<p>Did anything change in your home when your child turned 18? My kids know that there will still be curfews, as well as the need to keep asking mom and dad for permission to do certain activities, so I was wondering - in your home, what (if anything) changed after the 18th birthday? (My S and D turn 18 this week…)</p>
<p>TxAg</p>
<p>Not really. However, keep in mind that your children now have to give doctors permission to talk to you. If you have a child with chronic health issues, you may want to go ahead and have them sign a release. I have friends that this has created real hassles as the kids are in high school with activities after school and can’t take calls from the doctor.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before here, long before 18, we had a talk with our S. Told him the many freedoms that come at 18, that aren’t there at less than 18. Sure, the obvious ones: he could enter into a contract, for the first time he would be fully responsible for his own behavior and also in a sense, could make his own rules. However, we reminded him that we were over 18 too, so we can make our own rules too. A youngster often thinks only of his own freedoms. At 18 there are great freedoms, rights, and responsibilities- for him and for us. We no longer had to clothe, feed, provide housing, provide any spending money, do any laundry, or any other thing a parent is legally obligated to do. Made it clear that we still wanted to do things for him, but we no longer had to. He understood this put him in a new position for the first time. This was what he’d been asking for, for a couple of years without really knowing it- and that is being treated like an adult. For the first time, his behavior could have serious consequences with us. We could still reward good behavior, and we wanted to, but we no longer just had to “take it” if it was unacceptable behavior. He had the right to come and go anytime he pleased(one example!) but we have the right not to continue housing him. Anything we gave him after 18, whether cash, use of a car, a room to stay in, a bed to sleep on, food, drink, college money, advice, any thing after 18 was a gift. Talk was much more diplomatic than the brief wording here.</p>
<p>Please don’t get the impression if he came home late one night, we were ready to change the locks the next morning not so. But we wanted him to grasp a new idea that though he would soon get freedoms and responsibilities, we would get new freedoms and fewer responsibilities.</p>
<p>Our town has a curfew, we do not so what will change is the kids will need to let us know when they expect to be home vs needing to be home by a certain time. As for “asking permission” they don’t really do that now, we talk about what they want to do and decide together if it is a good idea or not. They still ask and sometimes we do say no but usually for a good reason.</p>
<p>Our son was in his second year of college when he legally became an adult so we missed any of the coming of age drama at home. We did go thhrough plenty of underage drama in his HS years, however. Strong willed, independent… We were used to college age activities so we got the benefits without a HS student chafing at rules. No more long distance annoyances- providing Sudafed or signing permission forms for a few activities (most college stuff doesn’t require any parental input). He could get an off campus apartment (his college town required parental cosigners at any age, wouldn’t rent to minors).</p>
<p>We allowed our kids to take their computers into their bedrooms after they turned 18. Prior to that, no.</p>
<p>We don’t really have curfews any more, we just ask them to communicate their intentions to us.</p>
<p>We have tried to clamp down on our over-protectiveness, and give them almost total control over where they go and what they do. Example - DD went sky-diving this semester. While I wasn’t thrilled about this choice, I let her make it.</p>
<p>My 17-year-old seems to be missing the part about responsibilities coming along with privileges, although we’ve explained the concept to him repeatedly. Come next March, he will learn quickly!</p>
<p>When I was 18, I had the “thought I could do anything I wanted” mentality. I hoped to head if off with my S, and did, somewhat anyhow.
I tried to demonstrate 18 did not mean “do anything…” at least, not without consequences.
I gave him a wild example to demonstrate: Could I come home at 5 a.m., drunk after a wild night with strippers? Legally yes, I’m over 18. But, really I could not. I have too much respect for my wife, and S, such a night might risk serious consequences in the home. Maybe even job consequences, too. So though I had legal rights for some actions, I had obligations and responsibilities that outweighed such wild actions. So just being over 18, or 21 does not make everything ok to do.</p>
<p>So far the “I’m 18, I’m an adult and can do whatever I want” has come up once with each kid. Our stock answer is “there is the door. You can take anything YOU paid for with your own money and leave if you want to do whatever you want with out respect for the rest of us” :D.</p>
<p>There was nothing we did specific to the kids, but I recall we filed some document with the government dealing with the army.</p>
<p>The only curfew-related issue that took place was with DW & I - as the kids became teenagers and stayed awake later, we, um, began to chill-out.</p>
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<p>Men have to register with Selective Service when they turn 18:[Selective</a> Service System: Welcome](<a href=“http://www.sss.gov/default.htm]Selective”>http://www.sss.gov/default.htm). I’m not sure why women don’t have to.</p>
<p>They could work more when they turned 18.</p>
<p>Remind them that legal problems can have more serious consequences. For example, getting into a fight in high school that results in a criminal charge for assault and/or battery has more serious consequences for an 18-year-old than a 17-year-old. And then there are statutory rape laws… some people got stuck with the “registered sex offender” for life label due to having sex with their underage SO after they turned 18.</p>
<p>No changes, but they found that they needed our money and time.</p>
<p>Our high school is required to give the upcoming 18 year-olds the “right of majority” speech. Most of them don’t sign the paperwork giving them their “full rights”. They realize that there is a benefit to Mommy and Daddy being responsible for their fees, actions, and paperwork.</p>
<p>No change. Son went out and bought a scratcher lottery ticket on his birthday, but that was it (I don’t think he’s bought one since.). Bigger change once in college and home for break (curfew went away.)</p>
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<p>Now he is over 18, you can take him along too.</p>
<p>We didn’t make an issue out of turning 18. My kids realized that they had become legal adults and didn’t need parental permission for medical treatment anymore, and my son registered for Selective Service, but that was all.</p>
<p>How they were treated in the family, in terms of privileges and responsibilities, depended on their grade in school rather than their age. </p>
<p>One of mine turned 18 about halfway through his senior year of high school, but the other didn’t turn 18 until near the end of the summer after her graduation. It wouldn’t have made sense to me to treat them differently when they were second-semester seniors just because one was of legal age at that point and the other wasn’t. </p>
<p>One topic that hasn’t been discussed here yet is cigarettes. Anyone who’s 18 can buy them legally. High school students who have turned 18 may be pestered by younger students to buy cigarettes for them. It may be good for students who are about to turn 18 to know about this in advance so that they can figure out how they will respond to such requests.</p>
<p>Echoing UCBalum, I was a little surprised when DH’s big talk with our oldest when he turned 18 was about being tried as a juvenile vs. as an adult. Had not even occurred to me, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. I’d say the way we treated our kids upon hitting 18 wasn’t any different; society’s was.</p>
<p>Turning 18 was a non event in terms of changes. Neither were late night fans so curfews weren’t imposed. One turned 18 in the summer before college and since she worked very early in the morning, staying out late wasn’t something she was interested in.
Both registered to vote and bought a lottery ticket because they could.</p>
<p>DS turned 18 when he got to college. Any changes that occurred happened as a result of loving on is own rather than the magical birth date. I did forbid him from participating in a ritual for his 18 yo friends, however. We get a discount for nonsmokers trough medical insurance, so he had to pass on the cigar for now.</p>