence, I think we did in those days - even when we were under 10 we spent most of the day out of the house, with the instruction to come back in time for tea...