<p>I definitely think the safety angle should also be mentioned and that you feel uneasy if you don’t know she has gone on a trip without letting you know and you just like to know where she is staying (school or elsewhere). Also, explain that when you let her have the car at school it was for her job and for the times she needed to come home but was not meant for leaving campus weekly. You could give her a period of time to comply with your wishes before leaving the car at home, but that is up to you.</p>
<p>tptshorty, I surely agree that young adults use text a lot (instead of calling people)…I know my girls do! You had commented about texting all the time and also in class. I wasn’t sure how kids could do that in class. In any case, I agree that these kids text a lot. The OP’s D texts an excessive amount, enough to truly be impacting her life. There is no way my kids would have time for 650 texts in a day. </p>
<p>I do think you have misinterpreted some comments. I know I surely don’t believe that students in selective colleges are “better people” than those at community college!!! Not at all. Great kids are at all sorts of colleges. As well, those with great work ethic attend all sorts of colleges! The only thing people were commenting on was study habits and that sort of work ethic which again, students at ALL kinds of colleges can and do have. I do think there is a greater percentage of those with good study habits at a school that requires that for admission than a school that allows anyone to attend. I have taught at community college and at less selective four year schools and some students have stellar study habits and some do not. I think you’ll find some of each. At a selective university, you’ll also find some of each but the percentage of good study habits is probably greater as they could not have gotten in without those. That was all that was about. It had nothing to do with being “better people.” And yes, there are all types of work ethic. </p>
<p>As far as how may texts a kid sends…I had no idea and so when reading this thread and I saw 650 per day posted here, I got curious and looked at our phone bill even though we have unlimited texting on it and just looked up how many on one of my D’s phones for a point of comparison for the purposes of this discussion. She has lived away from home for 5+ years and I surely could not have stated for you the number of texts she uses until I just looked it up when reading this thread. When our girls first went to college and started using texts (had never used texts back home as their cells did not work locally), and we first got the bill, we did not realize how many texts they used and that it was costing extra and so we switched to an unlimited text plan and since then, I have never looked at the number until now and it has been many years in the interim.</p>
<p>I check my bills every month - cell phone, electricity, TV, …In looking at cell phone bill, I do see data usage, and it displays number of messages and megabite download per user(front and center on the first page of every bill from AT&T). As I have always said to my kids, “You want privacy then pay for your privacy. Get off my plan if you don’t want me to see it.” But there is no way I would pay a bill without double checking.</p>
<p>tptshorty - you have never seen a cell phone bill?</p>
<p>TP, I’m with you on the violation of privacy as far as monitoring text messages of college students. But then I’m very sensitive to the privacy issues and rights of my children because as a kid I was given NONE. My mother believed as long as I lived in her house or was supported by her that my mail, diary, phone calls, relationships, etc. were subject to spying, monitoring, or intruding…</p>
<p>needless to say I’ve never had a good relationship with my mother.</p>
<p>Also needless to say that the lack of privacy granted ensured sneaking around, lying, and dishonesty. NOT the other way around as she would have you believe.</p>
<p>denise525 - I am sure it was a great incentive for you to move out.</p>
<p>I am not sure what I am doing is good or bad, but the only measure I have is I am very close with both of my daughters.</p>
<p>Good for you, Old. Obviously you practice respecting boundaries with limits and not what I was describing.</p>
<p>I don’t monitor text messaging. I never tend to even look at it on the bill. We did notice it when they first got to college as the text messaging went beyond the plan and we realized we needed to adjust the plan. Since then, it is not really anything we notice as we have unlimited texting. As I said, I only looked at a bill the other day after reading this thread just to get an idea of a comparison of texts per month. </p>
<p>But if I were checking my bill and noticed 650 texts per day or actually it is recorded per month and I saw over 20,000 on one kid’s phone, I think I would NOTICE. That is just excessive. </p>
