A week ago Sunday night, my daughter was out to a friend’s house. We asked her to be home by 10:00pm, not too unreasonable for a school night. She has school the next day, and we work. Not a hard thing to understand.

By 11:00 she had already called us several times to ask if she could stay another ten minutes to finish watching a movie, just another ten minutes, just another ten minutes. By 11:45 she was still not home.

When she finally arrived home at midnight, we tried to explain all the things we felt we needed to explain about why she has to come home on time, like it’s late, it’s a school night, etc. She said she was sorry and that it wouldn’t happen again.

So of course, this past Sunday, what happened?

THE SAME THING.

You’d have thought that what went on the weekend before would still be relatively fresh in her mind, that she would be somewhat more aware of the time so the same thing would NOT happen. But it did. Only this time, each time we called her, it was, “I’m leaving now.” So ten minutes later, when she was not home after what should have been a six minute drive, we called her again. “I’m just leaving NOW.” Ten minutes later, with thoughts in our minds of her car wrapped around a pole thirty feet from our house, we called her again. “Okay, I promise, I’m leaving right NOW.”

She finally walked in at 1:30am

So what do you do? How do you get through to them? She says she’s sorry, but it’s like she just didn’t listen to us.

Do you try to reason with them? It’s very hard to do that at 1:30am when you have to be up again in six hours and when you can barely keep your eyes open but you’re so mad and the adrenaline is pumping through your body with the force of a fire hose.

Do you yell at them? After you’ve repeated yourself for the third time, they just turn their ears off and stop listening, then they get that snotty attitude, which makes all of it even worse.

Do you take away stuff? I took away her car, but now I have to get up at 6:00am to drive her to school. I could take away her phone, her TV, her computer but would that actually solve anything?

I know this is nothing new. I know that similar questions come up every day and every hour in nearly every single house where a teenager lives. I know these are not new questions that no other parent has ever thought of before!

I keep telling myself, in the long run, in the BIG Picture, staying out until 1:30am watching a movie at a friend’s house on a school night is not the worse thing she could be doing. I just have to think back to things I myself may have done at that age. I try to keep it perspective. She’s a good kid, I do trust her, she isn’t stupid.

How do you get them to understand how worried sick you get when they say they are on the way home but don’t show up on time?

I know I can’t be there to protect her 24 hours a day. I know I have to start treating her as an adult more, I know that we have to start letting go and trusting her, as hard as that may be, to be careful when she is out. But it is difficult. As all parents know, it is EXTREMEMLY difficult. Nearly head-explodingly difficult.

Why is there no manual when it comes to kids?