Need Help From Other Parents of Teens

[Nikki]

Hi all,

My husband and I just became foster parents a few months ago. Our first placement is a 17-year-old girl. We've never had kids of our own so we're just trying our best. We have been struggling over some basic stuff and I've been wondering if what we're trying to do is good or if we're taking normal behaviors and reading too much into it. So I thought I'd find a good forum and ask for help so I could see if what we're doing is close to an average or not.

Please, if you have any experience and a few moments, answer the following questions so I can try to see what the current "norm" is for teens in this day and age. Thank you in advance for your help.

1) What is the bedtime for your teen on school nights? Weekends?
2) Not counting meals and driving them to appointments, how much of their "free time" does your teen spend with you in a week's time?
3) How many nights is your teen home in a week?
4) Do you let your teen have a computer in their room? In a common area of the house?
5) How many times a week do you have some kind of family activity? (If you do have a family activity, I'd love to hear what it is to try and get some ideas.)
6) How much allowance do you give your teen a week?

Again, thanks. I really feel like we don't have even a basic rule of thumb on these issues.

[TabascoNatalie]

17yo teen is almost an adult. 1 year afterwards, she'll possibly be not living with you. so you have to try to teach her to manage on her own. bedtime/computer is not important at all. but what is important, is how to take care of herself. (e.g. that she can prepare herself a meal, do her laundry, etc.)
with money -- how much you spend on yourself? how to save? how to opearte a bank account? these things you have to teach her

[Dadu2004]

I agree...at this point it's about teaching her the life skills that she may be lacking.

[Nikki]

While I agree with you on these facts, I do need some basic rules so the house can function. I mean, are you saying I should let her run around with no curfew at all every night of the week? Allowance is very important because that is how she will learn to deal with money. She has no job at the moment so earning money from us in the only way she will get a chance to do that before her life is dependent on those skills.

Also, you say computer is not important. So are you saying you think it is okay for her to be down on her computer all the time she is home?

Also, are you saying teaching her what a real family is like isn't important? My fostering classes said that was one of the most important things we could do so when they have a family of their own down the road they will have some thing to model it on. They said things like family activities could help them understand what normal families are like, since she comes from a truly horrible situation and has no concept of what a "real" family does and interacts with each other.

She is in Independent Living classes designed by the county to teach her how to live. She gets classes there on cooking, laundry, cleaning, financial, community services and tons of other subjects and has been taking them for over a year and will continue until she is 18. She is for sure going to be in my house for 18 more months because that is how long she will still be in the system, maybe longer depending how this all goes -- another reason I want some rules so that she has a real chance to do well in our home. I will teach her the living things as well, but the county was really hoping I could help with the "family" side of things even more.

I hope this explanation helps you understand why I am asking the questions I am. Thanks.

[TabascoNatalie]

rules are what for? for comfortable being so you should decide what is comfortable for your family.

1) as for bedtime --she's 17, not 7. shouldn't be a curfew, but a common understanding. you go to work in the morning, you go to bed at certain hour. you don't want noise. so she shouldn't make noise. but if she wants to read or watch a late movie -- it is perfectly allright.

2) computer. if she has things to do, if she has friends, she will not be spending whole her time on computer. if she does that, it means she's quite an unhappy being.

3) allowance. i already said. how much do you spend on yourself? and... how much are the school dinners, the public transport fares? telephone bills? stuff like this. areyou willing to pay this for her, or you wish that she uses her allowance on that?

[Nikki]

I don't know. It's hard because I don't know her and she's had such a hard time. I do know I'm not comfortable with her being out of the house all hours of the night. But how much of that is me just wanting to get to know her and spend time with her? Do most teen-agers get to stay out really late these days? Is it bad for her to stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning? I think "I didn't do that when I was a teen" but that doesn't mean things haven't changed.

She doesn't have any friends because she didn't use to live in this town. So, when she is home, she is down in her room on her computer the whole time. That doesn't seem good to me but it's winter so it's not like I can just be like, "Go outside and maybe you'll meet some people."

Thanks for your thoughts. This is a big, giant, complicated situation. My foster training said setting rules would be good for the family and for the kid because they know what is expected of them and even if they moan about it, they like to feel there are limitations. I just have no idea how to figure out what kind of limitations are average for her to give her some kind of foundation to start building upon.

