When I see high school aged kids out at 1:00am or 2:00am, it makes me wonder.  What is to be gained from this?  I am talking about older kids, say 14 to 17.
Generally speaking, I think this is not a good idea.


When I lived at home, I had to be inside and after 10:00pm or so.  Unless my parents knew where I was, like a friends house or at a movie or something.  Lots of risky behavior happens in high school and that much of that occurs at night when kids are unsupervised

And there is the mantra that, with teenagers, nothing good happens after midnight.

Some of weren't raised as little bubble-wrapped pussies.

I got in FAR more trouble after midnight as a college student than I did as a high school student.

I was allowed out after midnight but I probably shouldn't have.

Can I take that as you saying it is a good idea, as a parent, to let your teenagers hangout unsupervised in the wee hours of the morning?  Can you expand?

Until I was 30, my parents made sure I was home by midnight

The real question is, how many of those kids' parents think they're at a friends house?

I had an 11:00 pm curfew when I was in high school.

I also had a bedroom window that was easy to climb in and out of.  

We ususally rode our bicycles to the levee late at night.  Most trouble I ever got in was a flat tire on a Tuesday night.

10:00 PM on school nights

I was allowed out past that time on weekends but I couldn't drive but so far. Just to the strip malls about 10 miles away.

Thats what got me in trouble though because I got caught at the dragstrip over 50 miles away. My buddy worked at a mechanics shop next to my dad. Dad was a mech. too. The buddy would come over and bs with my dad. "Hey your son's car is pretty fast." Dad- "Oh really? Where were yall racing?"

BUSTED!

I didn't seem to have any problems.  A lot of other kids I knew were given plenty of freedom and they did fine too.

You DO realize that theoretically, one day, children will have to be given some freedom, right?  I knew plenty of 18 year-old E-1s who had the first semblance of freedom in their lives immediately after bootcamp and they tended to be a fucking trainwreck.  That's one of the major factors contributing to the military's myriad of petty rules and regulations:  Some people haven't been raised to be able to function without mommy and daddy hovering over their shoulder every second of their life so Uncle Sam has to play proxy parent.

...and the word your looking for is "expound", as in "Can you expound on that statement?"

At 17 I was in the service, overseas and drunk.

My friends and I actually WORKED when we were in high school and on the weekends we hung out together AFTER WORK, which was usually 11pm or later.

Bicycles?  I drove my Chevy to the levee.

But the levee was dry.  

Thanks for that, I have been doing it wrong.  I think expand is not totally incorrect (expand - to increase in extent, size, volume, scope, etc) but expound is much better

I learned that at 1:43AM

Now that you mention it, I realize I was doing that as well in my later high school years.  I worked as a server at a reception hall with a couple friends.  Quite often we were out late.  i don't recall any criminal activity or lives destroyed by our tardiness.

Same... but my bedroom and an entirely separate building in the back yard. Only issue I had was climbing over a 8 foot flat sided wooden fence.



Well, it wasnt really and issue then at 17, but would be now.

our kids camp in the back field by themselves sometimes

can occasonally see flashlights moving about at very early / late hours

it depends on the kid.
if raised properly, a child can hang out with friends all night for all i care, sop long as they get their chores done and get some work done the next day

When I lived in Anchorage Alaska, this was standard practice during the summer. Seeing as how it was still bright as noon.

How about 3-5 year olds in an apartment/projects complex @ 3-4 am? With parents not in visual range (selling drugs)? Happens everynight in inner city USA.

Midnight was the common curfew parents imposed on their children when I was teen.

It was a drag having to quit drinking and leave the party to get home in time.

Sounds like you're jealous.

So long as I didn't bring home the police or end up in jail I was given free reign as to how late I could stay out.

If they get good grades, they deserve it

I am sure many of us were out having fun at night whether we were supposed to or not, and never did anything wrong or got in trouble.

Answer this.  You have two groups of young adults (14 to 15)

one group is prowling around and having fun with friends between midnight and 2:00 am (does not matter if they are allowed to do or not, they are out and about)

another group does not leave the house after midnight (by choice or parental wishes)

Which group has more kids that are likely to get in trouble, or be bad apples, so to speak?

When old fogey was in, .mil ID gave you access to all things adult.

On topic: It depends on the kid. I gave much latitude to two of mine, but I micromanaged all day to day goings on with another; this one just couldn't figure out that whole responsibility thing.

Didn't this start as a thread about you calling cops on the neighborhood kids and getting flamed?

At 16 or 17 I would let them (don't have any yet though).

If they haven't figured out what is wrong or right by 17, they're fucked.

Bingo



 

The ones who don't go out and enjoy life.

When I was in HS my curfew was midnight if I said I was coming home. If I didn't say I was coming home I could stay out all night. Never got in any trouble, which is a miracle considering how much beer I drank is HS.

shit man.....when I was in high school I didnt get off work until 11 at night. On the weekends shit was just getting good when I showed up to where ever the party was.

I went to a boarding school in HS. 2145 was "in dorm" most nights, later on the weekends but I don't recall a weekend 'lights out'. We weren't particularly well supervised, but (as it was a college prep type school) we were expected to be able to pretty much supervise ourselves (our RA's were college kids). Which we did. Technically we had a 2300 in room/lights out but nobody paid attention to that in my class, mostly because we had homework to do, but partly because the internet ran faster at night and we had Tribes/Starcraft/TF to play.

ETA: When I came home I had no restrictions at all.

Yeah, that was me.  I learned I am a jerk.

I hear what you're sayin but the kids that do grow up in the bubble frequently freak right out when they leave it.  

I think it's safe to say that a curfew is not the only thing keeping nice kids from a life of crime, and that other factors are far more important.

