Okay, pad pals. I need some mom advice. A parenting dilemma has emerged and I'm not sure I agree with either my husband or my mom. My 12 year-old daughter went over to a new friend’s house today. She knows this girl from her Bat Mitzvah study group, and I know the mom from synagogue enough to have a casual conversation with her. I already had realized that this woman was much more laissez-faire with her parenting than I am. But all families are different, and all kids are different, and require different parenting approaches. At the friend’s house, the girls used a ladder to climb up onto the garage roof, and then swing off the roof on swing attached to an adjacent tree branch. Because it’s 2018, my daughter took videos of her and her friend swinging off the roof, so I could see for myself how high it was, and what they were climbing up. The garage roof was a full story off the ground. This was done with the mom’s permission. She’d given them bike helmets to wear (so there’s that). But there are a lot of ways to hurt yourself falling off a roof where a bike helmet won't protect you. After a few successful swings, halfway up the ladder, my daughter fell down, and badly bruised and scrapped up her leg. She came home limping. My husband doesn’t get what the big deal was. Jumping off the roof into their backyard pool was one of the less dangerous things his brother did. To be clear, his brother was 16 and high on drugs at the time. My Mom thinks I should flat out say, "you're never going over to that house ever again." I am hoping for a middle ground. Like, maybe just next time, letting the mom know she got injured, so, no jumping off the roof this time? My husband thinks I am just going to piss this lady off and it will kill the girl's friendship. My Mom thinks that if this lady would let 12 year-olds jump off a roof, she can't be trusted period. I'm hoping there is an in between? Please tell me you have positive stories to share?
Wow, the things you have to deal with just to be sure your kid is ok on a playdate! I'm more with your mother than DH - if i were the mother of the friend, 1. they wouldn't have been doing that & 2. if something happened that resulted in a bruise or anything, i'd have phoned you or how are you going to trust me to look after your kid at my house ever again?! In the spirit of 'more info needed' and potential future visits, depending on how often you see this person and are able to have a casual conversation, maybe you could ask did she know that your daughter got hurt doing the swing thing and see if she's more of the attitude that 'oh she'll live and next time they can swing from the 2 storey building down the street and i'm sure she'll be fine!' or 'oh i didn't know! the poor thing, we probably shouldn't do that again!"
(As for stories though, it's my own kid that usually comes off second best in our own house when their friend has 'an idea!' when i've left them to their own devices (because you don't want to be that helicopter parent) that i find out about after the fact - in our house anyway, kids are more likely to put better judgement about safety and behaviour aside at the suggestion of other kids)
I'm a pretty free-range parent but over my dead body are kids jumping off my roof or anyone else's roof!
I'm pretty much with your mom on this one. If my kids ever did anything like this, I never found out. It would be the last time they ever went over there. I can't believe that a mother would okay this. Very scary!
We had a situation where my daughter's friends lived with their mom at the grandparents' home across the street from us. It seemed like the grown ups were always gone and the kids were just being watched by older aunts and uncles who were still pretty much kids themselves. We didn't allow our daughter to go in their home but the friends were allowed to play at our house. Outside though as they weren't always trustworthy as far as knowing not to wander all thru the house and bother things they shouldn't. On the rare occasions that our daughter played in the backyard at their house the friends didn't treat her well. So we discouraged that also. It made it hard at times. But at least if they were at our house I could keep an eye on things.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you setting boundaries with the parent. In the end it ultimately comes down to safety and what your childs is capable of so yep, just talk to the mum and your daughter about what your expectations are.
I would set boundaries for the next visit if I was ever able to be in your position. We have different rules to both min and my husband's siblings. My children understand that and follow our rules when we are visiting with family. The others think we are too strict, but I think they are not strict enough. I don't have any stories about play dates I don't attend to share unfortunately. My teenager has a medical condition that requires her to be supervised by a fully trained medical person. No-one else has done the training yet for her to be able to go on a play date. I say yet. The mother of her best friend at school called yesterday asking if she, and her daughter (member of the St John's Ambulance Cadets) could train. watch this space ...
I'm sorry your daughter got hurt... that does seem a little crazy to be jumping off a roof with a swing like that, but I will admit that we did crazy things like that as kids too. I lived more of a country life... we had subdivisions just up the road, but our house was a farm house with a big barn and horses and lots of land. We used to attach ourselves to a giant rope that hung down the middle of the barn and we'd hoist ourselves up almost all the way to the top (two + stories) and then we'd swing around. I doubt my Mom knew that we were doing this, but I'm not sure if she would have stopped us or not. Yes, sometimes we got hurt (usually me though) but most of the time our common sense would finally kick in and we decide something was too crazy even for us. Anyway, I think if it were me, knowing that I came from a rather wild and free run background, I would probably not say your daughter could never go again, but I don't think it's unreasonable to talk to the Mom about how that level of crazy doesn't work for you. Also, you daughter is old enough to talk to her also, even if the other kids do the crazy swing again, you can tell her that's not okay for her to do anymore and to use her own common sense if anything else rather dangerous pops up while she's over there. I am actually surprised that the Mom gave permission for something like this with someone else's child over. Even with the way I was raised, I would NEVER let something like that happen with someone else's child.
