DD hanging around with worrying boy

[Canshopwillshop]

My DD is 14 and a half. She is hard working, polite and fairly sensible. She is quite mature and very popular at school. I’ve always allowed her a fair amount of freedom and felt I could trust her - she’s always talked to me about boyfriends and stuff. However, my friend told me today that she saw my DD arm in arm with a boy the other day. The boy in question is 16, and often in trouble. He’s been excluded from school and there are rumours that he hit his last girlfriend. His best friend has been done for stealing etc. I am horrified and feel sick that my DD could be hanging out/getting close to someone like this. I don’t know how to handle it.

Obviously I need to get DD’s side of the story. My instinct is to go in hard but she hasn’t done anything wrong at the moment and I’m terrified that if I am too hard and warn her off too much, she will want to see him even more.

Any advice please?

Anyone?

Don’t go in hard. Absolutely not. If she likes him it’ll just drive a wedge between you.
Mention she was seen arm in arm and that you didn’t know they knew each other. Let her tell you. Don’t assume she has anything to “come clean” about.

Love bomb. Invite him round, show a real interest, constantly ask about him. Bad boys are interesting because they are bad, if you seem to love him then he'll have lost his edge and she might lose interest. At the very least they'll be under your roof rather than behind your back.

Thanks. I will try to stay calm. From what I’ve heard I think it’s unlikely that he would accept an invitation to our house. I’ll try.

Ha! This could have been about my dd (also 14) and a ‘bad boy ‘ shedecuded was going to be her first boyfriend. Quite by accident what got rid of him was an invitation to a meal out with dd and myself and dh. Dd decided to warn him he mustn’t swear in. Front of her dad because he wouldn’t like it. Which frankly says it all. He let her down at the last minute, the three of us had a lovely meal out and she never heard from him again. Winner winner fancy dinner

I like that story Kenworthington 😅 God I hope it’s as easy to get rid of this wrong ‘un!

winner winner fancy dinner

Aye please don't go in hard (although I fully understand the temptation!) My parents did and I married the fucker, he nearly killed me before I got out. If my parents hadn't batted an eyelid I wouldn't have stayed with him (yes I was being a rebellious twat).

It sounds like you have a good relationship with your DD, and I'd go with speaking to her, seeing what she says and explaining your concerns. You've done a good job so far from the sounds of things so I'm sure you'll handle this well too!

@bobbiepin, are you my mum? That's exactly what she did with my boyfriends as a teenager. Spoiler alert it works 😂

Get to know the boy, find out what interests him, what she sees in him. The rumours might be that, just rumours and he's actually a nice lad with no bad intentions, not always likely, but possible.

Yep it works did this at 15 mum made nice and alls well only lasted a couple of months 😂

Intheheatoflisbon - Thanks for your kind words. Sorry to hear your relationship was so disastrous.

Aimily - thanks, good advice.

She’s out at a party tonight so I’m going to talk to her in the morning.

Thanks, I have DS1 so I can't regret all of it, but we're safe now and have DP and more DC so all good now.

Good luck with your DD, she sounds pretty sensible (more than i was at her age) I'm sure it'll work out

@aimily nope but I'm turning into mine. I only found out after I broke up with my first long term boyfriend that she hated him. It took almost 2 years and she had rules she would not bend on (no sleeping over etc) but it worked.