12 yo dd wants to go to her friends house after school and I'm indecisive

[DunnoWhy]

Hi, as in the title, dd, 12 yrs old, wants to go to her friends house after school. Apparently they will be doing homework together which is news to me since she is not that keen on doing homework normally . I'm sure homework is NOT the real reason, they'll be doing anything but homework.

This is a new school and I don't know the girl and her family so not sure if I should allow or not.

I'm a working mum, my workplace is quite a distance away from home. Normally dd does several after school clubs at school and dh picks her up from school at 4.30 to take her to extra curricular activities.She finishes those activities around 7.30-8ish and at the same time I arrive home from work.

In primary school she used to go to child minder with some other kids from her school so the sociisation bit took place in childminder's house, in a controlled environment. Now I'm not very comfortable with the idea of her going to the house of her friend whom I know nothing about. But probably I'm being precious about it.

I don't want to be too strict unnecessarily but also I don't want to be too permissive readily either.

How do you get to know your secondary school child's friends?

I'm so decisive and sure of everything when it comes to giving advice to others, yet so indecisive for my own child.

By the way I cannot organise sleepovers or house meetings in our home for various reasons. One of the reasons is that I finish work late and get home around 8pm. So I can't invite her friends to our place to get to know them, which is inconvenient. There are other reasons too, but this is the main reason.
So, how do you check your teen's and tween's friends? What would you do?

Growing with her??

Pfb op ??

Yep.

For the sake of your DD, you really need to unclench or she's going to have a miserable adolescence. As you've said, there's no practical way for you to meet her friends and ime, it's perfectly normal for parents not to know each other at the stage.

Op you need to recognise your dd is a person, entitled to her own space, to make her own friends etc. She's not you and your husband's to make.

I think some of your comments are so controlling its scary tbh.

.please. Try and let her develop as a person.

Glad you let her go. Please unclench! I ask for a physical address, maybe make a phone call after a couple of hours and that's it. Mine have slept out at many friends houses and I've not met either the friend or the parents..and they've been fine. My daughter went on holiday abroad with a friend and their family, I didn't know them well at all...She had a blast! Yes I worry but I'd worry more if they were kept from doing normal stuff by my anxiety.

My DD's not that age yet, but in your shoes I'd just happy she's taking the initiative and going to see friends and has made friends. In secondary I just think it's not realistic that you can know everyone's family, so you just have to let go of that.

Thank you all, she's been to the friend's house and all went well and they'll do it again. They're meeting in the park after school too. I'm encouraging meetings on the weekend as well, not only this friend but other friends from the school too, if they want to.

All is well. We're letting her spread her wings. No problems.

Well done for letting her go OP! You’re getting a hard time here, you’re obviously just overthinking/anxious but you’ve overcome that for your DD’s benefit and that’s great.

FWIW my DDs are 12(Y8) and 14(Y9) and we live very near their school. As a result every day after school I seem to have at least 4 teens in my house and I rarely have a clue who they are, much less their parents... I always make sure they get home safely and I’ve never had any issues. Sometimes they give me their parents’ numbers to text, so I do. But the only parents I know are the ones who are friends from primary school/church or out of school clubs who we’ve known for years.

At that age they all have so many friends and shift around so quickly. You’ll get used to not knowing everyone - it’s not like the small pool of primary school.

Good luck, and it sounds like you’re doing a fab job

Thank you TabyTigger for the kind words. I appreciate it.

Almost everyone unanimously said how commonplace it is for secondary age kids meeting friends in each other's houses without necessarily parents getting involved first, which I can totally see now.