This is the big one if like me you have children approaching their later teenage years. It is that period where your natural instinct to control and protect your children has to be tempered by the fact they they are closing fast on the time when the decisions they make will be theirs alone.
Without doubt this is a learning process, possibly more for the parent than the child in many respects, and is one that will be littered with mistakes as both parties search for that crucial balance. Parties are a prime example where you either have to collect them late in the evening or trust them to behave if they stay over and of course there is always the alcohol factor. Lets be honest there is no doubt that sixteen year olds are going to have a couple of beers at these events if they feel like it, they will get hold of it somehow anyway so is it better for parents to control what they are drinking be providing a limited amount, or is there a blanket ban, in which case they will drink it outside or before arrival.
Actually there is probably no real one size fits all answer to this problem, some children will not drink and others will, all parents will have different ideas and solutions to dealing with these things. I am under no illusion that knowing where my older children are, is any guarantee as to what they are getting up to, this is the time when they start to push the boundaries of the parental bubble, which is disturbing but inevitable.
We were treated to a prime example of this yesterday, receiving a late call from one of our boys to inform us that he would be staying over, rather than getting a lift home as promised. This is a no win situation as a parent, either you say no, pull jeans on over your pyjamas and head out to bring them home, or you let them stay and deal with it the following day, by which time they will have though of a watertight, in their mind, excuse of why they stayed out.
In this particular instance no real harm was done, but at this post GCSE pre A level age there are still rules in place, in my mind at least. The fact that this two month break before starting sixth form is being viewed as some kind of mini gap year is not really helping my sanity actually, trying to find that mysterious balance, does it really exist I wonder, between a bit more freedom or letting them run wild seems even more difficult as the holiday goes on.
I suppose that trust is really at the centre of this, how much do you trust them to behave as young adults. It has been mentioned to me by the older children about the amount of freedom that I had at this age, unfortunately for them while I remember having quite a bit actually, there is no way that I would trust my sixteen year old self now. However that does not mean that they are not far more responsible than I ever was and therefore why should they not be allowed to explore their freedom a bit more.
There is, for me at least, no absolute answer as to how this should be dealt with, maybe a combination of going with the flow, but not to fast. In the mean time I shall flex my dad muscles and ground him for the week I think, just to get a bit more thinking time if nothing else.
Andy
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