What do you do when your 17 year old daughter doesn't obey her curfew and stays too late at her boyfriends even though she thinks it is ok because she works and is a straight a student?

Answer 1

Maybe there needs to be a conversation between you about negotiating reasonable rules, earning trust, and experiencing logical consequences, with room for some give on both sides.

Your daughter sounds mature and responsible. Speaking as a mother of two past their teens, I have to ask: hasn't she earned some freedom? If you hold the reins too tightly, you encourage her to break them. Please don't teach a hard-working student to be a sneak; your daughter's trust and confidence in you are two of the most precious things you have. If you allow some reasonable latitude, so that your rules warrant respect, she will respect them.

Please consider what a tight curfew is designed to accomplish or prevent and see if that is the best way to accomplish it. There's nothing she might be doing in the late hours that she couldn't do earlier in the day.

But I'd also say, that whatever rules you DO decide on, need to be consistently enforced with meaningful consequences. While I do suspect you may be holding the reins too tight, that doesn't mean that whatever rules you do put in place don;t matter.