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pbaribeault -> RE: What would you do? (7/4/2008 10:16:51 AM)
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That's an interesting perspective, shadowspring. I think we'll have to disagree, although I think I should have said 'influence' what they want to do, not change it. I meant that parents do have a lot to do with character shaping, and good character will prevent a lot more troubles than constant supervision.
I think that if a child is in clearly in need of constant supervision, then most every-day attempts at supervision are unlikely to work. And even if they do, that's not the complete picture of what a parent would need to be doing in that scenario. They would need to be doing a lot of consiquence-education and character work, alongside control strategies. Wishful thinking says that they should have been considering that strategy as a foundation.
And I would have thought constant supervision would be impossible. I'm sure that you don't mean that one of your dd's hosts sat up all night in her bedroom with her? Because that would be creepy. I'm also fairly convinced that they would have let her have private washroom breaks. Did they send her to school (or maybe it was a homeschool exchange?) because there are a lot of opportunities for privacy in an ordinary 'supervised' school setting.
If your daughter was determined to do wrong, she could have found a way to carry on a drug habit, alcoholism, or promiscuity under these circumstances. Therefore if I thought her character was such that she would want to be doing that sort of thing, I would not have let her go. I assume that you assessed what kind of a young woman she is and determined that she would not be actively perusing wrong choices. Therefore you could trust her.
That's why it's surprising that parents think that they can "trust" that anybody's supervision is going to stop this kind of thing. I think it's a false trust, and unwise if the young person's character is not trustworthy in itself. If the young person's character is trustworthy enough not to seek to do wrong, then all that needs to be prevented is those impulsive flashes of opportunity-based bad choices. (In the case of the sleep-over, offering to do drive-by checks herself, plus a cell phone, would have provided a 'hall supervision' level of deterrent for this.)
On the other hand, I don't think it's wise to prevent all opportunities to make bad choices, and/or all situations of risk of danger. These can be (very painful) learning experiences which reinforce good values.
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