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Is this punishment over the top?
I'm currently a junior in high school. Back during the summer, I got into trouble after my parents found out I'd been to a party where there was drinking and that I'd been over at my boyfriend's house while his parents weren't home on several occasions (neither of which is allowed). How did they react? They're making me wear an ankle monitor.
Seriously, they searched online and found a company that leases them. So now they can track me 24 hours a day, every day. They've even programmed it so they'll receive alerts if I'm late getting to school, if I try to leave school early, or if I try to leave the house after curfew.
I know I violated their trust, but this seems crazy to me. One of my friends told me I should count my blessings cause she would've been grounded forever. At least I can still go out, they just always know where I'm at is all.
What do you think? Is this punishment over the top? If it is, what can I do to convince my parents to remove the monitor? It's been 4 months already.
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Thank you fro being forthright on some of the things you have done to lose your parents trust. The thing with trust is it is hard to gain and easy to lose and you have lost your parents trust.
Is the ankle monitor over the top, I really can't say for I don't know you or your parents. I will say this it is unique and as your friend has said it is better than being grounded at least you can go out as long as you go where you say your going.
Let me say this as a parent myself. We have great many fears when it comes to our children. We give you a laundry list of do's and don'ts that we hope will keep you safe when you are not in visual range of us. We could be helicopter parents and hover over you 24/7 which is very wrong for you need to grow and expand your social skills as well as you awareness of your safety and surroundings you cannot do this if we are hovering over you. So we put our trust in you that you will abide by hopefully all of are rules, we expect that our children will push the envelope and when they do we all have different ways of reining them back.
IF you were my daughter and broke those rules you would have been grounded for months and I would have made you break up with that boyfriend for the rules you broke are quite serious.
That being said you need to gain you parents trust again. This is going to be hard for as I said gain trust is hard to do. You start by asking to have a family meeting with your parents. You must remain calm and be ready to accept whatever they decide at the end of the meeting for it is your behavior at the end of the meeting your parents will talk about after you leave the room and could cause them to change their minds and lift some restrictions. In other words you must act like the young adult you are.
IF you have not yet apologized for braking those rules then that is how you start. Understand being alone with your boyfriend is our biggest fear we have that you may not be able to stop any sex play and end up pregnant.
Acknowledge this to your parents that you understand this. Now I can't speak for your parents but we were all young and we know young adults are sexually aware and do want experiment. For my son I told him to keep it in his pants and come home an masturbate. I didn't have a daughter but I do have two nieces without a father. For them I said make sure you never take you pants off. When you get home you can masturbate.
How you want to handle this you decide because I don't know your parents. When I was your age my girlfriends generally stated their limits. I'm sure you have your limits as well and I see no reason at this point why if you think you should you should tell them.
The more open you are with your parents and the more respect you show them the faster I believe they will regain their trust in you and remove the monitor.
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Your friend has a good point, it could have been worse. Perhaps your parents felt the crueler punishment would have been to ground you until you became an adult at 18. If I am correct, just guessing by how you worded things, this was not a one time discretion, not the first time you broke a rule. If it was just your first time messing up, then this would be over the top. However you admitted several occasions of being at boyfriends house. Several means more than once, so this indicates to a longer history of going against the rules and boundaries set out by your parents. My guess is that you have been going against the parents for longer than you are trying to portray. Not trying to dis you or upset you, I just know reality having been a teen once myself and raised 3 daughters too. We didn't necessarily break the rules, but we knew many others who did and friends who got pregnant in school. They didn't make bad decisions just 5 times or so, it was all the time, all year long. Even if that isn't you, I'm betting the parents imagine that likely has been going on.
