Rachel, there is a very big difference between being your children's “best friend” and actually being their parent. Unfortunately, I think you've confused the two.
You seem to take pride in being the cool, parent who lets the children do what they want, gives them very little privacy or accountability, and puts being liked by them above actually parenting them. But children aren't around you because you're some incredibly progressive, boundary-free parent. They're around you because there are essentially no boundaries.
And then, when those children inevitably behave as though there are no boundaries, the responsibility gets passed somewhere else.
The example of Lula bringing 14 people into your home, including people you don't know, to eat, sleep, drink and party, while your home is treated with complete disrespect, says everything. Then blaming the cleaner for “letting” it happen is frankly astonishing. The cleaner didn't create that situation. Lula didn't suddenly discover that house rules existed and decide to ignore them. There were no meaningful boundaries in place in the first place.
If a teenager knows they can invite 14 people into their parent's home without permission, without supervision, without appropriate safety measures and without any meaningful consequence, that's not a flex. That's a parenting failure.
And this is where the constant criticism of schools becomes particularly frustrating.
I work in SEN school. I see children every day whose parents genuinely work with the school, listen to professionals, reinforce expectations at home and understand that supporting a child doesn't mean excusing everything they do. I also see the opposite: parents who insist that their child is misunderstood, that every teacher is at fault, that the school is failing them and that society simply doesn't understand their child, while refusing to acknowledge the role they have in establishing expectations at home.
Of course the education system has problems. Of course children with additional needs can require enormous amounts of support. An EHCP/ diagnosis (even if it's paid for) can provide important provision and accountability. None of that, however, means that a parent gets to abdicate responsibility for teaching their child boundaries, respect, personal responsibility and basic social expectations.
Children need adults who are prepared to be functioning adults who contribute to society in a postive way.
They need someone who will tell them that something isn't acceptable, even when they don't like hearing it. Someone who will say no. Someone who will impose consequences. Someone who will protect them when they aren't capable of protecting themselves. Someone who understands that allowing absolutely everything isn't freedom, sometimes it's simply a failure to parent.
Children are not stupid. They know exactly which parents they can manipulate. They know which rules exist, which don't, which consequences will never materialise and which parent will eventually blame somebody else. They talk about it. They take the piss out of it. What the parent sees as proof of being “close” or “cool”, the children can see as an opportunity to get away with whatever they want.
That's not a healthy parent-child dynamic. It's an abdication of parental authority.
There is also a tendency to confuse explaining behaviour with excusing it. Trauma, divorce, domestic violence, substance misuse and other adverse childhood experiences can have profound effects on children. They deserve understanding and appropriate support. But understanding why a child behaves badly does not mean removing every boundary around that behaviour.
Actually, children who have experienced instability often need more consistency, not less. They need adults who are predictable. They need clear expectations. They need to know where the lines are and what happens when those lines are crossed.
You cannot simultaneously remove every boundary, refuse to hold your children accountable, allow them enormous freedoms without appropriate safeguards, and then pretend to act shocked when they behave as though there are no rules. And you certainly cannot blame the cleaner when your teenager does exactly what you've taught them they can do.
Being your children's friend is easy. Being their parent isn't. A parent isn't there to win popularity contests. A parent is there to provide the boundaries, guidance, safety and accountability that children aren't developmentally equipped to provide for themselves.
So please, please don't write a book about parenting teenagers. The last thing parents of teenagers need is a manual on boundaries, accountability and raising emotionally healthy young adults from someone who appears to have demonstrated absolutely no understanding of any of those things in practice.
Before giving the world a parenting manual, perhaps master the basics yourself.
Because if the same problems keep appearing, across the same family, year after year, eventually you have to stop asking, “Why does everyone else keep getting this wrong?” and start asking, “What am I consistently failing to put in place?”
I mean she says she warned them about vapes, underage/ illegal activities yet doesn’t ban these from the house! He’s an ex officer so knows the consequences better then most. Mental!!! Why make it ‘easy’??! I mean most teens would go without the vape a bit longer if it meant going out in the cold/ rain?
