Thanks Lulu. Yep, you're right about the peers' jury - that's going to be much more effective than it coming from us.

DP had a brief conversation with DSD tonight before she hung up on him. I think she's quite flustered that she's successfully convinced the other parents that this is about her wanting to continue at her current school so they are facilitating that BUT she doesn't get what she really wants which is to stay in the Big Smoke on weekends. Pure genius on all the parents' parts methinks. So I'm not sure that she will go for this plan because she may think that if she has to spend her weekends in Woodend she might as well change schools so she's got people up there that she can party with instead.

Some parts were quite funny as it transpires that she's already told them two lies about her whereabouts that we know of and their reaction was, "why would she do that, there was no need to lie about it" - to which DP and I said "THAT'S exactly what we've been talking about."

But they are really nice/good people. They have three teenagers of their own so are not easily fazed by stuff. It's easier for them than us to judge what's 'normal' teen behaviour and what's not IYKWIM because they've seen it all and they have a good network of parents put together since their kids were in primary school.

We've agreed what the board should be, still undecided about whether DSD should contribute. They did point out that maybe it's not as easy to get a PT job as we think especially for 17-year-olds compared to 15-year-olds because they have to get paid more.

But that's kind of a side issue for us at the moment. The ball is in DSD's court as to what she wants to do.