Teenage Daughters.. - Plano,IL

Sounds like there are no boundaries set up on either side. Staying out till 2am at the boyfriend's house should be a big no-no. Alone in the bedroom or basement with doors closed, another big no-no. Did she get grounded for being unreachable until 2am? Are there any consequences? Because it sounds like she's pushing it. The likelihood of them already having sex is pretty high.

You want to be the open & approachable mom, not the mom that is feared. The subject needs to be brought up now, in a loving & kind way. She is 17, almost an adult, and if she is going to act like she is grown up, then she needs to be prepared to talk about adult things & being responsible.

My mom was always really open & even had condoms available if I needed them, and I think it was because she was that way that sex didn't seem so taboo, and I ended up being a huge prude in high school.

Good luck, I am so not looking forward to DD being a teen!!

You and the boys mom need to sit down with these two kids and talk. If they haven't already done it, they are close to it. There is always that ONE person that comes along that makes girls decide this is IT!
Be open honest blunt and to the point. Whether you like it or not they are gonna do it. So don't think that talking to them about abstinence it going to work! It would be better to talk about birth control and being responsible. Teenagers appreciate you talking to them. It is embarassing for everyone, but it is better to be embarassed than to be a Grandma! And the sooner this talk happens the better!
I have two sons in their twenties and a 15 yo girl. I have always been open and honest about sex. The more open of a relationship you have, the more they will come to you when they need to.
Good luck!!
Blessings!
D.

What I would do? First, take her to Planned Parenthood. Whether or not you or your friend are catching them doing anything, you sound like you are concerned that they are. Whether or not your daughter is just asserting her independence doesn't mean you abdicate the right to parent her all the same.

I'm curious: If she was at your friend's house from 3 until 2 a.m., why didn't you call her or your friend? If I was worried sick that my daughter was with the boyfriend but not answering the phone, I'd have called the friend to ensure my kid's safety. If she's a friend, she'll understand why you woke her up after your daughter didn't come home. I'm assuming she should also be concerned that her son is keeping his girlfriend over until the wee hours.

What are your house rules, by the way? There is no way I would have been allowed to have a boy up in my room with the door closed when I was her age. If I had been told to leave my bedroom door open and didn't, my mom would have opened it up, dragged me out by my ear and sent boyfriend home. What is keeping you from asserting yourself as a parent?

I think you and your husband need to have big discussion with your daughter regarding birth control and curfews. New house rules-- if boyfriend is over, he stays in the living room/kitchen/common areas. This is not unreasonable. She is still a minor, living under your roof and think really hard-- do you want to be a grandma? Will this other mom be still as friendly if the kids get pregnant? Because if your situation is just as your post described, that's where this is going. Get her (or both of them--- heck, if they are going to play grown-ups by staying out all night and not checking in, they can go have a sit-down with a counselor on family planning and birth control) to Planned Parenthood and ensure she has contraception AND protection. (the pill and condoms.) Sorry to sound brusque, but if you don't have any control over this situation going on under your own roof, things aren't going to get any better.

Oh mom you are a little late to the party in establishing boundaries and rules. Time to change the rules. You never should have let her have her boyfriend in her room. Totally unacceptable. I don't care if the door is open, there is nothing good that happens with two teenagers in a bedroom. So start there.

If you have a family room or rec room in your basement, they can hang out there with NO expectation of privacy. Walk in and out constantly. Or if that's inconvenient, allow them to only hang out on the main floor of the house (kitchen, family room etc.). Welcome the boyfriend into you home but give them no privacy. Express you strong desire to the boy's parents that they do the same.

She should absolutely be grounded and lose privileges for the 2 AM stunt. That is beyond unacceptable. If one of my kids didn't answer his or her phone, I would have called the house where he or she claimed to be and if no one answered the land line there, I would have called the parents' cell phone numbers and if I still couldn't get them, I would have driven over there and hauled his or her sorry behind home. Yes I am "that mom" and my teens no to not test me or I will mortify them and make their lives miserable.

You need to reign her in now or you are going to have one long miserable summer and Senior year. Yes she's within a year of being an adult but she's still your dependent and lives in your house and has to respect your rules. Also, assume that she's having sex and make sure that she's using protection. You can talk about safer sex without condoning it or enabling it by giving them privacy in your own home.

I don't think your first concern should be for her safety - this is about respect, judgment and maturity, which she is not demonstrating right now.

