Too many parents are micromanaging their teenagers’ friendships—and it’s hurting their confidence, independence, and ability to form lasting relationships.
It’s totally insane! I get so many weird looks for trusting my teen to make good decisions. When kids prove to us over and over that they are capable, we should believe that they are and act accordingly. My mom was over protective and it was very unsafe to tell her anything, which lead to me getting in way more trouble, and hanging with a “bad” crowd. I refuse to raise my children that way. They tell me everything, I know everyone they know, and they have no reason to hide anything from me. Most of all I trust them. Are they going to make poor decisions? Of course. That’s how you learn. I want them to feel safe when they do mess up to come to me, and to understand that I am their ally and not their adversary.
I sincerely don’t get this. I can understand having an early curfew on a school night, but other than that, kids absolutely should be able to make their own plans. The goal is to raise them to be independent adults.
Simon is 18, has a car, but his mom said a change in plans = scuttle the meet up. Does she track him on the phone to ensure he stops at the appropriate gas station, or that he doesn’t linger in the “bad” part of town?
18, driving. My parents let me drive out from NY to Michigan to go to MSU. It’s insane. Why do parents want to be micromanaging their kids every step? You can tell I grew up in the sticks because getting a license is what I forced my kids to do as soon as they were of age. Driving - and doing it with the damn phone - helps you order your universe, exercise your judgement and keep your brain in shape. Parents want the infantilize their kids to the point of them becoming aphids, stuck in the chrysalis of the home.
My daughter, 23, got her job prior to her going thru graduation - she surpassed what my wife and I both did. If we treated her like a fragile china doll she would be a boomerang child. She has her own place, my 20 yr old son is pissed because he wants to be out as well. That’s because we didn’t freak out an arrange every single moment and insist that they be tethered to us by phone, at all times.
The Zoomers and Gen-Alphas will never take the baton and run with it because we coddle them.
We homeschooled her until 9th grade, and she told us she wanted to go to International Academy, and she struggled with some of the math but got in. But during those years of pure academia she set aside some of her best habits and strengths re independence. She discovered those once she decided to go for her BSN.
Parents really can silo their kids - we have this strange idea that our near neurotic beliefs are evolved, enlightened, yet we turn our kids who are dysfunctional. It bothers me that we don’t see it.
Also define “used to?” Stranger kidnappings were more common in the 1970 and parents didn’t bubble wrap their kids. I don't think we have been a “high trust” society for some time. Maybe i’m biased--I grew up in the New York City area, and in Manhattan itself. My father would be arrested for neglect and we’d have grown up in foster care if he’d had to raise us today the way he did then. Meanwhile I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I learned to be independent. I'd say “high trust” as you describe it ended in the post WWII era.
> I’m not talking about situations in which the teen needs to borrow the car or get a ride—
Well, the parents can make sure that is the case by living in a conveniently out-of-the-way place.
> although I’ll get to that separately in a minute—and it’s not because they’ve been grounded or have chores.
If it’s not because they have chores, you can always give them more chores.
> Sure, sometimes teens do need rides if they don’t have their own cars,
You don’t have to let them have their own cars.
> “They are the opposite sex.”
That kills two birds with one stone: 1) you avoid most of the messiness of sex, especially unwanted pregnancies, and 2) it’s a powerful way to remind them that they’re not independent and you’re still in charge.
> she makes friends online—most of whom are friends of existing friends she knows in person.
Doesn’t everyone agree that screens and “technology” are a vice, to be avoided as much as possible, preferably entirely? It’s easy. You can’t socialize in real life? Okay, then you don’t socialize at all. Don’t worry, we still get to criticize you for not socializing, and to send you with psychologists to do basically nothing, but hey, it shows we do have complete power over you.
> How are they going to learn to set boundaries, take calculated risks, and reduce their social anxiety
They aren’t.
> if don’t ease up a bit?
Don’t worry—parents will have all the ease in the world when their children have no social life to micromanage at all.
> At first I wondered if he was just making an excuse, but my daughter said she could hear his mom yelling in the background—specifically about the change in plans.
So if she hadn’t yelled in the background, and especially if her son never got to see your daughter again, it probably would have looked like a lame excuse made up by him. Keep your children strait-laced enough and their peers will think they’re just aloof and it’s all excuses on their part.
