Do parents of 16 year old girls want to know the details of parties their daughters are going to?

[ChilliPerNilli]

My husband and I have 2 kids (7 & 5) and he also has a 16 year old daughter from a previous relationship. We've been together since she was 4, her parents split 18 months before we got together and her mother was always massively over protective and made contact with her father really difficult. My husband and his ex hate each other and can hardly hold a civil conversation, which I find hard work but my step daughter just seems to think is normal. I guess for her it is. She comes to us every other weekend.

This weekend is her weekend with us. it turns out my stepdaughter is going to a party with a male friend and then having a sleepover with him. Her mother has okayed this.

My husband actually asked his ex about the party/sleepover as step daughter was really bad tempered and refused to answer any questions about the party, saying she had told her mother. The mother replied with minimal answers: She knew the vague area the party was (15 mins drive from where the kids live, in a city with basic public transport) but didn't know whose party it was, who would be there or the phone number of the boy's parents where step daughter will be spending the night. These details were eked out over a few text messages with long delays and ignored messages. Stepdaughter said it was okay because her mother tracked her whereabouts on her phone, so knew where she would be. Turns out mother had gone away for the weekend with her boyfriend, so would not be easily able to pick up daughter if needed.

I have much younger kids, so maybe I'm still in the primary-school parenting mentality, but is this normal parenting for 16 year olds? The mother seems to have gone from so overprotective that she wouldn't let the kid paddle in a river, to completely blase about her teen daughter's safety. Surely the very least you should do is communicate what's going on to your ex - even if you hate them. I'm just a bit mystified about the complete lack of apparent concern for an emotionally young 16 year old, who physically could pass for a lot older.

@EdgarAllenRaven and why is that such a great bloody choice at 16 ? Yeah I have been there and things happened to me and so many many girls. But yeah be the cool mum.

In their 20s?!! That’s insane. Poor adults.

@ChilliPerNilli Your husband needs to try to build up his own relationship with his daughter to the point that she would know to contact him and she’d be happy to share her location with him. It’s not on the ex wife for this to happen and if he hasn’t been part of the decisions for his daughter for so long it’s kind of tough to expect it to start now at 16.
The party my 17 year old had included alcohol and cocaine and we weren’t in the country although she’d “asked” to have a small gathering… and I’m pretty sure several people would have been having sex both in and outside the house.
Focus on the relationship and drop the judgement full stop- tell the dd that she can contact either of you any time for any reason and you’d pick her up and that’s why you wanted to know where and when it was- to ensure you hadn’t had a drink and would keep your phone on loud etc. make her feel important to you and not mistrusted and judged.

I needed to know the address and if the parents were home, but not phone numbers. I picked them up so I knew they were ok after the party. I expected them to check in every hour or so just letting me know they were fine. They knew a couple of drinks were ok, but not to be coming home drunk. Would not have allowed the sleepover. It’s a balance. They have to start to be independent and learn how to navigate the work without you, but with some safety nets in place.

This! Has everyone forgot what they were up to when they were 16?! And as to the poster saying they wouldn't allow their child at 18 to do this, are you actually bonkers? They're fully grown adults at that point.
You can't wrap your kids up in cotton wool forever. Get the address from her and leave it at that (and make sure she has some sort of contraception). If not you run a serious risk of her lying to you in the future. I'd be staying at a friends every weekend according to my parents, only half of the time would that be true

doesn't your family know where you are if you are away overnight? I would have thought that is completely normal

They are adults by the time they are 18, so 16 is a good time to be letting go of the reigns a bit. You do all the hard work up front before they are 16 so they are well prepared to go to a party with their peers and be safe, so they trust you to share reasonable details with you and you trust them to make good decisions and they know they can always call without judgement if they get out of their depth and you’ll be there. You should have a good idea of who they are hanging about with and the type of kids they are too.

The difficulty you have is your EOW dh doesn’t know her as well as her mum, the unwillingness to share details shows he hasn’t built that trust, both ways, with her and that is making them both uncomfortable. She thinks he doesn’t trust her so she is not going to share details he will use as ammunition against her.

He needs to stop demanding information from her and talk to her like the almost adult she is.

Definitely need the address of party and friend. I know the majority of my dds friends parents so would have had a message anyway which I know doesn't help you.

This!

Parenting teens is very difficult- much more about having a relationship and communicating with them, than the nuts and bolts of locations and portions of alcohol.

Mine are 17 and 19 and I can’t say I get it all right, but they do have my respect, and freedom to make their own choices. They know they can call me no questions asked in any situation. They can both have boys/girls stay in their rooms overnight.

I listen to them as much as possible and ask as few questions as possible… learn so much more that way.

My ex takes a totally different approach, almost like teens are inherently bad and need to be controlled- they really dislike spending time with him.

My DD is 19 now but at 16 was going to lots of parties, mostly to friends I knew but occasionally not. I knew the address but didn’t have parents’ numbers. I always made sure she knew how she was getting home and at what time. I allowed her to take a small amount of alcohol as I would rather her have her own than swig out of everyone else’s drinks mixing god knows what which is what her friends did whose parents were ‘strict’ and wouldn’t allow them to take anything.

When mine were that age (10 and 20 years ago) the parents always knew where they were staying. Absolutely. It's not 'uncool'. It's common sense.

I agree with the posters who said it is on her dad to build this relationship with her directly.

I absolutely went to a post GCSE party at a friend’s house and drank (horrible) diamond white cider. Didn’t you?

We all crashed out on the floor - mixed group - AFAIK no one had sex because we weren’t the “cool kids” doing it at that point - I had snogged my boyfriend and held hands at the cinema and that was it.

