Instead of calmly and moderately irritated to think: "Again, this idiot is playing with a friend until he loses the sense of time," we immediately imagine his distorted body on the table in the projection room. That's the way it works, there's nothing we can do about it. Maybe if we lived for 25 years without social upheaval, the ability to reason sensibly would take root in our minds, but what we have, that's what we live for.
So, your child did not appear on the doorstep of his or her home on the accepted ten p.m. and does not answer the phone. Your actions?
9-12 years old. If you know who your child has been friends with lately, call him or her, or better yet, his or her parents. It may even be that the phone is in the briefcase on silent mode, and the children really took a great interest in the game. To do this, you need to maintain good relations with your classmates' parents, class teachers and the school secretary from the very first grade. I had a few pre-infarction conditions when the youngest one wasn't on time from school. The last chain of calls looked like this: the class lady - the chairman of the parents' committee - the mother of the girl with whom my daughter was leaving school - was the grandfather of this girl, who took both to the park for a walk. A good soul, this grandfather, first took them to a pizza parlor, then to the park for two hours, then they went home to their girlfriend, and in all these five hours the adult never thought to ask if the mother knew where her daughter was. And my daughter didn't think to call me because she was "accompanied". The time of detection of the object - 21.00, the number of burned nerve cells - about five billion.
12-14 years old. If the child is already so adult that he goes everywhere himself, friends to bring home stopped two years ago, and with you is in a relationship "everything is difficult" - then prevention. Choose a quiet moment, ask if he understands how much you worry. If the answer is "yes", then you can make a contract: we trust you, do not digging into where you are and with whom (in fact, digging, only in more cunning ways), there is a curfew for minors, so let's you call back if you are late. And talk about what sanctions will be applied for being late. For example, someone who hasn't come home on time and hasn't warned about it will stay home for the next week.
If the answer is "no", well, tell me again how much you love it, how you don't want to lose it, how important it is to you.
Perhaps it was all about getting confirmation again: I am the most valuable thing my parents have.
At this age, it is important to set out new rules and regulations. So far, you have accompanied your child almost everywhere, and now he is becoming more and more independent, but still poorly navigated in the world around him. And a lot of thinking and as if slightly turns in their favor. In general, it is impossible to be late, but if not much - it is possible. My mother is waiting for me after lunch at home, but we could have been detained? Right now, the balance of power is being adjusted anew: whose power in the family? Who has control? Who is more important? In this context, "not coming home by night" is nothing but a banal border check. What will you do to me if I defiantly disobey?
Well, don't you really hit them? I would look at a specific criminal. Really, I did, and then I was afraid to call, because you will scold very much? Trying to tell you something? ("I'm already big," "I'm going to die and you're going to cry", "I don't care how you feel because I'm disappointed in you and I don't believe you anymore"). Or is it a bright protest action?
If you accept the idea that any action is a message, you can make the right decision
"We were 15 years old when my friend decided to leave home. It seemed to us at the time that no one understood us, that our parents were tyrants, forced and tormented, forbidden to meet, took away our phone, yelled because of some unhappy cup on the table. "It's unbearable, unbearable! - Theophilus, son of Baron Munchausen, cried out in pain. We agreed with our eldest friends, who had their own apartment, and the friend went there. And I walked, walked, suffered, and my mouth burned with mystery, but I was afraid to betray it... It seemed to us that we were doing something supernatural, heroic, tall. Anyway, after a sleepless night, I called his parents. As it turned out, they didn't even notice that my son hadn't been in the room all night. And in the morning they decided he had left early for school. What a humiliation!
Here. Learn how to train children.
At the same time, your teenager should be well aware that parents can really report to the police, raise a unit to search for him, call all his classmates. But, actually, it is a task of a transition age: gradually to accustom all participants that very soon and to ask anybody will not, and there will be nobody to answer. Patience is literally a couple of years, enter a few unshakable rules ("At midnight, the bridge rises, and the gate goes down, who did not have time - sleeps in the street") and go drink your valerian.