I was never a go out and party kid when I was in high school, all I asked for was to go to a few concerts a year which my parents allowed and were completely understandable about. They understood my love for music, being music fans themselves. Their understanding went so far as letting me skip school for a day to line up early when my favourite band came to Calgary in 2011, when I was 16.

Several of my friends also loved music, which is why we became friends in the first place. They had much stricter parents than mine and even when they were sixteen, seventeen years old, they still couldn’t go to concerts without their parents tagging along. This blew my mind because my parent’s let me go to my first concert without them (but with a friend) when I was 12.

Of course they didn’t just send me on my way, they made sure they knew who I was going with, that I’d call them if anything went wrong and that I’d be back home by a certain time.

A blog post I read asks the same question I initially did… The blogger admits that her strict parents did have a negative impact on her character and emotional development.

As a teenager, her parents didn’t trust her and thus she started sneaking out to drink and go clubbing with her friends. Her relationship with her parents weakened because of the lack of trust.

That’s the main issue when it comes to parents and their children, there needs to be a great level of trust. Parents also need to remember their youth and how strict their parents might’ve been and try and improve on that so their children have better childhoods than they did.

My friends in high school, because of their parents’ lack of trust, started sneaking out to go to parties and drink, get tattoos behind their parents’ back and one friend even had a pregnancy scare because of this underage partying.

Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to have fun once in a while, but do it responsibly. Parents have to know that their kids are probably going to indulge in underage drinking, so instead of trying to stop them, they should work things out so the parents know where their kids are and be available if they need a ride home. They need to teach them how to be safe in these situations versus refusing to talk about them at all.

Even though we’re technically adults now, my friends still need to ask their parent’s permission to go out and do certain things, even if it is to hang out at the mall or go to the movies. When I’m home, I tell my parents my plans in case they had something planned for us previously, but I don’t ask for permission anymore. It’s not like my dad goes to my Grandpa to ask permission to do things.

I’m grateful that I have an incredible amount of trust with my parents that I’m able to tell them how I went to the bar on a Friday night and that they’re able to tell me about how they let loose at a concert they went to recently or exactly how smashed my dad got at his 50^th birthday party.

I love how when I do go get my first tattoo; I’ll be able to tell them about it versus going behind their backs. While they don’t like tattoos, they understand that it’s my body and I’m able to do what I want with it. I honestly couldn’t imagine sneaking behind my parent’s backs at all.

I’ll leave you with this quote from the blog I’m referencing that I agree with wholeheartedly, “Teenagers desire exploration above all else and will seek them with or without permission and a parent’s ability to accept this will determine much more than their teenager’s weekend exploits.”