How much time do your 14 year olds spend with friends

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My husband has a 14 yo and a very bad relationship with his ex. This means that they are unable to talk to each other about their child. My q is not about the poor communication - realise this should be better but it is what it is. Problem is we have no contact with other parents of teens so have no idea what is normal.

She comes to us every other weekend, and most of that time she has arranged quite an extended time with friends, so much so that we see her for about half the time we "should".

Historically her mother has been overly protective and has made contact between her and her father very difficult. SD takes advantage of this lack of communication between her parents (good for her, I'm sure we'd all do the same), and for a long time was having unfettered social media access at our house and strict rules at her mum's because neither parent would to to each other.

How much time do your 14 year olds spend with friends at the weekend and how do you manage to till get family time together?

And if your 14 yo is invited to an evening get together with a group of friends (m&f friends who you've only started hearing about in the last 6 months) how do you handle this?

As someone who had separated parents i can tell you this is very normal and I began st about 14 to not want the enforced visits or trips away to my dad.

Thst was the age at which i just focused on friends....

A couple of things spring to mind...why does your husband not know other people with teens ? Is this something that he could work on..ie. chstting to other parents and families ? Why did he need contact with mum to know how to control social media ?

Can he work on better comms with mum?

My 14 year old ds has quite busy weekends, but that’s with organised sport as well as friends. He has sport activities on Friday evening and Saturday morning. He will often spend Saturday afternoon with his friends.
Evening gatherings are rare and would have to be agreed in advance. I would want the exact details and depending on what they were I may agree or disagree. Sleepovers again don’t happen that often and I would need contact with the other parent.

My 14 year old DD is out most weekends. She leaves school at 2:30 on a Friday and her group of friends often do something together right up until around 9 or 10. They often go shopping in town or go for a Macdonalds and then head to someone's house to hang out. Many of the parents have an open house policy as they'd rather the kids were at their house than just hanging around the streets. I do track her phone so I always know where she is.

We ask DD to be back home before dark unless at a friend's house and then we arrange a time to collect her. If staying later than 9 I ask for the parents details so I can check all is above board and agree a collection time.

They will make you think no one else's parents are that strict but I've found most have the same approach to us.

Weekends she is usually in bed until lunchtime and then arranges to go out for the afternoon and sometimes goes to her friend who lives a few doors down for the evening or to her boyfriend's house.

In the summer she goes out more and as we live near the beach that is usually where they all go.

When she is home she stays in her room and tries to have as little to do with us as possible.

14 year olds are supposed to hang out with friends on the weekend sorry to your husband but like it's expected, this is the age where friends become more important than family and turn into a 'safe place' because there's no control issues or power dynamics like there is in a parent/child relationship also you aren't really supposed to know their friends either like i met my best friend when i was 16, my mum didn't meet her until my 18th birthday when she came to pick us up from a night out 😂

Thanks guys, good to get some info on what's expected. Have a lot of friends to chat to and share dilemmas about younger children with, just none with teens. It's good to share the pain!!

I've thought about issues like these. 14 year olds generally don't spend much time with their parents, whether they live with them full time or have a visitation schedule. It's got nothing to do with what the parents are like, it's just what the world of a 14 year old is. Friends, friends, friends, social media. Maybe love interests, too.

I was 14 about a decade ago and I pretty much only came home to sleep!

It's pretty normal. Teens can be very friends focused at this age.
Look at ways to spend a bit of quality time with her (as her schedule allows!) Maybe get Dad to take her out for a coffee/bubble tea, etc.
Keep communication open. If teens were overnight with friends it was a non negotiable requirement to leave an address and phone number where they were staying.