DD 13 vaping. What to do?

[AlwaysSomethingWithTeens]

I've mentioned this on another thread, but starting this for as much advice as possible!

I'm sure DD13 is vaping. A couple of times I've found a lighter and Rizlas (fell out of her pocket once, saw then in an open bag another). Another mum found vapes at a sleepover. Each time she swore blind she (and her friends) had been made to look after them by older kids and denied she'd done it.

I believed her about older kids being involved. But not that she hadn't tried it. (And the Rizlas/lighter make me fear weed.)

She spends most of the time in her room - has done for ages - but now usually with the window wide open... another classic sign apparently.

And now I've found another vape in her bag (I went looking).

She was at her friend's last night so trying to work out what to say when she's back.

I've read other threads. I know it's practically impossible to stop her if she's determined to do it. But she's 13. I can't let it go. What else will she try?

(DH is around btw. But he just wants to pretend none of this is happening).

But you can stop that really by giving consequences. If it was my dd13 I'd stop pocket money for a month and phone would be going for a period of time especially as it's not the first time.

@TwigTheWonderKid - there was a bit of a shrug and she just said other people were. I asked her if she liked it - not really apparently.

@UpendedPineapple I'm not ungrateful for the advice, but have you implemented that approach with teenagers in a way that worked? I just don't know how it would - how do you escalate it for one thing? And it has to be practical. We can't watch her when we're at work, so there will always be opportunities to make bad choices.

I've found with mine short sharp shock works. So explain absolutely unacceptable, she's been trusted and with pocket money and freedom and that's been thrown in your face.

So if she can't be trusted to make responsible decisions she can't be trusted with pocket money and freedom so no money, no going out with friends, and she comes straight home from school.

Does she understand why that's happening and why youre so disappointed with the lying and her behaviour around this?

I'm quite hardcore though 🤷‍♀️ but obviously you know what carrot and sticks work best for your own child.

We’re also ‘hardcore’ - as in you get pocket money and freedom because we trust you. You break the trust by lying about where you are, who you are with and what you’re doing the first thing to go will be the freedom because the trust is gone.
works for us.
but we do know a lot of parents - we’re in an infamous ‘party’ city - who think it’s cool and/ or inevitable for teens to vape, drink and smoke weed or take ket and have no controls or handle on it at all.

the other parents are a bigger issue for us than the kids! We have had to talk to our close friends - who supply their teens with booze - and tell them under no circumstances are they to offer our 13 year old ‘a beer’ at their house. Bloody ridiculous!

Like a toddler you need to hit hard where it hurts. We gave Dd one chance threw all vaping stuff away and said if we every find her doing it again she will not be allowed to go to the next social event she has on the horizon and she will not be given any money. Dd really values her glittering social life so vaping for her isn’t worth it.

Absolutely agree starman. A family members 12 year old was given beer and vodka by his friends parents 😮. Private school wealthy family….

She's 13 and at this age still a child/minor. So what if she knows you searched her bag. It's your responsibility to guide, parent and protect her at the point

@StarmanBobby - sounds like we might know the same parents... Drives me mad, all that wanting to be cool! I'm not naive, teenagers obviously try things. But you don't condone or facilitate as far as I'm concerned.

I do worry about being too soft. But we've never parented via rewards or restrictions (not even reward charts when they were young - but that might partly be because I wasn't organised enough!) It's much more been about expected standards of behaviour and attitude. It's worked so far - and with older DD.

And what I don't know is if coming down hard now would stop anything worse (weed/booze) or mean we had fewer punishment options if that did happen...

@TheaBrandt , yes we stopped her going to the next social thing. But when you say no money how long for? We tend to give bits here and there - money for the odd bus or lunch - so need to address that.

If she's at school , presumably the school operates a cashless system for lunch, so she doesn't need cash for that. For travel, is it possible to get a pass/prepaid ticket?
She doesn't need lunch out, and you could easily do no cash for a month, or till the end of term. It needs to be long enough to make the point.

Our friends who are all ' they'll do it anyway' seem to think that the kids will ONLY do it at theirs or something. But I think they do it there, and at mates and out etc so drink MORE than they would if they had to actually cobble together the funds and find a way to get served alcohol while being massively underage. And looking it.

If my teen gets a bit older and wants to do stuff like that, then he'll have to fecking work for it! I'm not going to make it easy for him to get booze, let him spend half his night trying to get hold of booze for a party if it's that important to him. I'm not going to give him money for it, he'll have to earn some pocketmoney AND then decide if that's actually what he wants to blow the money on rather than other stuff he might want.

The 'cool' friends also give their kids everything they need, pocket money, new clothes etc so they don't have jobs of any kind to keep them occupied. They have enough money to by booze, weed,vapes. They don't need to save money for anything because they have all the labels and phones etc they want.
Friends son lost his new iphone for the THIRD time this year. He's 16. They bought him another one, brand new from the Apple store.
My DS would have been using some shitty old Nokia until he'd saved up enough money to pay towards a refurbished smartphone.

I honestly son;t get it. Kids need and like boundaries. Even teens. It give's mine something to moan about!

Late to the party here as there seems to be a lot of good advice already but I have a 12yo DS and I am a Student Support Assistant at a secondary school and these kids will literally hide their vapes in their knickers in a bid to not get caught. So if you find them absolutely throw them away and try and have a frank conversation with them about it/limiting money/telling friend's parents.

Her school will be talking about it with the kids, if you wanted to get some support you could let the school know what you've found and they can bag search her and her friends randomly to see if they've managed to get more. It might be a case of dealing with it each time something comes up. There is no solving this quickly though and it might take time for her to see sense.

If it makes you feel any better, year 8s are the worst for it and the most brazen and most of them lose interest by the time they're in year 9.

Thank you @throughgrittedteeth That makes a lot of sense. It's really dispiriting though. I've just found a lighter in her bag... I'm trying to think when she last used it so I can work out who she's doing it with. (Maybe it doesn't matter but I want to know).

The lighter on its own almost worries me more. I've found a couple before - with Rizlas. Is that weed??