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16th April 2025
12:49pm BST
A concerned mum recently turned to Reddit for advice after a late-night incident involving her teen daughter.
In her post, she explained that she was woken up at 2:30 am by a phone call from her daughter, who had been pulled over nearby due to a broken taillight.
“I was confused as I had put her to bed and gone to sleep around 11:00 pm,” the mum explained.
Her confusion quickly turned to concern and frustration after learning that her daughter had snuck out to meet a local boy - this was not the first time her daughter had lied about seeing this particular boy.
“She said she wanted to hang out but knew we wouldn’t let her go out so late. We took her car keys and told her we’d discuss her punishment in the morning.”
The mum was at a loss for how to effectively punish her daughter.
“Obviously, she’ll be grounded from the car for a while (she has her own car). But for how long? I’m thinking once she earns it back, we’ll keep the keys and she’ll need to ask for them. Maybe a couple months? I was so mad last night I was ready to lock her up forever but I recall sneaking out as a teen and I’m trying to be reasonable… This age sucks.”
Responses from the Reddit community were varied, offering a mix of empathy and advice.
One user suggested a balanced approach: “I would connect before I corrected. So, ‘I am glad you knew you could call me even though you also knew I would be angry. I really want you to learn from this and I also want you to not think you have to be sneaky.
“If I had woken up and you weren’t home, I would have been so scared. You mean so much to me, what if you had an accident and I wouldn’t even have known you were out? This can never happen again! What do you think we should do about this?’”
Another shared a strategy from their own upbringing: “Maybe this won’t work for everyone, but my parents always told me that if I wanted to sneak out, to come let them know first. That they wouldn’t stop me if I felt it was important, but they’d like to give me a ride to wherever I was going to make sure I was safe.
“Worked like a charm, it took away any urge honestly. Why go through the hassle when they’d just give me a ride? And why not just wait until the morning if that was the case?”
Navigating teenage rebellion can feel nothing short of impossible sometimes, but with a combination of firm parenting and understanding, parents can hope to help their teens navigate these years safely.