I can't get over the fact that the mom knew what the girls were doing. That's a red flag. Amd giving them bike helmets misses the point. The issue isn't the roof climbing itself: it's that the mom knew and did nothing to stop it. If the girls did it all on their own, that's one thing. That's kid being kids. Rambunctious and fun-loving with a lack of cause/effect. But a mom should know better. It sounds like this roof swing thing was already set up, which means the mom lets her DD do this frequently. So...what else does this mom allow? I guess what I'm saying is, the mom seems to have an apathy toward safety (or toward parenting?) that I find disturbing. I'm not saying that this mom is a horrible person but I am saying I wouldn't let my DD spend time at that house. What good would talking to her do? Her level of "this is an okay thing" is quite different than yours. Telling her "this is crazy" will embarrass her or, worse, it won't affect her at all, which means the girls will still end up doing crazy stuff and your DD just won't tell you. ETA: I meant to say, this might be a good chance to sit down with your DD and talk and ask her what she thinks is appropriate behavior (I mean, like what she thinks is safe to do and what wouldn't be safe--if the garage were 2 stories?) and also how to handle peer pressure. Because I bet this other girl wanted to do it and your DD was a bit unsure (hence taking the video to "prove" it was okay). And if you like the girl, then have her at your house and watch how she acts. Is she always trying to be a daredevil or was this a one-off? My DD has had friends who could play at our house but I didn't let DD go to their home. I didn't trust the parents. When it comes to my kids, I care more about keeping them safe than about equality in play date locations.
With some further probing... Naomi never actually jumped off the roof - only her friend did. However, she did fall off the ladder climbing to the roof. Naomi SAYS she was only going up to watch not jump herself. I'm also now questioning how much about jumping off the roof the mom really knew. Rather, I'm still hoping that maybe the story is being misrepresented to me, and when I tell her about this, she'll be as flabbergasted as I am. The girls started by jumping off the fencing around the deck, it was about six feet off the ground, they had to jump from a seated position... I saw those videos, it was safe enough. But then the story gets weirder... this other girl decided last week she doesn't want to use her front door, so she was using a ladder to climb into her bedroom window to enter and exit the house. Naomi did this as well, and fell a second time getting into the window. This was for sure mom-approved (according to Naomi). That also makes sense based on what I know about this mom. She is actually an elementary teacher. But with her own kids, she has a purposely hands-off approach. I knew it was a little chaotic. But that's just too much. So, seeing as Naomi actually did chicken out from jumping off the roof, we've decided to take a bit of a praise sandwich approach to it. We're going to commend Naomi for being smart enough to not jump off the roof, remind her that she totally learned her lesson - ladders aren't toys - so maybe she shouldn't treat them that way. And, we're going to follow it up with a "you know, you did something you mighta gotten in trouble for, but you were honest and you told us, and that's exactly what we're hoping for." Next time she's invited over there, I will bring a bottle of wine, and hang out with the Mom, so that she can also get a better sense of who I am. The one thing I can say, is that I'm pretty sure that she would want Naomi to respect my rules, even if she knows her kids can get away with crazy ish.
I would definitely be having a talk to stop that happening again. I used to love jumping off things at that age too eyeroll). My son's friend was also always mad about climbing things and jumping off. He has actually made a career out of it (well, the climbing, not the jumping - he's a tree surgeon!) BUT he has permanent back pain as a result of damaging his spine in his jumping activities as a younger teen. It's not a "as long as you don't get a head injury it's all good" situation!
Having raised a son who as a teenager: 1. took the car on a severe storm night without permission to rescue a friend who had wrecked in same storm, 2. hid in the ditch with friends to scare church hay-riders and had snakes crawl across his back while in said ditch, 3. decided it would be "cool" for his band to take cover shots ON the trestle bridge WITH a train coming toward them... Kids NEED boundaries. They do. They have friends, and parents are not supposed to be their best buds. They will test those boundaries. That's part of growth. The fact that your daughter told you the truth is a testament to your parenting! Things have changed drastically since my kids were home growing up. Parenting has shifted; some of the shift is good- not so authoritarian, but some is not good- so many parents are coddling and hovering. Kids will disobey. They will get hurt. But open communication, both with your children and the parents of friends can decrease the odds of serious accidents. They need to know that they shouldn't give anyone power to convince them to do stuff they are not comfortable with or think might be dangerous. So stand by your intuition and convictions while being kind in expressing them. Glad you found out more of the story. Your concern and caution is valid. She is YOUR child, after all, and there is only one of her. I feel like I can say this because our son did begin to learn his own limitations and now is a daddy and a Student Minister. {praying daily for those kids, LOL!}
I think this is a great middle ground! I'm with a few of the moms above - I'm lenient with my kid, but extra cautious with others kids. I do not want to be the mom who calls you and says your kid is on their way to the ER..... We used to crawl out my second story window and sit on the roof. But we never jumped off.
