Dear Prue,
I have a lovely 16-year-old, who started sixth form in September. She is generally pretty sweet natured at home, but her social life has revved up with a vengeance after the privations of the past two years and she is often out with friends after school and at weekends. Generally, we get a cursory text message if she is to be late or absent for supper; so far, curfew (10pm on weeknights, midnight Friday/Saturday nights) has not been significantly breached.
I realise there will be all sorts of temptations in her path – I can even dimly remember being subjected to them myself – and it’s my lot as a mother to wring my hands and hope she is level-headed enough to find a path through these years, and even enjoy them. What worries me is how vague she is. Occasionally, the name of a friend who we might or might not know is wafted over her shoulder as she’s on her way out. She points out that she has her phone with her at all times, and can always be reached. But she clearly sees any attempt to pin down her whereabouts as an infringement of her civil liberties. She is even asking to be allowed to stay in the house alone when her stepfather and I have to go away in a couple of weeks, rather than go to her father as she would unquestioningly have done even a year ago. Should I insist on tighter protocols, which would probably involve some sordid mechanism of bribery, or just try and stop worrying?
– Anon, via email
Dear Anon,
Oh, the tyranny of the teenager! Too many questions making her clam up more, versus a laissez-faire attitude possibly leading to dangerous liaisons. Of course, the chances are there is nothing sinister in her behaviour, she’s just going through that awful teenage phase. My father used to say girls should be locked up between the ages of 15 and 25.
I think you, or maybe a family friend or godmother/father figure – someone she likes and trusts – has to sit down with her and make her understand that you only fret because you love her. And it’s your job to keep her safe, so she can really enjoy her adolescent years. A dreadful, frightening incident could ruin the fun she should be having. She may think “nothing will happen to her”, but you need to be sure she understands the risks, which are real. Tell her she can always, always ring you if she needs to get out of a nasty situation in a hurry.
Give her a handbag (one that she would want to be seen with) that contains an attack alarm clipped to the handle, so if in danger she can set it off, plus a fully charged battery charger for her phone – running out of juice being today’s preferred teenage excuse for not keeping in touch. (I’d be tempted to add a packet of condoms and a morning-after pill, too, but you are better placed to judge that.)
It’s only natural to want to know who she is with and where. But the truth is, if she is meeting people or doing things she knows you’d disapprove of, she isn’t going to tell you anyway. All you can really do is keep loving her and wait for her to remember that she loves you, too.