[bssage]

Without knowing how her life to this point was makes it difficult to develop boundaries that will be effective.

I.E. If she more or less has been on her own with little supervision for several years. Then I think it would be unrealistic to expect her to conform to a rigid set of rules.

IMO you are going to have to balance your lives, and hers best you can. Expect some compromises on both your parts. You have basically adopted a adult in the legal sense of the word. So I would expect some head butting.

IMO you need to establish a base line. I would first get with you husband and decide what you expect. Make sure the both of you are on the same page. Then I would talk to her about what she expects.

After the expectations are spelled out for everyone then it time to decide what compromises need to be made. And I'm am sure some will need to be made.

At 17 she knows when she needs to go to bed. I cant imagine telling a 17 yr old new to the family that say 10 is bedtime. I can however see saying that the house proper is shut down at 10 because that when we sleep. If she is awake later than that she shouldn't be disturbing you. I can also see that she needs to be home before YOUR normal bedtime because you will worry.

As far as allowance. I would think no allowance. I would pay for jobs around the house. And what the need for meals clothes ect you can spring for until she has a job. And the rest would be up to you.

Family activity. I would take what you can get. Always invited but not always required. Some stuff birthdays ect are need to attend. If you try and force it she will just be resentful and ruin things for everyone. You could be persuasive just don't force.

Your kinda breakin new ground. Not many people have a new to the family kid that age. I agree with the above post just set a good example.

[Jeremy+3]

As a foster parent in the UK allowing a foster child outside alone after 10 p.m. is a big big no no.

1. 10:30, at the weekend you can go to bed when ever you want but if you wake us/the kids up you are in trouble.
2. a few hours a day, watching tv, films etc.
3. 7 she is only allowed to stay away for the night if she is having a sleep over, here foster children are not allowed to stay else where for the night without permission from social services to stay at a particular address.
4. we have a family computer in the 'study' which is a tiny cupboard under the stairs
5. every saturday, this is aimed at our younger children and gives Amelia an opportunity to have her friends round minus her annoying younger siblings
6. we don't, she may get the occasional £10 every know and again if her friends are going to the cinema etc.

Foster children need strict rules and a constant routine, your rules need to be respected, your are a foster carer not a friend.

[Nikki]

Originally Posted by Jeremy+3

Foster children need strict rules and a constant routine, your rules need to be respected, your are a foster carer not a friend.

This is exactly what we've been told. And I do understand it because it's like we're trying to make up for a whole life where she hasn't had those things. Her common sense is so bad and it constantly amazes us. And she'll tell us things like, "I could stay up to 3am on school nights at my last foster house." And I'm like, "?!?!?!" 3am on a school night? She gets up at 6am and I can't believe she would only get three hours of sleep! And she needs to get good grades so she can graduate high school, you know? And all the teachers are saying things like, "She's so tired in class." And my husband and I are like, "Okay, lots of teens might stay up a little late but this doesn't seem right." So our trying to let her do things her way has blown up in our faces. And that's only the things I know about so far.

Thank you, too, for the examples of how your run your home. I know I need to set some hard and fast rules and I know it won't be easy and it will be a lot of head-butting at first but some of this stuff must change for her well-being. I mean, what kind of parent am I if I let her stay up so late that she fails school? But then she'll tell me stuff like, "No one is school has to go to bed that early!" She knows that she is our first kid and that we are first-time parents and I think it has given her a huge advantage over us. I want her to be comfortable and have a good life after what she has been through but I also have to be a parent and she has got to change some of her ways.

That's why I thought trying to get some answers to some basic questions would help me realize something close to a norm on some important lifestyle needs.

[Nikki]

Originally Posted by bssage

Your kinda breakin new ground. Not many people have a new to the family kid that age. I agree with the above post just set a good example.

Thanks for your thoughts. I like to think we're trying to compromise but I feel like it isn't working out that way. I just want her to be healthy and happy, have a little fun before she's out of the system and has to be a complete grown-up for the rest of her life, and learn what a real family is like to go along with all her classes on how to make a living in the real world.