Sounds like you got some good advice and that your daughter showed some restraint. Kids do things that seem okay to them but dumb to the rest of us. Like the time my oldest at age 6 or so, was roller skating down the sitter's fairly steep driveway with her kids and decided to not only put skates on his feet, but also on his hands. He squatted down and took off with no way to stop... Fortunately, the driveway curved and he missed the curve and ended up in the grass. His cuts were minor. My husband is the "safety police" at our house. I am the "hey let's try that", although jumping off buildings is a bit beyond my boundaries. I more of the "sure you can climb that tree as high as you want" parent. That said, I am very strict about other things, especially when it relates to character. I like the idea of setting rules for your daughter at friends' houses. Perfectly acceptable. It helps the child develop their own moral code separate from the herd mentality. Hopefully practice now will help her later when the stakes are higher. p.s. Probably the very dumbest thing I ever did was ride in a car that belonged to a friend. We were in high school and she let a younger (14 or 15?) boy drive her car on a back road at 100mph. The road was straight, but had hills. Not smart. Not smart at all.
I am applauding you for raising a daughter who 1. video'd it and showed you 2. told you it all 3. loves you all so much! Great job in my eyes. I think as you get to know the mom, you will understand the whole story. I again, am blown away at your Naomi's honesty. Great parenting there MOM and DAD!
Well I may be biased, but I would not be comfortable with that either. My brother broke his elbow doing exactly that - "rope-swing" jumping off a garage roof at a friend's house. And my son broke his elbow when he fell from a friend's zip line in their back yard. It wasn't even high so I thought it was ok. Like seriously you could easily jump down from it - your feet were only a few feet from the ground. The issue was ... the ground was rock hard. Apparently my son's hands were wet and he lost his grip and landed right on the elbow. 3 surgeries later, radial nerve damage to the point he couldn't use his hand at all - fingers/wrist drop - he's lucky he had a great OT/hand speicalist who worked with him for 6+ months and he was young so the nerve damage was repairable without needing more surgery. On the other side of the fence. We had a trampoline when the kids were middle school aged. It did have a netting around it - but they are dangerous. My daughter had one friend who's mom would not allow her to go on it, and I totally respected the family's decision. It never bothered me that she wanted to make sure the kids didn't jump when her kid was at the house. I honestly didn't love it when other people's kids jumped on it because I needed to be there the entire time watching so things didn't get out of hand - but they usually DID get too rough or there'd be too many kids on at once. It almost always ended up me telling them enough - go do something else. So stick to your guns! Let your mom instincts prevail!
The Finale: Naomi did NOT like her praise sandwich. "Why are you pretending like I did something good? You're still mad at me for trying to go on the roof! I can tell!!!" I honestly don't know how we're both going to survive her teen years. However, through the stomping and the eye-rolling, I could tell she'd actually gotten in over her head and scared herself. I've always said that Naomi wants to be good, but she's impulsive and gets in over her head quickly, and then can't figure her way back out of it. We finished the conversation with, "When your friends want you to do something stupid, if you can't stop and think, "umm... I could get hurt." At the very least, I want you to think, "But, what will my mom do to me when she finds out?" *As for my husband, after I showed him ALL the videos on Naomi's phone, he nearly died. It finally sunk in that she had nearly jumped off a roof.
This was always the bigger threat in our house! And it was never *if* she found out, it was when. You'll get through. Our parents did! And I may or may not have been someone who watched friends hold onto the hood of a car while it was in motion seeing how long they could hold on.....So glad no one had a camera then!
Amen. A year ago my son (49) fell off a ladder less than one story up. He shattered his elbow, broke both wrists and forget what he did to his ankle. And he's very sensible, no risk taking adult. Just sayin' . The pain was horrendous, he could do nothing for himself for quite a few weeks and even after good insurance, this cost big bucks. Again, nothing that would probably make an impression on a teenager but my son will probably never want to climb any ladder! Another line to say that I DID use years ago with my chicks was, just say "My mother won't let me." I'll take the blame and you can shift the decision making until you're (they're) ready to stand up for themselves.