Dear Jean,
My 13 year old daughter will be
a high school freshman next fall. I'm worried about her riding in
cars with teenage drivers. She's a social kid who will, undoubtedly,
get offers for rides home, rides to the mall, "car dates," etc....
I'd like to set up some guidelines before the issue comes up. So,
what is a sensible family policy regarding riding in cars with other
teenagers? Thanks for your help!
Jean
responds:
Hi,
Thanks for writing to
parentingadolescents.com.
Normally, I suggest parents save
rule-making or limit-setting for situations in which behavior
has proven problematic. For instance, instead of making
rules in advance about when your child needs to be in at night, you
wait to see whether they come in at a reasonable hour. The
first time they stay out too late for your comfort, you tell them
that it was too late, in your view, and that you need to talk with
them about it. You don't give them a consequence for that behavior
the first time--because they had no warning that it wasn't
acceptable. But then in a negotiation with them, you set a limit
around the time they are to be in and design consequences for their stepping over the
line.
There are some issues, though, like sex and
drugs/booze--and maybe like driving/riding in cars--that are
important for parents to talk to their kids about in a proactive
way. In other words, in these areas, you bring up the subject
yourself, probably again and again, in different contexts, so
that you are sure your kids understand your values and your sense of
what's at risk for them.
Maybe riding in cars is an important
enough issue for you to bring up proactively; the only reason
for my 'maybe' is that you don't want to set her up to use riding in
cars with teen drivers as a way to act out her need not to
follow your rules. In other words, you don't want to be in a
situation where you're saying, "Now this is something that I don't
want you ever to do," thus drawing her attention to a quick and easy
way to show that she's not you and that you dont' run her life!
Nonetheless, I think you can talk to her about the statistics regarding accident rates as
these relate to more than one teen driving/riding in a car, to see
if she's aware of these. (Find these by clicking on the
underlined text above.) It would be logical also to explore the
driving laws in your State; in some States, it's illegal for teens
to drive with another teen in the car before the driver
reaches a certain age (this is called a graduated driver's license program and is
recommended by many safety and insurance
organizations).
After exploring these
sources of information, you can formulate what
your policy is--or, and this is probably better, the two of you
together can look at these statistics and then negotiate what the
limit will be for her. In this instance, because it hasn't been a
problem (yet), I wouldn't even mention consequences because that
presumes she will step over the line. What you need to be aware of
is that she MAY end up exceeding the limit you set/violating the
policy, and if and when she does, then you give her a 'freebie' for
the first violation and at that time discuss consequences for
a next time.
With teens you're always walking the line between respecting
their need for autonomy and their need for reasonable limits to help
them stay alive through their teen years, while not stimulating
rebellion. It's not easy! Hope I've given you food for thought.
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educational and informative. It is not a substitute
for face to face consultation or psychotherapy with a mental health
professional.