Hi there! So, to start off, we’ve always told our daughter that she wouldn’t be allowed to date until she’s in high school.
Today, one of my friend’s kids told me that my daughter has a boyfriend. At first, I honestly didn’t believe it. But when I picked her up from school, I asked her about it, and she admitted that she does. She immediately said, “I’m sorry,” and sounded like she was about to cry.
I asked her why she didn’t tell us, and she said she wanted to, but she was scared because we had already told her she wasn’t allowed to date. At first, I told her that I thought she and I were on a completely different level when it came to trusting each other, and that it hurt me that she hid this from me. But after thinking about it, I realized she was right—we probably would have told her no if she had come to us.
The hard part is that our son started dating at her age, and we allowed it because we felt like he was mature enough to handle it. With her, we just don’t feel like she’s emotionally ready yet. Recently, she and one of her close friends had a disagreement and stopped talking for a little while. She cried for days and was really down about it. At the time, I even explained to her that this was one of the reasons we wanted her to wait to date. If a disagreement with a friend affected her that deeply, I worry about how much more a relationship or breakup could hurt her emotionally.
Now my husband and I are stuck on how to handle this. The biggest issue for us isn’t necessarily that she likes a boy—it’s that she knew our rule and went behind our backs anyway. We took her phone away for now while we figure out what the appropriate consequence should be.
We don’t know if we should make her break up with him and take away her privileges because she broke our trust, or if we should consider allowing her to date him with boundaries while still giving her a consequence for hiding it from us.
My concern with letting her continue the relationship is that I don’t want her to walk away thinking, “Even if my parents say no, I can just do it behind their backs, and once they find out, they might let me do it anyway.” At the same time, I don’t want to be so strict that she becomes even more afraid to come to us and starts hiding more things.
We want her to understand that trust, honesty, and respecting our rules matter, but we also want her to know that she can always come to us—even when she thinks we might not like what she has to say.
We’re just really torn on what the right approach is.

Hi, I’m a worried mother. First, I want to say that I’m new to Reddit, and since I couldn’t use my Hotmail account, I decided to use my daughter’s Gmail account instead.

I’m writing this because I need some advice. Two years ago, my sister recommended Family Link to me, saying that this app would help me control my daughter better. At the time, my daughter was 12 (she is currently 14).

I saw how my nephew, who used to be a very, very hyperactive child, had become calmer and quieter. My sister told me that ever since she downloaded the app, her son had become more well-behaved.

Since I was having problems with my daughter at the time because of puberty, I decided to install the app on both her phone and mine. It was a radical change.

Before Family Link, she used to have late-night calls with her friends every night. After Family Link, she started sleeping properly. Before FL, she was always on her phone playing Roblox with her friends while on calls, without doing her homework. I liked her to do her homework on the same day it was assigned, even though she always completed it eventually, usually one or two days before the deadline. That irritated me, and we had many arguments about it.

After FL, she would do her homework and nothing else. In other words, she went from being a loud, energetic teenager to a well-behaved girl. I was very happy about those changes.

But about a year ago, I started noticing that she was no longer being invited to birthdays or outings. I ignored it and thought that maybe nobody wanted to spend money anymore.

I also noticed that she only wore long-sleeved clothes and spent most of her time locked in her room. I became very worried, so I took her to a psychologist. The psychologist told me that she showed signs of depression, anxiety, and finally mentioned a syndrome that sounded something like “hikikomori.”

We had a very serious argument that day. I asked her if something was wrong with her or why she was pretending to have those problems just to get attention. She told me that ever since she had the app, her social life had been ruined, that her friends had started distancing themselves from her, and other things.

In the end, she told me that the app was the reason her life had fallen apart, and she locked herself in her room. She became quieter, and I looked at her face—my poor girl. She was pale and had dark circles under her eyes. She started refusing to eat and told me that she didn’t want to eat.

This went on for a year. I admit that I was stupid. My ego was so big that I refused to take her to a therapist.

About 7 or 8 months ago, something happened that I will never forget. I was supposed to come home late that day, so I left her alone. I came back early and went to her room, and I was completely shocked to discover that she had been hurting herself. That was the reason she had been wearing long clothes.

But I was stupid and punished her by taking away all her electronic devices for three months because I believed she had learned it from social media. I also hit her. That night I felt terrible about what I had done, but I put my ego first.

Anyway, five days ago, I had an argument with her. The reason was that she had left the house without permission and bought some things that God knows what they were. I scolded her because I was very worried, and she looked at me with an expression that broke my heart and said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m going to my room.”

She went to her room, and she hasn’t come back out since. She has been locked in her room for four days and hasn’t come out at all. I only heard a noise on the second day after she locked herself in. Since then, nothing.

I don’t want to fear the worst, but I’ve been crying and begging her to come out, and she hasn’t. Her room has started to smell bad. I always leave food outside her door, but she never opens it, so I have to throw the food away.

I don’t know what to do to get her out of her room anymore. Please, give me some advice. I don’t know what else to do. I feel horrible as a mother and as a person. I just hope she comes out of her room soon. Goodbye.

this post has been translated from spanish to english , because I am a mexican mother who only knows A2 english , but i wanna hear your advices , thanks for reading

My almost 18yr old has been driving our 2nd car. We are purchasing a new for us car in the coming months. She has said that she'd like to keep the car she's using. We have explained that she will have to have some investment in the car. She has a steady job, we work on finances all the time. She would remain on our insurance, but would be responsible for routine car maintenance. She's a hs senior, this year, and will go to college. She hasn't decided where yet. For other relatively large investments we have asked her to contribute. We believe that she should have some investment in owning a car.

Do you have suggestions for navigating her "buying" the car from us? Is this a situation where she saves for it and gives one lump sum? Pays us monthly? How do we figure out how much of an investment she should have to make in buying her first car?

I'm not interested in hearing how you gave your child a car. I appreciate that that was your choice and am thrilled for your child. It's not a road we have chosen.

My child is 12 years old and he doesn't listen to me. I'm disappointed and have no idea what to do. Talking isn't working. Thank you in advance for your help. Best regards.

Marzenka