Have a frank discussion with your DD about sex and birth control. She is 17, nearly an adult, not 12. The reality is that 17 year olds more often than not, will be having sex with their boyfriends, if they have a boyfriend. Do you remember being 17? Take her to Planned Parenthood or a trusted gynocologist. Staying out until 2am and being unreachable would be unacceptable, and certainly worthy of consequence. What does his Mom, your friend, say about all of this? If your DD is invited for dinner, I think you need to be in communication with his parents, too. I was 16 and once invited for "dinner" at my college boyfriend's house. My Mom was totally comfortable with his parents, having known them for years ,but clearly she had no clue that his parents weren't home, and we had an empty house to ourselves the whole evening. Yeah, not so innocent. But I was lucky. Have a heart to heart talk with your DD.

Are you worried about her safety or her virginity? She's 17 and has a regular boyfriend. I would think that yes, they're having sex. You can't stop it once it's started. The sex drive is quite strong at that age. I advise taking her to the doctor to get birth control. You do not want a teen pregnancy.

Have you talked with her in an open way about sex and your boundaries? Or is the talk about safety? ie couched in careful words?
I urge you to be open with her so that she can be open with you.

I urge you to be non judgmental so that she can be honest with you. You can express your disappointment that she's chosen to have sex before marriage or whatever your value is.

When teens are alone and making out they will have intercourse. I urge you to start your conversation with that given. Accept that it's happened and discuss how to protect ones self from pregnancy and STDs. There is just no way you can take her back to the abstinence role.

I know this from experience. My daughter was pregnant at 17 and a mother at 20. I was disappointed but I knew what was most important was to accept that she was now a sexual being and would be continuing to have sex.

Like you I allowed them to be in the bedroom with closed door. I believed the line that they were just hanging out. I was a fool. I learned about the sex when she told me she was pregnant. She lost that pregnancy and she began with the pill. She still got pregnant again because she was not consistent with taking the pill. With the second pregnancy I told the couple they were now adults and must get their own apartment. It was the beginning of their adult lives.

I think that if I'd been more open and less adamant about not getting pregnant this MIGHT not have happened. She wanted to get pregnant and didn't feel comfortable talking with me about her feelings. They relied on friends who said it was a good thing to do. We didn't have good communication for several years. Keeping the lines of communication open is essential.

It sounds like that train has left the station . . . I would be having very frank discussions with her about birth control, becoming a parent at an early age, forgoing most of your young adult dreams and plans, etc. And I would let her know that she - herself - will bear the brunt of most of the responsibility should she conceive a child.

This is why I heavily discourage dating with my teen sons (18 & 15). We have tried to teach them that your teen and young adult years are so important to self-discovery and fulfillment in later adult life. It's hard to do that when you're distracted by sex hormones and another young person also trying to figure out herself.

I would do everything within reason to put the brakes on this situation. But I would also be careful to not drive her away. Let her know that all of your concern comes out of sheer love for her.

Good luck.

If she is not protected, be ready to be a grandmother. First take her to the doctor. Do let a boy in her room EVER. Talk to the other parents and make a plan. She is not to stay at his house. Make sure she is protected.

That would be a REALLY long dinner! Have a sit down with you, your husband, your daughter, the boy and his parents, and decide on birth control and should that fail, who's house will they be living with the grandchild.

Forget the BOOK CLUB....zero in on the problem at hand!

you need to first stop asking dumb questions and start making statements. asking "what were you guys doing?" is pretty dumb when you had walked in on them making out. it was pretty clear what they were doing lol. So get her in for birth control. have both of them sit down for a conversation on sex and the consequences. they will be mortified but it needs to be done. then give her the rules. door stays open, boy stays on main floor of house. she has curfew of specific time and then give consequences for breaking that. unless she is a week away from 18 and your ready to boot her out which your not I am sure. you just need to put the rules into place. and they need to be enforced. is she leaving for college this fall? if so you need to put the birthcontrol into place soon.

You need to have a frank conversation with her. Be open and honest and tell her you need to know if she is having sex. Then you need to get her to the doctor for an examination and birth control. You also need to have a curfew set for her. 2:00 a.m. is too late for everyone!

It could be innocent - my boyfriend and I played Wasteland (computer game) till the sun came up many a time, did nothing but that the whole night, but he was at my house from the time he got off work till it was time to be up for the day. That boyfriend is my husband now, and I'm really glad my Dad and Mom didn't freak out about it.
OR
It could be something to worry about - the boyfriend before that was older then me and more sexually astute and ... well, I still regret some of what we did.

