I got woken up by the police 3 nights ago because my 14 year old son and his best friend stole my husband’s car and his friends dad’s car. They went out joyriding. The police stopped them at a local park. The police released the boys into our custody and issued no citations, not even for breaking curfew. My son is grounded, no phone, no internet, not allowed to leave the house unless accompanied by my husband or myself. He has never been in any trouble before. We have lectured him about everything that could have gone wrong, showed him articles about other teens who have done it and had accidents and were killed or ended up killing someone else. Even explained to him how if anything had happened how we would have had to pay for any damages or even lose our house if we were sued. I even told him if he’s ever stupid enough to try it again I will let the cops arrest him. We have taken precautions and lock up the keys at night now. I am just curious if we have done enough to make sure he’s never gonna try this again?
Answers & Comments
If this is the first time he's done anything really stupid like this, I'd say you're doing fine.
You might also want to have a talk with him about picking the right kind of friends. Good friends will look out for his best interests and try to keep him out of trouble. Bad friends will do the opposite.
I've been fortunate enough to have a friend I met in Middle school that is one of those good kind of people. He has my back and he knows I have his back. And we give each other help and good advice whenever we can. Those are the people you want to make friends with.