Chapter 7
Principle 9: Establish Curfews for Older
Children
Parents need to involve older children
in determining when the children should
be home.Some families have a set time for
every night.Other families base the curfew
on various activities.We recommend the
second alternative.For example,let’s say
the house curfew is 11 p.m.Your teen says
she is going to the mall.However,the mall
closes at 10.What will your teen be doing
between 10 and the curfew at 11?As teens
get older and begin to stay out later,
parents can set an alarm clock to ring at
curfew time.If the teen arrives home
before curfew,he can turn off the alarm so
it does not wake the parents.This allows
parents to go to bed at their regular time,
knowing the alarm will awaken them if
the teen does not arrive home by curfew.
Principle 10: Know Your Children’s Friends
and Their Friends’ ParentsSadly,we live in a time when we cannot
assume our children are safe at all of their
friends’homes.For example,one of the
authors of this text lives in a quiet,upper-
middle-class,suburban neighborhood.
When she checked the sex offender’s
registry,she found nearly 1,000 registered
sex offenders within a 3 mile radius of her
home! Parents need to make an effort to
know the parents of the children their
own kids are hanging out with,as well as
the children themselves.Children may
complain that this is an invasion of their
privacy,but it could be considered
parental neglectnotto know this
information.
Especially important is monitoring
adolescents’Internet use—who the child is
communicating with online.If parents
don’t know how to check what sites their
child is frequenting,they need to learn!
Even sites primarily geared to young
people are hunting grounds for predators.