Not sure how to handle this…

[AmberNight]

My nearly 17-year-old daughter started sixth form at a new school in September. She seems to have fallen in with the ‘cool crowd’ and has become rude and uncooperative at home.

She went through a difficult phase around 14 but seemed to come out of it and we were relieved she had turned into a hardworking and generally quite pleasant teen.

Not now! She’s rude and critical, on her phone constantly, has let her tidy room become a complete bombsite, is constantly looking at herself and trying on new outfits, and doing the bare minimum of studying - if that. She’s pretty and has become vain and arrogant.

However my biggest worry is she’s started going out at weekends and just not telling us when she’ll be home. I can see where she is as our phones have tracking … often I’ll know she’s missed the last bus, despite saying she’ll get it. She’ll ask for a lift post midnight and if I say no, she says she doesn’t care, she’ll walk. I don’t want my daughter wandering around alone at night so we often give in and end up playing taxi at 2am or so.

How do we manage this? Is it normal for 17- year old girls to stay out as long as they like? She tells me her friends’ parents give them freedom and we are too strict. I don’t want her coming home at all hours alone though. She has done things like leaving her phone at home so I can’t track her - just to send my worry sky high!

I know she’s asserting her independence but I don’t know how to manage it. And I don’t like the person she is at the moment - rude, unhelpful, selfish.

You need boundaries. Stop giving her lifts. Stop giving her money to go out all hours.

My own 16 year old sticks fo a reasonable curfew but some of her friends think 16 = do whatever the hell they want.

Thanks for your reply. We are trying to set boundaries but she knows I don’t want her walking home late at night. Are you saying just let her? It’s tempting but I know it’s not a nice world out there for women late at night.

I don’t give her lifts generally - she takes the bus or cycles.

Any more advice from mums of teen girls?

My advice:

She's just being a thoroughly naughty teenage girl, there's nothing wrong with her.
But there's little you can do to change it without alienating her further.

It's hard, but keep the communication going, and carry on collecting her after the last bus home for safety reasons. Show your displeasure, tell her her behaviour is an insult to your intelligence, but let her know you still care.

Good luck.

Does she have a friend she can stay with in town rather than get the last bus back?

failing that can you persuade her to sign up for some self defence classes? How safe is the route home?

I have to say in my going out days there was rarely anyone around at 2am and I mostly cycled home.

She’s started at a new school so I don’t really know her friends - she’s fallen in with a new crowd. She’s been hanging out at a boy’s house where she and this gang often seem to gather - 20 mins away by bus. If she misses the last bus home she can get one into town - but that means a 20 min walk to our house along quiet roads. Not happy about that at all obviously. She sometimes sleeps over at a friend’s house but it’s not always an option.

The weekends are when I try to catch up on sleep but lately I’ve been up late doing taxi runs or lying awake worrying about where she is - aaaargh!

Hi..so. when i was 17 and at sixth form I have to say I was out all night ! Im in my 40s so this was a while ago ! But it was the 90s and we woulf be out raving snd at clubs every weekend not coming home til dawn.

And this was pre phones too so none of our parents would have much of a clue where we were

So I dont think that being out til 1 or 2 is at all out of line with normal 17 year old behaviour?

Its the exact age when I remember starting to feel really free like a young adult.. even though of course I was young and making terrible decisions a lot of the time

I think you need to renegotiate your relationship to some extent.
She needs to motivate herself for the next stage of her life - what does she want to do after college? If Uni, a good way to inspire this is to visit some universities and dangle the prospect of studying/independence - but the price is she'll need to study.
Your social life at 17/18 is important - and why her previous good behaviour is being neglected! Staying out later is going to be part of that but if she wants more freedom then she has to understand that it's a 2 way street. You have her back but you need to know if she's going to need a lift so you're not left dangling. Do any of her new friends live nearby? Could she use Ubers? Give her a bit more freedom but explain and expect her to be considerate of you as well.