> Parents refusing to let teens get together unless it’s under _their_ roof.
Well, that way, parents can coöperate: if both demand that the meeting take place under _their_ roof, there’ll be no meeting.
> I’ve been grilled more times than I can count.
If only _you_ are interested in letting your children socialize, they have the upper hand. They get to be intrusive and generally obnoxious, and to make you jump through as many hoops as it takes for you to give up.
> They’re about control.
Of course. And also about not respecting you enough to tell you openly.
> Teenagers are supposed to be preparing for independence,
You said it: teenagers, not their parents. It’s _their_ problem.
> how will their kids learn to navigate life without them?
By the time they get to do it, it won’t be their parents’ responsibility.
Yes, this is tough. At the end of the day, the parents are exercising their rights. It’s bad for their children, sure, but they patently don’t need to care about that, and you can’t force them to care. In fact, their children had better be extremely wary of talking to them about this topic, because it’s likely to offend their parents, which will only worsen their situation. The most likely reply is that they need to learn not to offend them, accompanied by a suitable punishment, and, of course, by never addressing the problems the child tried to bring up. You know, addressing them would be rewarding offence, like letting Mr. Putin keep the territories his army seized by force.
It sounds like the mom has severe anxiety or something and he's her "rock" rather than the other way around. If she can't handle that type of change of plans, something is off. If I had to guess based on such limited information -- sometimes the really somber, responsible, mature kids are actually being parentified and shouldering the burden of their parents' emotional needs.
I don't think that's it. She had no problem with him driving himself to meet up with us near his neighborhood. I genuinely think this is about paranoia and control, and he was also just the most recent example of this behavior I've seen. If it tallied the number of plans my daughter has made with a friend that ended up derailed because the parents (mom, 99.9% of the time) had some "issue" with not getting enough notice, or not being asked appropriately (usually b/c I didn't call and introduce myself and ASK the mom if her teen and my teen could get together), I'd say it's well north of 50% of the time.
It’s totally insane! I get so many weird looks for trusting my teen to make good decisions. When kids prove to us over and over that they are capable, we should believe that they are and act accordingly. My mom was over protective and it was very unsafe to tell her anything, which lead to me getting in way more trouble, and hanging with a “bad” crowd. I refuse to raise my children that way. They tell me everything, I know everyone they know, and they have no reason to hide anything from me. Most of all I trust them. Are they going to make poor decisions? Of course. That’s how you learn. I want them to feel safe when they do mess up to come to me, and to understand that I am their ally and not their adversary.
Thank you! 🙏 I wish more parents were like you.
I sincerely don’t get this. I can understand having an early curfew on a school night, but other than that, kids absolutely should be able to make their own plans. The goal is to raise them to be independent adults.
Simon is 18, has a car, but his mom said a change in plans = scuttle the meet up. Does she track him on the phone to ensure he stops at the appropriate gas station, or that he doesn’t linger in the “bad” part of town?
18, driving. My parents let me drive out from NY to Michigan to go to MSU. It’s insane. Why do parents want to be micromanaging their kids every step? You can tell I grew up in the sticks because getting a license is what I forced my kids to do as soon as they were of age. Driving - and doing it with the damn phone - helps you order your universe, exercise your judgement and keep your brain in shape. Parents want the infantilize their kids to the point of them becoming aphids, stuck in the chrysalis of the home.
My daughter, 23, got her job prior to her going thru graduation - she surpassed what my wife and I both did. If we treated her like a fragile china doll she would be a boomerang child. She has her own place, my 20 yr old son is pissed because he wants to be out as well. That’s because we didn’t freak out an arrange every single moment and insist that they be tethered to us by phone, at all times.
The Zoomers and Gen-Alphas will never take the baton and run with it because we coddle them.
True, but they're statistically incorrect and making things worse with this constant hovering.
Agree 100% -- congrats to your daughter (and to you both for obviously facilitating her launch).
We couldn’t have stopped her, TBH😊
We homeschooled her until 9th grade, and she told us she wanted to go to International Academy, and she struggled with some of the math but got in. But during those years of pure academia she set aside some of her best habits and strengths re independence. She discovered those once she decided to go for her BSN.