There's something you may not be aware of, a scientific study of the brains of teens and young adults. It was discovered the the pre frontal cortex, the part of the brain used for making good decisions, seeing possible outcomes down the road, tolerance and acceptance of all people etc.. is not fully mature until we reach our mid twenties. That would mean at least 8 more years of you not being able to make the best decisions for yourself. The scary part is you're considered an adult at 18, and should be making decisions for yourself. Your parents know this and realize this is their last ditch effort to teach you how to be as responsible as possible in a year when you are legally an adult. Since you are more concerned with the type of consequence you're dealing with, I am guessing, their lesson is not getting through, but there's hope, you may learn by age 25, 28 or so. But it will be a rough road for the next decade for you. You may be focused on the fact that this is only about attending a drinking party or being unchaperoned at boyfriends home but hon, I am a mom and I know that most kids will think its all about killing their fun, just a little fun. But its a lot more and you need to understand this before even attempting to talk to your parents about how long they plan to keep the ankle bracelet going. You can ask what it will take to regain their trust. The more you call it a punishment and complain about it, the longer they will keep it on because it indicates you haven't learned from your consequence. What your parents are probably hoping you will learn from this is that in the adult world, once you're making all your own decisions, that there are still consequences to bad decisions and actions. Bad action/decision can kill every relationship with a guy, end any job you ever get, get you in a serious auto accident because of not obeying all traffic rules like looking at your cell phone while driving when you shouldn't. I see adults do that even so thats why I use that example, it applies to a lot of people. Not following rules or boundaries can really mess up your adult life. Your parents are trying desperately to get that message across in order to save you from having to experience life the hard way, by lost jobs, broken relationships, etc. So this isn't all about how fair or not your ankle bracelet is, it's much more. If the bracelet came off tomorrow, ask yourself how tempted you would be to start breaking the rules again. Oh no, I know you would not admit it to anyone else, not even me, an anonymous advice giver and I know this isn't going the way you hoped. I know you can't see this as fair or important for you to learn due to your pre frontal cortex of your brain not being fully mature yet. You are going to be prone to making lots of bad decisions for quite some time. The better idea is to borrow the wisdom of others. Come up with a plan, or an idea you want to do as a young adult, once 18 or older, then use this site, or better yet, your parents as a sounding board, people you can bounce your ideas or plans off of to gain other perspectives before you make any final decisions, take all the information into account but the final decision is still yours. This is something you will need to be humble enough to do for the next decade, asking for others opinions and then trying always to learn from your mistakes and do better next time. Once the parents see you understand their point of view, are truly sorry for what you've done, and they insist the anklet stays on longer, it will depend a lot on how you react to saying your sorry and the thing not coming off yet. This will be the final test of what they are looking for. Do you want to take a guess, write me back and think ahead of different ways you could possibly respond (good and bad)if they accept your apology but want to keep the bracelet on a while longer to see if the apology was genuine or not? I'm a parent and I know if it were me, I wouldnt take it off immediately just to see how you react. If you truly have learned from this and want help knowing what to say to them, then answer my question first by going to my column and writing to me from there and let me know that you have thought through all the possible ways you could react starting with the worst way that makes them know you haven't learned a thing to how you would react and what you might say that may let them know you truly have learned. If you take the time to even write me back, I'll know you are headed in the right direction. I am not giving you the easy answer you asked for but a whole lot more that can really help you in life not just now but your entire adult life dear. I wish you the best.
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There are many things to consider here. First, as much as I hate to say this, you are a minor. Being a minor, especially in your older teens is hard! I remember that when I was 17, I wasn't allowed to have my own bedroom. I had to share a room with my mom in my grandparents house. I wasn't allowed to drive. Oddly enough, they wouldn't have cared about either of the above. But, they cared about really trivial things, like sleeping alone. As a minor, there was nothing that I could do about it. I don't agree with this because although you are a minor, you are a person. But, unfortunately, the law is set up this way.
When you said that it's been four months, I was shocked. I would think that this went on for a month or two, not four. That over a quarter of a year. I would talk to the and ask them how long they are planning to keep the ankle bracelet on. I would even suggest writing a letter so that you don't forget everything you want to say. As you mentioned, you are aware that you violated their trust. So, that is a step in the right direction. You're not denying that a rule was broken. As your friend said, you could have been prohibited from going out at all. I think that in retrospect, it would be worse to be locked in the house rather than just you're parents knowing where you are.
But, you are getting older. You are almost an adult. I think you should talk to them about how you need to grow in autonomy.
I hope that this helps. xoxo
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