My DD is 18 now. The phone and looks obsession, bomb site room and selfishness are all par for the course I’m sorry to say (and she was very nice until around 17 too). I am hoping she will grow out of it as she still has flashes of decent kind behaviour although it’s her friends who she makes the effort for more than family these days. It took some bad mock results for ours to understand that she needs to do school work. That was a lesson learned the hard way.

She’s got you over a barrel with the lifts and is taking the piss. I would call her bluff on it even if she has to walk. At some point you won’t run her around any more so she needs to learn how to manage. Sit her down and tell her that there are new rules and you will not give any more lifts no matter what. I guarantee she won’t walk more than once if at all.

DD knows I am not available after midnight ever. I used to lie awake worrying too but I no longer do that (current insomnia menopause related!) I also don’t give any money outside of her allowance either unless she earns it for extra chores (that’s motivated her to get a casual job now). I do not advance any cash for nights out, taxis etc so if she runs out don’t come to me. I had to get tough on that as she was just failing to budget and expecting a bail out.

Thanks for your advice - our daughters sound similar and here’s hoping the once-sweet kids are still lurking within somewhere! I feel so relieved when I see the rare flashes of her former self.

My daughter had a casual job but the restaurant closed down and she’s started asking for regular handouts again.
Can I ask what you give as an allowance - I have no idea what’s reasonable at 17!

I used to give £80 per month and recently increased it to £100. I also pay her phone contract and her gym membership but she has to buy her own clothes, transport, lunches and toiletries herself. As far as I can gather that’s about average of what her friends get.

I am amazed on this thread at the number of
posters suggesting that you make your DD walk home and not provide lifts. I don’t think anyone should suggest you leave your DD to walk home alone at 2am.

We live rurally with no public transport. I would regularly pick my DD and friends up from the nightclub in the nearest town at 2-3am and have no understanding of any parents who think they shouldn’t.

If she's only 20mins away, can you pay for a taxi/Uber rather than giving a lift? It would only be £10 or so?
I think you can set up a family Uber account?

My mum used to bung me taxi money when I was that age and going out to pubs/clubs.

OP is not ‘making her walk home alone’. Her DD is repeatedly making choices (missing the last bus) which result in this outcome. She needs to learn to make better choices or face the consequences. If she is continually bailed out of her bad decisions she will not make better ones.

People who bail DC out of the negative consequences of their actions are failing to teach them independent living skills. If my DD does call me then I know it is a genuine emergency scenario and I would help her. If it’s every weekend then its the boy who cried wolf and I would not be supporting that.

We lived rurally when I was a teenager and my parents would never in a month of Sundays have run around being my unpaid taxi. I knew not to call them. I just made plans on how to get back safeIy. I had an emergency 10 quid for a taxi from my dad in case there was something genuinely unforeseen and if I had spent it on something else (I never did) I would have had to get myself back.

This is the problem though. I absolutely don’t want her walking home. I also don’t want her to be so selfish as to expect a lift at any hour she chooses - she knows I fear for her safety and is exploiting this.

I also don’t want her taking a taxi every weekend - it seems extravagant, when she could take a bus to the end of our street. Are taxis even a safe option for young women late at night? I’m uneasy about this too.

I am more than happy to give the occasional late-night lift. But I’m not happy to be taken for a mug! Or to enable her ‘oops, I missed the bus again’ behaviour.

@ThePure is correct. If you don't put a stop to it now, it will go on and on - resilience is really important for young people. You could take the sting out of it by saying "I will be having a drink tonight, so I won't be available to get you home" or you can confront it head on and say "no more late night lifts" but the upshot will be she will need to take her phone and take some responsibility for herself (or her and friends will have to do so). It certainly concentrated the minds of my five kids, I could not go out to pick up any child, because I had at least 3 others in the house, so that was that. Worked well due to circumstances, and I had "reason". And look, in reality, for a bit of a worried mum, I would not turn the tracker off, nor turn my phone to silent, because it will worry you more if you do. No-one today seems to walk like I did in the dark ages of the '80s when there were no phones, no ubers, no mates that you could cadge a lift from, but no harm ever came from it (other than making me think, I can't be arsed doing that again, not ever). I'd let the rest go (untidy room, sulky attitude etc, that comes with the territory i think) but you deserve your sleep and this is a good boundary to set. I bet she only walks once, if at all. Good luck with whatever you choose to do xxx

OK I know there are going to be people rolling their eyes at this but...

