My DD is 15 and is a fairly young 15 year old iykwim? Never been particularly into boys or misbehaving badly, however she is very impressionable and will go along with things she knows are wrong because her friends want her to. My dds friends from a year above her have now all left school and getting jobs, college etc and therefore meeting older people, which is the problem. One of dds best friends has introduced her to a 18 year old lad who DD is now calling her boyfriend! DH and I are in peices over this and have probably reacted badly. yesterday at 8.30am when DH got up he saw dd arriving home, she had been out the house without us knowing and had been to see this lad before he went to work. DH and I decided not to deal with it there and then as we were too angry,(she stayed in her room all day) so left it until last night before trying to talk to her and to explain why its not ok to a) go out the house without us knowing and b) for a 15 year old to be seeing a 18 year old. Our DD isnt allowed out in the evenings and he works until 6pm so it should be easy to stop this, it turns out that other than yesterday we think she has only met him once but he has been texting her constantly and thats how they arranged to meet up yesterday. We decided the best punishment for sneaking out would be to confiscate her phone, then they cant text, and ground her. When we went to get her phone dd got near on hysterical and hit DH around the face. My little girl is turning into someone i dont like very much and i cant believe her behaviour! Im so ashamed of writing this but i really dont know how best to handle this situation. She left for school early this morning and Im worried she went to find this lad. If she does go see him she will know that I called him last night to tell him to stay away from my 15 year old daughter, he said they were just friends but ive read the texts and altho theyre not 'worrying' iykwim? they def imply more than friends. He's wrote things like 'how bad do you want to be my girl?' and 'i feel the same as you' etc dd had deleted all her sent messages so dont know what she has said. I told him that her father and i have read all the texts and know thats not the case and even if it was, its not appropriate for an 18 year old to be texting a school girl and to stay the hell away from my daughter, which he said he would. I was very calm and not at all as angry as i felt but made my point clear.

Im at a complete lost over what to do and how best to handle this, i know that if we say no she'll want him even more and we'll end up pushing them together but I cant agree with this. Should i say ok then, see him but we're not changing the rules on going out in the evenings, without arranging it with us first. Then it will be hard for her to see him and he will lose interest, but we wont look like the bad guys?
Please dont think badly of dh and me as parents, we cant believe this is happening and are so worried about her saftey :o(
Ive also found things in her room, items of clothing etc that i know she hasnt brought, things that still have the labels on and im 100% sure she's stolen them. Do i make her return these things to the store or do i get rid of them? Ive always tried to raise her with a strong sense of right and wrong, but ive obviously gone wrong somewhere.

Lyn xxx

Hi

It sounds as though your little girl has finally found her feet and is turning into an independant, rebellious person, ie a typical teenager, welcome to the club lol. I would say from my own experience of teens that the more you forbid her to see this lad then the more she will want to and she will start to go behind your back.

What is it about the situation that makes you so uneasy, afterall a 3 year age gap isn't that big and he is a teen as well, if she wanted to date a 40 year old married man then I could understand your reservations but unless this boy has done anything wrong then is it possible you are over-reacting a tad and perhaps judging him and his intentions before getting to know him? he might be very nice and they could genuinely have feelings for each other.

If it was me I would encourage him to come round to your house, get to meet him and that way you could have more control over the situation and there would be no need for any cloak and dagger stuff.

Your DD is 15 and it is natural she will want to go out both with friends and with boys, she is a teenager, not a little girl. Is there a reason why she is not allowed out in the evenings? I have a 14 and a 16 year old and they are allowed out as long as I know where they are going, who with, what time they will be back and if they are going to be late or need a lift then they must ring. I also expect them in at a reasonable time and if they have schoolwork then they are not allowed out until it is done. This has worked out for me.

My concern is that by perhaps being a little over-protective you are driving your DD into becoming more secretive and less likely to confide in you. You have to let them have some freedom and sometimes our teens make mistakes, but that is part and parcel of the learning curve.

Is it possible that your natural desire to keep your DD safe has led to you perhaps being over-strict and perhaps the possible shoplifting and the boyfriend are her way of trying to assert her independance. I am sorry if that sounds harsh, but sometimes kids from homes where the parents are quite strict will rebel in ways their friends from less strict backgrounds would not. You do have to trust your child otherwise the relationship will break down.

I would tackle her about the items though because although I think the BF bit is reasonably harmless I think shoplifting can be the start of a slippery slope and if she was to be caught she could get into serious trouble.

i cant really give any parental avice, since my daughters 13 and just getting interested in boys her own age

but i cant tell you from experiance since i was 14 with an 18 year old bf, i know kids can put thier parents through a lot, my mum wasnt the 'protective type' her whole thing was to just let me get on with it and put me on the pill, but didnt check i was still on it and let me move in with him and i was still at school!!!! i wasnt the  out going of girls, was really quite shy, we had been together 10 mths when i fell pregnant (scary thought for a mum) and i had her when i was 16 1/2, me and the boyfreind split when she was 10 months, my sister went through a similar thing

i do have major regrets but wouldnt change her

i personally wouldnt let my daughter date an older guy , cause most do take advantage,

i hope ive not scared you into thinking everyone is like me and my sister

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Personally I think you're being far too protective of her.

I agree that she shouldn't be out of the house without you knowing.
But why isn't she allowed out at night with her mates?

If you go on reading her messages she will lose all respect for you.
You need to give her more freedom and some privacy.
At 15 she needs to find out what the big world is like.

The lad may be 18 but that's only 3 years difference.
And he's got a job which says a lot about him in this day and age.

Invite him round and see what he's like, you might even like him.
Kids these days grow up very fast.
It's seems like your daughter is.
You can do this 2 ways, either stop her doing what she wants to do and have her turn against you or support and encourage her to have friends and to go out with them.

When my daughter was that age I supported her all I could and she's grown into a fantastic young lady who talks to me about everything.
I know she wouldn't be like she is if I'd stopped her being a teenager.

SU97