Putting Trust In Other Adults In Your Teen’s Life

My teens are active at church. They go to Sunday School on Sundays. They have high school youth group on Sunday nights. And they are now mentors to the middle school youth group on Wednesday night.

Right after school yesterday i got a text message from my 14-year-old telling me the youth leader was going to pick them up from school and take them to church. I was a little ticked off because last time I checked I was the parent and it should be my decision whether or not the kids go to church. I shouldn’t be notified only after the youth leader is already on her way or already at school to pick them up. But I let it go because I’m trying to pick my battles with these teens.

Youth group ends at 8pm so I expected the boys home around 15 to 20 minutes after 8. At 8:45 they still weren’t home. So I called the teen. He said they were on their way home and got home shortly after 9pm. I didn’t really think much of it. The youth leader is an adult so I put a little trust in her. I just figured they ran a little late and she probably had to clean up before bringing them home.

Then this morning my husband woke me up with the news that the boys were dropped off at their friend’s house and rode their bikes (which were left at said friend’s house a couple weeks ago) home. I cannot even express to you how angry this made me.

(1) They rode a bike home at 9pm at night. The bike doesn’t have a headlight or reflectors or anything that makes it ok to ride it at night. Plus they don’t wear helmets.

(2) As you know, the oldest is grounded and definitely did not have permission to go to a friend’s house. In fact he has been begging to go to this friend’s house every day this week and we have said no every time. So he is fully aware that we would be angry about this.

(3) The youth leader never got our permission to drop the boys off anywhere other than home. What if they didn’t make it home? I would not have known they were this friend’s house. I would have assumed they were at church.

This morning I called the youth leader to explain my issues and let her know that going forward either my husband or I will be taking the boys to church and picking them up from church. No exceptions. She apologized and said she understood. So I assume we won’t have any more problems (at least with this issue) going forward. The youth leader is young (in her mid-twenties) and she’s not a mother so I can sort of understand that she didn’t fully think through dropping my kids off somewhere other than home, but I’m still a little upset about it.