You do need to give a kid that age a little freedom, see what he does.  If the only reason he's not on skid row with a needle in his arm is because you've got a leash on him, that needs addressing too.

I think this is the best reply thus far.

Didn't have a curfew.

I got my license when I was 16, back in 1980.  It wasn't unusual from me to be out until dawn on weekend nights.  It was a small town, though, and times were different (and my parents were a bit on the naive side).

When I was 16-17 I had a job and a car. I worked, ran the weight room at the high school in the evening and then was out until 1-2pm with friends. Wash rinse repeat. Never got into trouble.

I had so much freedom as a kid that my friends would sneak out of their houses and come over to mine an knock on my front door and I ask my mom if I could sneak out too. My only rules growing up were:
Do your chores, all of them, everyday.
Get B's or better in school.
Don't bring the cops home.
Don't bring a knocked up chick home.
If you say you're going to be somewhere and you decide to go elsewhere let us know, if it's too late to call and let us know, come on home instead.
If you are drunk DO NOT drive, call your father and he will pick you up any time, day or night (actually tested this theory 3 or 4 times as an older teen. My dad never gave me any shit about it, no groundings, no lectures, nothing, like it never happened. This of course made the calls much easier to make with no fear of reprisal.)

From around the time I was 13 or 14 my curfew was whenever I said I was going to be home, school night or otherwise. Of course, that number was inviolate. If I said I was going to be in at 2am and I showed up at 2:15 with out a call there was punishment, usually grounded for a week. While that may seem harsh, it was effective. Even as an adult I'm the most punctual person I know.

My parents did a great of raising me and I never got into any trouble. I was usually successful in talking my friends out of doing things that would get us into trouble or hurt as well. If I couldn't talk them out of something I thought was wrong I just went home and left them to their own devices. Lost of couple of friends that way but, the smaller group had better quality folks in anyway.

I'll have to see what my kids turn out like to say whether I would treat them the same way. However, on general priniple I see no reason to impose arbitrary restrictions on kids for the sake of having them. If a kid can handle responsibility you're doing them a disservice by restricting their freedoms.

Also, I think it helped that my house was home base for the neighborhood kids. My parents knew all of my friends intimately and usually had at least passing relationships with their parents. I never HAD to lie to my parents because they never forced me to do it AND my parents knew EVERYTHING that was going on with us kids because they allowed my friends to come and go as they pleased and they interacted with all of them and mostly as peers, not treating them like children.

In all, growing up with that kind of freedom taught me a great deal about the responsibility it comes with. I think I'm a better adult because of it.

I wasn't "allowed" to run around all night, but I had earned enough trust to not be grilled about what I was doing all the time because I was responsible and careful.  I graduated high school with a 3.9 and was a freshman in college when I was 17.  Kids are always going to want to stay out late with their friends, it's part of growing up.  It's a balance between a lack of supervision and keeping them on a leash,  too much of either could encourage bad behavior and I think it's a case-by-case basis depending on the kid and parent.

Keep your grades up, participate in 1 sport, don't bring the police to my house, don't break the law if you're breaking the law, don't disrespect your Mother.

Real simple rule set. This was the set I applied to mine. I differed with yours by not applying a curfew, and I absolutely refused to discuss times. My standard line was "If I need to let you know when the proper time to be home is, then you won't like it when I start mandating a time for you to be home. Be at the house when you think it is the proper time to be home, and if you abuse it, it will end instantly." Two never abused it, one got micromanaged. It's tough to raise kids. Giving them leave to hang themselves, typically short circuits rebelliousness. Typically. Like I said, one couldn't deal with it...

Good news in VA is that <17 cannot drive after midnight and can only have one other in the car unless they are siblings.  

I always ran around when I was a kid.......



Would I let my kids run around after midnight? Fuuuuck no!


 

That depends on how responsible they were and what they were doing.  I had an apartment and paid my own way by the time I was 17.

yep...but then my "kids" are 22 and 19 years old.

After 9th grade we never had a curfew.  

My parents used to say "Anything you can do at night can be done in the daytime as well.  The best we can do is teach you kids the difference between right and wrong and trust you to make smart decisions."  None of us wrecked any cars, got anyone pregnant, or ended up in prison.  IMO, young adults need room to learn and think for themselves.

For the record though, before 9th grade was a totally different story.  If I wasn’t home by 9pm my Mom would hop in the car and cruise around the neighborhood looking for me.  Usually she’d find a group of us hanging out on a friend’s porch.  FML.  I swear my friends could spot my Mom's car coming a mile away and boy did they love to bust my chops over that.  That shit used to embarrass the hell out of me but looking back I do appreciate the effort.  Love ya Mom.

THIS





While a freshman in high school





Me "Mom I'm spending the night at Bob's house this weekend." (his mom was out of town at the time)





My friend Bob " Mom while you are gone this weekend I'm spending the night at RIO-lovers house"





We would hang out in his apartment complex playground drinking beer and chasing girls. ( we knew some older dude whose girlfriend would go to the liquor store for us.)





If we found some girls we would just find someones unlocked car to get into. (never let them know where you live )
Ah yes, high school was the funnest 7 years of my life.




 
 

I just snuck out.

meh, I worked midnight to 6 when I was 15, and spent a lot of nights up and about when I wasn't working.  Having a job/responsibilities is the best cure for "nothing good happens after midnight".  I did plenty of stuff in the wee hours (good and bad), and as a parent I agree that kids have little-to-no business wandering around at that time... I'm sure my kids will do it, but I'll try to teach them why my policy is the way it is as well as how to make good decisions.  I'm sure mistakes will be made, I just hope I can teach them enough so that they aren't bad ones....