[madfostermomma]

Just a thought from someone who made her first "mistake" at 14 with a boy - I am looking at a kid who made a good judgement call that night if thats the way it went down . No -letting him have a second chance doesnt sound all right to an adult but do you remember that guy in school that you'd give anything to be with? Let's face it teenage girls want to hear what the boys tell them and if she really likes him - she'll believe his bs.

My initial thought though is that perhaps she's giving him a chance because she is already sexually active. Could it be that she was simply trying to protect your bio daughter that night.

[MomInAL]

I too had cell phone problems and found out my bio-daughter was on the phone all hours of the night with an 18 yo boy of not too high standards. She lost her cell phone (about 6 months ago) for that one, and although she too had "no life" when I took it away, she has gotten over it. The big thing I told her was that it was a TRUST issue. She had broken our trust in her and that it would take TIME to rebuild that trust.

We still have phone problems, but we've put limits on phone calls, and when I go to bed at night, ALL the phones go into my bedroom with me - so not I don't have to worry that anyone is on the phone during the night! Also we have a rule that when you are on the phone, you stay in the "main" part of the house... no going off in your bedroom or the bathroom or outside or whatever.

As for what happened at the mall, in my opinion she did make a good choice to call you instead of putting out for the boys, and maybe you can use that as a positive. Speaking from experience, it is very hard to keep them away from a boy especially when they can see them at school, etc. You're just more apt to make her sneak around behind your back to see him.

With our girls, most of the time the boys they are seeing come to our house.... dinner, movie, board games, video games, etc. They can have fun, be together, and I don't have to worry about what's going on. Once they've been around us for a while, then we have a better idea of whether we will let them go off somewhere else. It has helped me have more peace of mind with one particular boy.

Hope this helps.

MomInAL
DD 18, DD 16, FD 15, FS 11, FS 9
(siblings - TPR'd 2/06)

[etaag]

But I was one was once.

I agree that the choice she made was a very good one on not "paying for the gas". Punishing her for making a good choice may push her the other direction. I know that girls that age, who didn't recieve their father's attention or approval, like myself, go seek it somewhere else. I felt like I needed that male love that I wasn't getting.

I do not know how strong and mature your daughter is. Is she a leader or follower? If she is a strong leader, she could actually be a great influence on your FD. I know that you need to protect your daughter, but what kind of message would this send to your FD if you didn't allow your daughter to hang with her? Maybe pull in both their boundries of what they can do alone, like no more shopping at the mall alone.

If at all possible, I would try to contact the parents of the boys. If my son EVER did this, I would be all over him, I would definitely want to know.

It sounds like you are a great mom whe really cares for all the children in your home. I hope that you can find the right solution that works!

Melissa

[echobunny89]

Well I did wind up giving C back her cell phone the next day once I calmed down about it a bit. I did sit her down and explain to her why I was upset about the whole deal with the cell phone. I just got my cell phone bill in and she spent almost 100 hours on her phone last month and it cost me an additional $100 on the bill this month because of the extra minutes she used. I still haven't figured out what to do about that since she KNOWS not to use the phone before 7pm (after 7pm the minutes are free) but chose to use it anyway. She just got her clothing allowance in ($250) from the state and I am almost tempted to make her pay me back out of that money but I won't because it doesn't seem like the right thing to do. I guess I will make her work it off by doing chores around here. Come to think of it, I have 2 huge laundry baskets of socks just waiting to be matched up!

I also told C that I can check her phone history at anytime just by going online. I can see who she is calling, and who is calling her, and when the call was made and how long she was on the phone for. I don't think she realized at the time that I could check up on her like that! Now she knows!

I also talked to both C and my bio-daughter about what happened at the mall and that although they made the right choice by calling us, we still don't want them "hanging" at the mall unsupervised. Again, it is not that we don't trust them, it is the other kids we don't always trust and this is the second incident of this type in less than 6 weeks time. There is also a girl who seems to be always at the mall that C is not supposed to be hanging around with because of the trouble she got C into when C was 14 (drinking, smoking, staying out all night ect) C does not seem to have the restraint to stay away from this other girl and the SW has made it clear that C is not to be around her. They know that their friends are always welcome to come and "hang" here and that they can go to their friends' houses to "hang" as long as the parents are home.

I suspect that C is NOT sexually active especially after overhearing a few conversations she has had with my 14yr old concerning boys. She admits that she is not very experienced at all with boys and blames being in group homes through much of her teen years on it. Of course my big fear is that she feels she has now has to hurry up and "catch up" on everything she thinks she has missed. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but she doesn't seem to keep a boyfriend for more than 2 weeks. She gets tired of them easily and moves on to another one.