Parents really can silo their kids - we have this strange idea that our near neurotic beliefs are evolved, enlightened, yet we turn our kids who are dysfunctional. It bothers me that we don’t see it.
Also define “used to?” Stranger kidnappings were more common in the 1970 and parents didn’t bubble wrap their kids. I don't think we have been a “high trust” society for some time. Maybe i’m biased--I grew up in the New York City area, and in Manhattan itself. My father would be arrested for neglect and we’d have grown up in foster care if he’d had to raise us today the way he did then. Meanwhile I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I learned to be independent. I'd say “high trust” as you describe it ended in the post WWII era.
I don't follow?
> I’m not talking about situations in which the teen needs to borrow the car or get a ride—
Well, the parents can make sure that is the case by living in a conveniently out-of-the-way place.
> although I’ll get to that separately in a minute—and it’s not because they’ve been grounded or have chores.
If it’s not because they have chores, you can always give them more chores.
> Sure, sometimes teens do need rides if they don’t have their own cars,
You don’t have to let them have their own cars.
> “They are the opposite sex.”
That kills two birds with one stone: 1) you avoid most of the messiness of sex, especially unwanted pregnancies, and 2) it’s a powerful way to remind them that they’re not independent and you’re still in charge.
> she makes friends online—most of whom are friends of existing friends she knows in person.
Doesn’t everyone agree that screens and “technology” are a vice, to be avoided as much as possible, preferably entirely? It’s easy. You can’t socialize in real life? Okay, then you don’t socialize at all. Don’t worry, we still get to criticize you for not socializing, and to send you with psychologists to do basically nothing, but hey, it shows we do have complete power over you.
> How are they going to learn to set boundaries, take calculated risks, and reduce their social anxiety
They aren’t.
> if don’t ease up a bit?
Don’t worry—parents will have all the ease in the world when their children have no social life to micromanage at all.
> At first I wondered if he was just making an excuse, but my daughter said she could hear his mom yelling in the background—specifically about the change in plans.
So if she hadn’t yelled in the background, and especially if her son never got to see your daughter again, it probably would have looked like a lame excuse made up by him. Keep your children strait-laced enough and their peers will think they’re just aloof and it’s all excuses on their part.
> Parents refusing to let teens get together unless it’s under _their_ roof.
Well, that way, parents can coöperate: if both demand that the meeting take place under _their_ roof, there’ll be no meeting.
> I’ve been grilled more times than I can count.
If only _you_ are interested in letting your children socialize, they have the upper hand. They get to be intrusive and generally obnoxious, and to make you jump through as many hoops as it takes for you to give up.
> They’re about control.
Of course. And also about not respecting you enough to tell you openly.
> Teenagers are supposed to be preparing for independence,
You said it: teenagers, not their parents. It’s _their_ problem.
> how will their kids learn to navigate life without them?
By the time they get to do it, it won’t be their parents’ responsibility.
Yes, this is tough. At the end of the day, the parents are exercising their rights. It’s bad for their children, sure, but they patently don’t need to care about that, and you can’t force them to care. In fact, their children had better be extremely wary of talking to them about this topic, because it’s likely to offend their parents, which will only worsen their situation. The most likely reply is that they need to learn not to offend them, accompanied by a suitable punishment, and, of course, by never addressing the problems the child tried to bring up. You know, addressing them would be rewarding offence, like letting Mr. Putin keep the territories his army seized by force.
Two decades of ignoring or celebrating the influence of Pornhub on our teens psyches and emotions continues unabated.
It sounds like the mom has severe anxiety or something and he's her "rock" rather than the other way around. If she can't handle that type of change of plans, something is off. If I had to guess based on such limited information -- sometimes the really somber, responsible, mature kids are actually being parentified and shouldering the burden of their parents' emotional needs.
I don't think that's it. She had no problem with him driving himself to meet up with us near his neighborhood. I genuinely think this is about paranoia and control, and he was also just the most recent example of this behavior I've seen. If it tallied the number of plans my daughter has made with a friend that ended up derailed because the parents (mom, 99.9% of the time) had some "issue" with not getting enough notice, or not being asked appropriately (usually b/c I didn't call and introduce myself and ASK the mom if her teen and my teen could get together), I'd say it's well north of 50% of the time.