My hubby Chris and I attended a graduation party last
weekend. We found ourselves in a conversation with another parent about the
readjustment process we all go through when our college kids return home for
the summer. Amid our discussion about the delights of once again witnessing freshly
messed-up bedrooms, tripping over even more pairs of shoes, etc., the woman we
were speaking with commented, “One thing that’s hard is enforcing the curfew,
isn’t it? Especially since they’re used to doing their own thing up at school.”
Chris and I exchanged glances of surprise.
I wrote a post a few years back on the whole curfew topic. But
for those of you who weren’t following the ol’ blog back then, let me sum up the
way Chris and I have chosen to handle curfews for our older teens (as in 17-yrs.
old) and up:
We don’t set any.
We’re awful parents, right? Ha, ha!
Instead of issuing a curfew directive, we would have a
discussion with our teen before they went out somewhere for the evening. We’d
talk about what they had going on the next day, what time they felt they needed
to be up in the morning, and how much sleep they thought they needed. Then we’d
ask them to give us a time they felt was reasonable for returning that night.
Our oldest daughter Ashleigh hated this! “Just give me a
time!” she’d wail.
But Chris and I have always felt our job as parents of teens
is one of preparation. We’re preparing our kids for full-blown adulthood. Truly, it didn’t take long for Ashleigh to get
the hang of it. And by the time she started her freshman year of college, she
was totally responsible: Going to bed by 9:00 p.m. every night in order to be
fresh and alert for her classes the following day.
Yeah, okay. Just kidding.
Seriously though, I think it’s easy to fall into a pattern
of dictating rules to our kids, just as we did when they were younger and we
had all the control. But really, isn’t our job as parents a strategic process
of relinquishing that control. And hopefully, by guiding our kids to think
things through the way we have, those skills will be well established once they’re
on their own.
I’m not saying it’s always easy! I’m sure both our kids will
testify that we’re not always successful at sticking to the “guidance only”
part. But we recognize that in the long run, they need to think for themselves.
Our kids are now 17 and 20, and so far neither of them has ever let us down in
terms of setting a time to be home, and honoring that time.
As I was sharing the “curfew conversation” with my oldest, home
from her sophomore year of college, I was further surprised when she told me
she actually has friends--plural--the same age she is, whose parents still dictate
curfews. This seems so strange to me! For
the majority of the year, their kid could be out at all hours of the night, and
they wouldn’t have a clue. But now that they’re back home, this 20-yr. old
needs to be in the house by 11:00 p.m.?
So now I’m curious. I would love to hear thoughts on this
from other parents. Is my philosophy on this totally off base? And if there are
any parents of teens & twenties who do enforce a curfew, I’d love it if you
shared your reasoning behind it.
What say you, fellow parents?
3 comments:
This sounds like such a great idea. If I can remember (ha, ha), we let our kids stay up until reasonable hours as long as they let us knows where they were going and called if their plans changed. I think that if they were going to be later than they said, they had to call and let us know. It worded out well. Now they are well-adjusted young adults. PTL.
I agree with Nancy: I think it's a brilliant way to handle it! The idea of teaching the kids to reason things themselves is logical and smart. I guess my only caveat is that if a child is really known to be unreliable, I'd ease into your method. :)
You are such a great parent!
Hope your weekend's been good!
I really didn't have a set curfew growing up, but I do remember a police officer friend reminding me that nothing good happens after 11PM. That was enough for me. LOL (Until I went away to college)
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