Have you ever considered she could be neurodivergent? In girls, things like adhd can un-anchor them when they go through a transition like starting college - new environment etc.

Just worth considering. Look into how adhd and autism present in girls and when they can become noticeable.

If she is using her own money and not asking you for more then it’s up to her if she wastes it on a taxi or a Uber because she’s missed the bus. It will be a natural consequence if she then runs out of money.
DD and friends quite often get Ubers. It figures much more in their life and plans than getting a taxi did for me.

I am not a complete heartless cow. I do give her (and mates) lifts at times but she knows that I am more likely to agree to a lift back from somewhere (not past midnight) if she asks me in advance and we agree on it than her randomly messaging which I may not even see. She’ll be going to uni next year I hope and I won’t know what she is up to or be around to bail her out so better she learns this stuff now.

I also agree with being less available. She needs to not have the assumption that you are hanging around ready to jump to her every whim. DH and I work shifts and we do go out to the gym and our own activities so we legitimately might not see phone messages and can’t be regarded as a fail safe back up.

Ha same!

I'd focus on the safety aspect, at the end of the day it's a matter of months till she can do what she likes so I would try and get her into the habit of just ensuring she and her friends all get home safely.

Could you set her up with a taxi/Uber account, perhaps, if that's an option where you are?

Sorry posted before seeing taxi update. But I don't think it's extravagant to take a taxi every weekend, that's normal for most young people who go out late. And I think if you have a decent local firm it's not a risk, or at least less of one than taking the bus/walking home.

It sounds similar to me at that age! I'm sure it's just a phase.

If she wants to stay out late then she has to act like an adult, which means not assuming mummy will get out of her bed and come and collect you at god knows what in the morning!

Op you have my sympathy. DC1-3 we’re all pretty awful (in different ways) for the year of 17. The worst year/stage imo. I think it is all about that transition from child to adult.

we did a lot of the things suggested up ^^^ but ultimately, we ended up riding it out and we now have amazing young adult ‘children’ who look back and reflect that they were absolute shit bags to us.

One more DC to go through it (imminently) and I fluctuate between dread and interest in what they are going to do to test us 😬

It is a phase OP that a lot go through, nevertheless very worrying for parents. I remember lying in bed wondering where DD was ... nothing worse than getting up in the early hours for a wee and seeing an empty bed in her room. No texts or message .. used to infuriate me as it's so easy to let us know if not coming home etc. Everything seems worse at night for some reason. Convinced they're lying in a ditch somewhere.

Mine used to get into the pub with her mates with fake ID, and then text me asking for more money ... I'd refuse as she needed to learn to budget and she'd just say "oh well there's lots of guys here, they can buy me drinks" 🙄which would freak me out due to spiking etc, so I'd end up txf money.

She's mid 20s now and lovely, looks back in horror at some of her antics 😁, hang in there.

Teens are really tough, thankfully DD has been a fairly good teenager. My main point to her is that I will give her freedom but she needs to be respectful and honest. I like to know where she is / what she is doing so if something goes wrong I have an idea of where to start looking! I will always be available for lifts home - partyl as I never got lifts anywhere not even during the day when I was younger and I walked in some very dodgy places! So it is just for safety - I wouldnt be able to sleep until she is home safe anyway! I am not controlling - she went to a gig in london with her friends and got the coach back to bristol where we picked them up at 2am.
I dont mind a late night as long as I know a rough time when she will be back if being walked home with friends.

I think the thing to focus on is the disrespect.

Thanks all, comforting to know it’s fairly typical behaviour. I guess I knew it already but somehow I thought we’d escape this stage!

Lots of wise advice here - I am determined to keep talking to her, she still likes to confide in me occasionally (in between bouts of extreme rudeness and pushing me away) so I know that’s something to hold on to.