<p>acollegestudent - Do you read this thread and find any similarities to your relationship and the one the OP describes? Neither you OR your boyfriend had a car. Your boyfriend drove when you had access to one. I think you are making a connection where one does not exist. This boy does have a car and is driving the young lady around. There is concern that she may be using him. Would they be spending so much time together/she seem so interested if he were not available to drive her around? The though is perhaps not.</p>
<p>As for asking for her cooperation, of course she’s going to tell the son. Do you think you are telling a group of parents who have raised teens (some well into adulthood) something we don’t know? Asking that she not put him in a position like that again is not weird or out of line at all. If either thinks it is they need to be reminded he is SIXTEEN! If they plan on continuing to see each other you’d think he would want his parents to get to know her and that would include communicating with her.</p>
<p>poetgrl - I don’t think it’s placing responsibility for his behavior, I think it’s asking her not to encourage him to break rules set for a 16yo. If she doesn’t want to deal with restrictions placed on a 16yo she should be dating one of her peers at her university.</p>
<p>I see a connection in that IF my boyfriend could afford a car or got one from his parents, etc., he would be the one driving us everywhere. I just don’t get the assumption that she is pressuring him to drive her. I know my boyfriend and I would have loved to have a car just to be able to go beyond our small campus. He would have wanted to drive us, even if it meant he was the only one driving. He also DID drive something like 3-4 hours one way to see me in the summer, and if it meant spending more time together, he would have wanted to drive me to school (and if I had a license, I would have wanted to drive him). I completely don’t get the user assumption based on the fact that he drives her around. I am not saying it’s not possible, but it seems a reach.</p>
<p>Ans as Poetgrl said, I don’t think it’s acceptable to hold a romantic partner accountable for the son’s choices. He is old enough. He is going to be living on his own in college in less than a year (just like her). This is between him and his parents - not her responsibility at all. And for goodness sake, she is ONE YEAR ahead of him in school. That doesn’t mean she should be the one worrying about him breaking curfew.</p>
<p>I think BI that it sends the wrong message to him. JMO</p>
<p>I’m not saying don’t do it or do do it. Just saying I hold my own kids, if they wanted a responsibility like a car, COMPLETELY responsible for their own behavior. </p>
<p>In other words, I don’t care WHO you were with, these are the rules. Again, YMMV</p>
<p>acollegestudent, that was your boyfriend. You were both in college together. </p>
<p>This is a Not Gf/BF. One of whom is 16 and the other is in college. They are not peers. </p>
<p>She was supposed to get a ride back from someone at her cousin’s house. It was apparently more convenient for her to get the ride from Not-a-BF and leave him out to dry. She knew he was giving lame excuses to his mother along the way. </p>
<p>Is this something you would have done to someone you cared about?</p>
<p>Ultimately, the thing is to be able to trust your own kid. </p>
<p>If they are responsible enough to drive a car, what they do with that privilege is up to them. In life you will be offered many opportunities to break the rules and law. I don’t care who you are with, you need to be able to do the right thing. </p>
<p>Blaming somebody else is an automatic time out for a little kid in my house. It’ll get you an extra two weeks to your restriction. Trust me. I do not care what else my kids learned by the time they left my house, they knew they were responsible for their own actions.</p>
<p>Again, Johnny is responsible. Of course. He is also young. It’s not blaming her. </p>
<p>At the same time, nothing wrong in letting the girl know she is contributing.</p>
<p>To my kid: Do that again and you are toast.
To conspirator/friend: So everyone is clear, if he does that again he’s toast.
Then you smile and ask who wants another cookie.</p>
<p>None of us know exactly how it came to be that the OP’s son drove her to school. For all we know, her other ride flaked out, and he jumped at the chance to drive her and have some “quality time” with her. Or perhaps he simply wanted to take on the role of “rescuer.” Without knowing for sure, it seems rather unfair to paint the girl as some kind of Jezebel and the OP’s son as an innocent player without the power to exercise free will.</p>
<p>If this was my kid, whether or not the girl encouraged him would be largely irrelevant. He would be expected to live according to the rules of the house no matter how his friends present the opportunity to do otherwise.</p>
<p>Poetgrl - I don’t think we’re that far apart really. I’m just expressing one side of my thought process. While I do think it’s wrong for friends or GF/BF to encourage kids to break rules, that in no way releases them from 100% responsibility. The two are completely separate issues.</p>
<p>OP again, S had a doctor’s appointment today so they discussed it some and the doc called me and DH in to chat about having appropriate consequences with measurable outcomes. Very helpful for all of us and I’m glad S was comfortable talking to the doc about it.</p>
<p>Hope some good discussion was generated. Docs can be seen as a neutral authority figure and hopefully helped your S realize that he didn’t show responsibility in how he handled car and Ngf. Good luck in keeping the open dialog. </p>
<p>I credit my folks for never dissing any of our friends, even when they had some concerns. They trusted that we had good sense and would handle our own relationships, perhaps with some tough lessons learned. I’m sure they had to bite their tongue quite a bit but thankfully, we all ended up with nice partners and friends, after some bumps along the way.</p>