My son just turned thirteen. He’s allowed to play near home as long as we know where he is and as long as he’s home before dark. He never used to question our “be home before dark” rule but now that he’s older and winter has arrived he feels it isn’t fair. He wants more time to play and skateboard but we told him it isn’t safe to do those things in the dark. He just doesn’t seem worried that cars might not see him. I swear, he wouldn’t care if the only light he had was from a table lamp if it meant he had more play time. Do you have a rule for when your kids need to come inside?
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We have 3 teenaged kids. Our youngest has just turned 15 now but she’s a girl so getting her to obey the house rule “be home before dark” is a little easier. Our son is 16 and will be 17 by March, but we can still remember him buckling and grumbling every time we put down my feet on a particular house rule. My eldest daughter is 18 going 19, and although she’s a girl, she also showed some rebellion against the curfew that we set then. But we just had to be firm. Even when we made them unhappy with our sharp snaps, we have to enforce that very important rule. To make them understand, we point out news about minor getting into bad situations on tv and in the newspapers. Thankfully, our kids listened to our reasoning.
Our sons are too little yet, but I’m am dreading the time when the’ll be “outside the fence”. I hope I’m ready to loosen the apron strings a little! How nerve wracking!
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Wow! My son just turned 14 on the 30th. We’ve had the same tussle with him – he wants to stay out past dark, sees no problem skateboarding and hanging out outside after dark. Plus he wears mostly dark (black) colored clothes. Argh!
We told him the rule was “when the street lights come on – you come in” To give him a time was useless, to judge how dark is dark was a recurring debate, so we used the streetlights as a guide. Plus we do what Rose mentioned above pointing out news about bad situations.
He’s not happy about it, and doesn’t always abide by it. But at least we’ve eliminated all his possible debates about time or darkness. Lights on? Not home very shortly thereafter = consequences.
Good luck!
Ahhh yes the “Be home before dark” rule. I have missed many great things in my youth due to that rule! I now have an 11 yr old and I’m definitely enforcing the rule.
We didn’t live in a neighborhood (we were out in the country) so we weren’t allowed to play outside much if unsupervised, so there was no “be home by dark” rule.
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