13yo's Freedoms: DH & I disagree: HELP!

[Bathsheba]

Please help us sort this issue... we've come to an impasse.

13yo DD wants to be able to venture into the city (Melbourne) with 3 other friends... and just wander around the shops. The other kids are a girl and two boys, all in the 13/14 yo age bracket. They are reasonably well behaved kids but my DD can be a bit too adventurous and trusting.... she also has a tendency to find risk takers "fun".

I am being the strict one. I offered to go in too (separate train carriage) and take my littlies to a mall (Melbourne Central) while DD and her friends wander around the shop and report back every half hour. That way I know where they vaguely will be... and avoid hours passing with no communication. She is prone to letting hours pass without calling me on her phone... and not having it switched on so that I can call her.

DH thinks we should just let her go. He had a very restricted childhood and I feel that he is trying to over compensate by giving her the freedoms he never had as a teen.

I on the other-hand had a very free teenage life... too free and I know all the strife you can get up to in a country town let alone the big city!

Am I being too restrictive??? Would you let your child go?

[Nicambhar]

Bath, I had a pretty free teenage life like you and have a 13yr old DD and 14yr old DS, both of which I am quite strict with as well.
Both my kids are not very good at calling me at set times and usually don't hear the phone when I end up calling them
I can't put my finger on why I feel this way really, especially considering I got to roam the shops and go into the city with my friends at the very same age. I never did anything wrong, just hung out with my mates and ate maccas usually.
I honestly think you are right to feel the way that you do.

[Trillian]

Bath, I'm with you on this one. Sometimes it isn't what our children can possibly get up to, it's what other people could do to them kwim? They might *think* they they are young adults of the world and that they are capable of being alone in the city, and chances are they could do it and have no problems at all, but you just never know. Maybe I am being over cautious though.

Could you possibly come to a compromise with them and let them go to a different shopping area they don't normally go to that isn't right in the city?

[Rouge]

No way. I'm not crazy strict but Marc and I have previously discussed this and no not without a chaperone of some description. I think your idea is supurb and I'd do the exact same thing if I was in your situation.

[Tobily]

I don't have kids that age Bath but I have to say....HELL NO! I'm with you.

I'd have a nervous breakdown if my 13 yo daughter was wandering around in the city for hours like that. It's too young to be doing that without supervision. No matter how much I trusted my child I don't trust other people iykwim.

Your DH needs to remember too that the world is not the same as it was when we were that age.

God I sound like my mother!

[Nelle]

That's tough Bath - 13 is so old and so young. They feel so old, but they're not really...but they're not babies either. So...I've got nothing for you there.

I did want to say though, that with the whole not being able to reach her on the phone thing - as teens, if we didn't call, weren't reachable, or broke any part of our agreement, that was it, we'd done our outings dash for a looooong time. We agreed that with mum and dad at the start of any outing, and it was strictly enforced, so we knew we couldn't get away with breaking our side of the deal.
Just a thought for when the outings do start to take place, that's a good way to get your kids to realise how important it is for them to be contactable - they screw all future outings if they're not!

All the best deciding the boundaries with your dh.

[*Efjay*]

I would say she can go on your terms, that being you will also be in the city & expect them to check in, maybe not every half hour but at least every hour. Her phone MUST BE ON & ANSWERED.
I think you need to give a little to avoid them doing it behind your back anyway KWIM.

[Bathsheba]

Thanks girls I agree: it's not her so much as other people! I walked through the area under the Flinders Street clocks last Saturday, by myself, and I actually felt quite intimidated. 1/4 of the people looked like junkies... lots of kids my DDs age who just looked out if it And I'm usually no shrinking violet! I've lived in some pretty rough areas in my life! I look past what people are wearing (I don't see the mo-hawk as much as I see the glazed expression in their eyes) and it was not a place I would want my 13yo to be essentially by herself.... ie if anything happened another 13yo isn't going to know what to do! The one thing my DD does have in her favour is that she isn't the kind of kid a predator would target... she has self confidence and assertive body language and she's physically very strong. BUT I'm still not happy about the whole thing. I just don't GET how the other parents seem to be ok with it all. My DH is going to ring them too BTW (other parents). The two boys go to Little Athletics and so he kinda knows them, they are good boys, sensible etc.

It's so ironic... here I am, the only parent that allowed my DD to walk to school every morning in grades 5/6 and now all of a sudden i am the "only" parent who won't let my DD go into the city un-chaperoned

Trillian: There's a shopping centre near us (Northland) that is actually worse than the CBD. It's shocking... I'd rather she go into the city. I just don't get why I can't loosely follow her... it was implied that that would be "embarrassing".... geeze, now I am the uncool mum.

ETA: We allow her to catch the train into the city by herself to meet DH at his work... infact last week she went in and did half a days work with him (they are moving offices and needed help packing files into boxes). But that was a direct trip with someone waiting at the other end.... i just don't like the idea of hours passing and no one any the wiser if anything went wrong.