The best thing to do is give her the facts - get her condoms or on the pill and tell her that if she gets pregnant X will happen. In our house my kids know that they will be forced to have an abortion or move out and never see their dad again. We will NOT tolerate a teen pregnancy as it will ruin their lives. Since they are only 10 and 13 they will have this in their head really solidly by the time they are sexually active. Your daughter will be a legal adult in a short while, you need to arm her with facts instead of policing her. Make sure she understands all there is to know. I would give her the facts of how sex is done, the positives/negatives, etc. very graphically and knowing she would be mortified I would make sitting through that lecture the punishment and price she would have to pay to be left alone.

As far as the staying out till 2 am, make a curfew and enforce it. Tell her you don't care if she is at his house and you know that, she is to be HOME alone, in her bed, by X time. If not then she will lose rights (her phone, driving the car, spending money, that late of a curfew, going out at all, seeing him, being allowed to be in the basement with him alone, etc.).

PS do not focus on the part of the abortion in this post, that is our family choice and my daughters understand why we believe in that

I will go with one easy problem first...what us your town curfew. Don't know when she is 18 but this is a legal thing and evem though stuff happens all hours of the day, it does ramp up with frequency and intensity at night. next is having a sit down with her, tell her you need her for a full afternoon. Go to a restaurant a distance away from home so it is harder for her to just leave. Have a conversation about personal safety, safe sex, contraception, make sure she can come to you and sees you as a resource and can trust you. Because it sounds like a door off one room just pushes them to another. It wasn't prevented from happening so trying to do that now is kinda putting the cart before the horse...make sure she knows the boundaries you are setting up as it is obvious that there were almost none or a boy would not be in her room and not with a closed door.

You are a bit late to the party. You should have talked to her before she was 13 and continued the discussion changing the topic and adding to it as she grew.

Now you are trying to reign her in and it is going to be hard for the summer to do so. It can work but it is going to be a long hot summer at your house. Yes new rules and the door stays off. Lying she gets grounded. You schedule a doctor's appointment and treat her like an adult with all the terms needed. Hope the doctor has some scary slides of the STDs.

Otherwise welcome to grandparent hood before you are ready. Who is going to care for this child? Who is going to be responsible for this child? Are you willing to change your life for this child and forego your dreams again?

Time for all the blinders to be removed.

Good luck to you.

The other S.

Make the rules and consequences clear. Then, if you really trust your daughter, let her be a teenager.

I would not allow my daughter to have male company in her room. Period.

My husband and I are approaching a similar situation the following way. We know that they are going to make out and have sex no matter what we do. We also let our daughter know that she needs to be responsible and that she doesn't need to be afraid to talk to us.

As always there are rules in our house...
The bedroom door stays open.
The curfew depends on the situation/activity, but we tell her what time she needs to be home.
I have a cell phone, she uses that cell phone, and if I call she better answer it.

There are consequences if the rules are not followed...
You're grounded, no friends over and you're not going out.
I get the cell phone back
I get your ipod.
I get your laptop.

What should you do? Have a long talk with your daughter. Tell her your expectations. Listen to what she has to say. Remind her that you love her and are looking out for her best interests. Remind yourself, my house, my rules.

I saw your post "Teenage Daughters..."

so sorry

Well... am going to be quite frank with you..not trying to be rude...but someone needs to spell it out.

First off...YOU ARE THE MOTHER!!! Why are you letting her make the rules? I'm sorry...but in my opinion, she should have never been allowed to have any male in her room period. When you caught them with the door shut after you told them not do...did you throw him out? Good kids or not...sex will get the best of them...it is not their brains they are thinking with!

Set the rules and make consequences and stick to them. Don't try to be her friend...be her mother. That means you will piss her off, she will say terrible things, and try and manipulate you...but remember, she has NO CLUE what she is doing...she is still a child and as your child it is YOUR job to do what you can to keep her from making preventable mistakes (i.e getting pregnant under your roof).

If you knew she was at his house...why on earth did you not call his mother, or better yet drive over there and drag her out by her ear?!?!?! Again, you are the mother? What was her punishment for it?

You can not control what they do when they are not home, but you have to maintain control over your own house. If they can not follow the rules, then he can not be there. If she is to be allowed at his house, then I would discuss the issue with his mother and lay out what your expectations are with supervision. If she does not agree or is not willing to do it, then she shouldn't go over there either.

The first thing that needs to be done is to get on the same page with your husband and you two come up with a game plan. Then both of you sit her down and lay down the ground rules. If she acts like a brat about it or is ugly, then she is not mature enough to have boys over or go over to boys houses. She will be understandably uncomfortable, but she will get over it and so will you. You have to be the adult in this situation.