Parental Strut: Other kids in the crib
white_tea
3,262 Posts
What's your policy on other kids at the crib? By no one's fault but my own, my house has somehow become the cool place to chill. We have a bungalow and the kids basically have the run of the finished second floor. We also have a finished basement that kids love. However, I feel uncomfortable having groups of 13-year-olds or 15-year-olds hanging out for extended periods of time behind closed doors. Am I too draconian to want to ban kids both from the upstairs and downstairs? No kids there when the parents are not? Should the bedroom doors always stay open? Should there be a number of kids allowed, say, no more than two guests at a time? No opposite sex up or downstairs? For the Strutters who have kids who are of the age that they start "doing things," how do you address these issues???
Comments
About 6 weeks later our house burned down(an electrical short in the attic) and their practice room was gutted to the point that the outside wall was gone. The next day I received a call from one of my neighbors who was very upset that "some hoodlums had already broken into my burnt-out home and vandalized the room upstairs with grafitti". When I told her face to face later that evening that the room had actually been decorated that way she gave me a pretty bizarre look.....and I'm certain she is glad we moved away rather than re-build and stay.
Kids at 13-15 are gonna start doing stuff you wish they wouldn't. When I was 14 my Dad took me for a ride to his old neighborhood. On the way there he told me that he knew I had probably drank beer and that if I wanted to do that I could do it in the house......then he shocked me and said he knew I had probably smoked dope and again, if I wanted to I should do it at home instead of out on the streets. Then we went to his childhood friend Leo's house. Leo lived in a small shed outside his mother's brownstone in Brooklyn....he made me watch Leo shoot heroin and told me if I ever wanted to do THAT I should come see him first.......that part worked as I have never used a needle in my life.
Today the times are different...the Keg my Dad bought me and my buddles at 15 in 1972 would land him in jail in 2010.
I've always been 100% honest with my kids and they knew about everything I did as a kid from the time they were 10-12....I wanted them to know that whatever they did, I had already done it and would recognize when they did it. And like my Dad, if my kids are gonna go out and do stupid and illegal things I'd rather they do them in my house than on the streets. As far as their friends go, no, they couldn't do those same things in my home.
Now my kids are 21 & 24 and based on the noise coming out of my basement the last 2 days I would guess that there has been lots of LEGAL beer being consumed and DJ Hero being played......all smokers must go outside.
BAN-worthy
I know.....I've obviously done a very poor job raising them.....one does promotions for local Hip-Hop DJ's and Clubs while the other took a week off of work to attend that Colbert/Maher rally a few months back in D.C.
Shameful and embarrassing.
White Tea, lay down the rules. Doors open and all. You already seem like a "cool" enough dad. They'll test their limits and your patience plenty in their later teens and twenties.
Plus find out who the leader is. Is it your kids or are they following the a dominant personality?
Your kids can set the tone if they are "in command", if not let the "leader" know ur watching them and you aint lettin' shit slide like their parents.
Nothing happened behind closed doors for fear of someone opening them or in basements that anyone could come into. But the worst shit we did was inevitably at the homes of people with the most lenient parents.
5 years ago my kids asked if they could have New Years Eve party at our place. I told them they could but that I would start the party off by laying down some rules.
The party goers ranged in age from 16 - 20.
The party started at 9:00PM........when all the guests were there I gave them the rules.
1) I get all car keys, once you're here you're here until the morning...if you don't like that leave now.
2) If by chance you have snuck any alcohol into my house that's on you....and if you're gonna act the fool and get sick, go out to the back yard and get sick, not in my house.
3) If any of you decide to have sex, use a condom.
By 9:30 the first person was in the back yard puking their guts out....the next morning both of my kids told me they never wanted to host another party again.
NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU WERE LIKE AT YOUR KID'S AGE AND DON'T EXPECT THEM TO BE ANY BETTER THAN YOU WERE!!
Back in High School my family went away for a 3 day weekend and the folks told me NO PARTIES!!!
So of course, I had a party.....I figured we would party Friday night and that would give me 2 days to clean up and make sure everything was in order. I invited about 25 people and close to 100 showed up......we probably had 25 cases of beer and a keg.....all I worried about all night was that nothing got broken or stolen.
We got through it without any problems and two of my friends helped me clean up all day Saturday.....we went over the place with a fine tooth comb and was confident we would not get caught.........just to make sure I spent most of Sunday cleaning and re-cleaning......I was pretty confident.
My folks came home Sunday evening, my Mom walked in the house, took their laundry from the weekend downstairs to the wash room and immediately came up and accused me of having a party......but, but, but I didn't have a party, why would you think that? Did the neighbors tell you??? They must be lying.
She just told me to follow her.....walked me downstairs and led me to a hamper FILLED to the brim with beer cans!!!
Upstairs in our bathroom there was a chute built in to the wall....you threw your dirty clothes down the chute and they landed in the clothes hamper. Apparently most of the party goers thought it was a garbage chute...and I was BUSTED!!!!!
I had gone over every inch of that house but it never dawned on me to look in the hamper.
That was also my last party.
As a kid I was a perfect little angel. I didn't get lazy until recently. I did really well in high school, but my parents thought my bro and I were being rebellious when we came home late from school newspaper and sports. They shut up when they saw the college scholarship checks.
I often think that if I were to have kids, I'd put too much pressure on them if I expect them to be like me at that age.
When you have a kid you are no longer a kid.
Recently I have been talking to a number of parents (my kids are 7 and 4.5) about how they think they will handle the whole "my kid is having sex now" issue. We're all kind of baffled by the thought of it. Along the lines of what Rock said, I start thinking about how I stole away to the craziest places to mess around with girls and I cringe, thinking this isn't promoting a healthy or safe idea about sex. Still, I can't quite wrap my head around letting a boy/girl spend the night during high school. What's a parent to do?
As for hang out policy. The open door policy sounds good to me. Trust but verify as the saying goes.