“How is a tracker going to help the girl if her mother is not there to pick her up if needed?”

I would assume the mum would screenshot and send the tracker location to the dad, if it were needed. But more likely the DSD sends a text to her dad saying “please get me from 2 acacia avenue” rather than contacting her mum to contact him.

Sorry - just clocked the date - did the party and sleepover happen last night op?

Are we the same person?! (Well my children are a different age)

DSD mum has also gone from bafflingly over protective and controlling to an absent disinterested parent overnight (coinciding with a new boyfriend). I tried to drop something off to their house for DSS (who was coming back from school trip the next day) to find their mum had been with boyfriend all week and hadn't seen DSD (16) all week and didn't know whose house she was staying at. And this was during her GCSE exams!

I'm a believer in a gradual move towards independence rather than this rather arbitrary cliff edge and I feel a bit shocked by it all.

Not by my twenties, no!

I don't see how you can stop her.

She's 16. She could just drop the EOWs & only have her mum to argue with!

& frankly, even with both parents on the same page, you could hardly lock her in her room. By this age your leverage when they decide to do something you would rather they didn't, is pretty much refusing to fund or facilitate stuff (eg no phone bill paid, no lifts) & whilst that's a reasonable set of sanctions if she'd actually done something wrong...she hasn't. She's just made plans to socialise with friends.

So I would focus on:

• you need a drop pin or w3w location when she arrives, just in case she falls out with her friends, is ill etc, so if she needs picking up you know where you're going
• a 'no questions asked' code word text which means you'll come & get her even if it's stupid o'clock - no subsequent recriminations
• a frank conversation (with whichever of you she's more likely to listen to) about sex, drugs & rock'n'roll - if she wants to drink alcohol, she should take a few cans & stay off the punch with god knows what in it, NOT the environment to experiment with pills & powders, & also NOT the best scenario to have unplanned sex with a new partner - but to have condoms on her. Just in case.

& then I'd wave her off.

I'm not saying I'd sleep well...

We had a party for 16 year old ds last night. He is 17 this week so one of the younger ones in the year.

Most of them were very drunk. They all turn up with vodka in bags and you can’t police it. Most of them would hopefully have told their parents where they would be since we sent out directions beforehand but the parents certainly wouldn’t have all had my details apart from those whose children have known ds since they were much younger. What shocked me was the number who didn’t collect their kids at the end of the evening and just allowed them to order taxis and Ubers. Some of them certainly shouldn’t have been getting into a taxi after drinking imo.

A significant number of them have had sex according to Ds but that doesn’t change the fact that I personally wouldn’t allow a mixed sleepover. Just because it’s happened doesn’t mean I have to condone and encourage it.

I think your dh should say it’s his weekend and she can go to the party and he will pick her up afterwards.

Presumably the parent of the sleepover friend is picking them up and dropping them off, and both DSD and her mum are comfortable with that? I have certainly offered lifts/a bed to friends of DS

There are friends of DS who I am very comfortable with and others I am wary of. He knows that because we discuss it. And because I say I am happy for you to do X with A, B or C but not D, he listens because he knows I am reasoning it out with him and not just a blanket no.

I think it entirely depends on the 16 year old. My DD was incredibly mature and sensible and I could trust her

DS on the other hand was an idiot at 16

As someone who as a 16 year old was allowed to go to parties, drink, and often lied about the details, I would never allow it now I'm a parent myself. In hindsight I was in so many dangerous situations and was very fortunate to never have been hurt or taken advantage of. Children do not see the danger until it is too late. Even adults can put themselves in harms way like this. I think until they're 18 and even afterwards if they're still living under your roof it's a must to know all of the details and even then if you have a bad feeling about something to say no on occasion.

Careful on the sleepovers. I regularly stayed at male friend’s homes after parties in sixth form and never once had sex with any of them (or did anything else intimate). I’d have been furious if my parents hadn’t trusted me. That said, they knew the boys in question…they’d all stayed at our house at various points.

I guess it varies according to the maturity and personality of the 16 year old. Bottom line, I'd want to know the address of the party and, ideally, some names of other friends there - I used to get phone numbers of closer friends if I could, so I had someone else to contact should my dd's phone run out of power or she didn't respond. I'd feel happier if she was with reliable friends who I felt would stick by her and look after her if needed, rather than others who were known to be more flaky and inclined to do the party circuit (we live in London). Mine was never keen on sleepovers so only did them with close friends at that age. My DH always stayed up late and picked up.

No to contacting parents etc. My dd had birthday parties at our house at 16 (all girls then) and 17 (lots of boys, including randomers she didn't know - alcohol and weed heavily involved - we kicked them out after a while). Not one parent contacted us - for the first party most knew us, for the second, most didn't. For 18, we warded off all suggestions of a party and, in the end, it didn't materialise in any form!

I guess it varies according to the maturity and personality of the 16 year old. Bottom line, I'd want to know the address of the party and, ideally, some names of other friends there - I used to get phone numbers of closer friends if I could, so I had someone else to contact should my dd's phone run out of power or she didn't respond. I'd feel happier if she was with reliable friends who I felt would stick by her and look after her if needed, rather than others who were known to be more flaky and inclined to do the party circuit (we live in London). Mine was never keen on sleepovers so only did them with close friends at that age. My DH always stayed up late and picked up.

No to contacting parents etc. My dd had birthday parties at our house at 16 (all girls then) and 17 (lots of boys, including randomers she didn't know - alcohol and weed heavily involved - we kicked them out after a while). Not one parent contacted us - for the first party most knew us, for the second, most didn't. For 18, we warded off all suggestions of a party and, in the end, it didn't materialise in any form!