<p>Denise, it is interesting that you think a parent knowing how many texts were billed to the phone plan is an invasion of privacy but on another CC thread, you talked about how crucial it was for a parent to be FB friends with their kids in order to monitor them online (which I do not agree with as you know). So which is it? Being FB friends shows a lot more to you than a “number of texts per month” on a bill.</p>
<p>Sooz, I’m responding to you ONE time and then going to resume with self imposed exile from your posts.</p>
<p>My post clearly states COLLEGE STUDENTS just as it did in the FB thread you referred. Thus, I’m making a distinction of age appropriateness. Most logical adults could see the difference and distinction between the need for monitoring a child on FB and a college student’s data usage.</p>
<p>That is all I have to say because I’ve been on this ride before and it’s not for me.</p>
<p>oldfort, yes, it’s pretty hard to miss the text charges on Verizon. They post the number of texts next to each phone number. It hardly takes spying to see them. You can’t miss it, even if you wanted to! </p>
<p>When a young person is mentally ill or we find them acting dangerously or irrationally- some even taking their lives–so many people look at the family and say, “Why didn’t someone DO something earlier? How could they miss the signs?” While the signs from the daughter are certainly not that life-threatening, the OP has suggested in the beginning that she thought her daughter could benefit from counseling, which makes me think that they feel her behavior is not consistent with her own (the daughter’s) values and goals. I respect the OP and her husband for seeing behavior that is not normal for their daughter and for trying to help her get to a positive and productive place in her life. Sure, she’s 18, but she still needs guidance, imo, from what the OP has posted. If the daughter were acting responsibly and honestly-- maturely-- for her age, then I can see how the parents might be intrusive. But in this case, it appears to me like the daughter needs a bit more structure to stay on course, and maybe even outside counseling, like the Op suggests. Kids know when they aren’t acting with integrity, and when that is the case, they really aren’t happy until they make a course correction.</p>
<p>Wishing you and your family the best, op.</p>
<p>We still get (for business reasons) a paper copy of our family plan cellphone bill. If any of us had 650 texts/day the bill would probably be delivered in a ream box! My DH usually gets the cellphone bill, but I have looked at general usage so as to determine if we have the best plan for our family’s usage pattern. We occasionally joked about our ds’s usage patterns, but thats about it. I dont see any of the descriptions of parents looking at their OWN bills as stalking. How utterly silly.</p>
<p>But if you have unlimited text plans and are not worried about overage charges then why would you have to monitor your college student’s usage?</p>
<p>Not only that, if you know what or whose numbers they are texting then you are doing more than just making sure they aren’t creating overage charges.</p>
<p>You are looking for something specific. That is where it becomes questionable.</p>
<p>There is such a difference between saying, “Sweetie, why all the texts? What’s with the coming home behind our back? Are you lonely at school? Are you having a hard time adjusting? Do you want to talk about it?”</p>
<p>And, “I’m taking your unlimited texts away and since you lied to me, you have to leave the car your grandmother gave you in the driveway.”</p>
<p>These are very different conversations.</p>
<p>Sometimes when we are afraid we think we are angry. YMMV</p>
<p>I don’t see how it is monitoring text messages to check the charges on the bill. I have no clue who my kids text message as it doesn’t show that (nor is it my business). As I said, we don’t even tend to look at the text totals since we have unlimited text. But we did look at it about five years ago when we didn’t realize how much text gets used in college and that the plan we had involved incurring extra charges and so we had to adjust the plan. I don’t think we have checked it since (though I did a few nights ago out of interest to see how many texts are in a month to compare to the OP’s D to determine if that amount seemed excessive). I think it might be something we’d notice if the bill said 20,000 texts per month on one phone (as is the case for the OP’s D’s phone). It is on the bill. It is not as special inquiry. </p>
<p>Denise, I will admit my confusion in reading your post above in being surprised that parents might check their phone bills with regard to the charges on their plan and thought that was an invasion of privacy, while you did indeed discuss monitoring college kids’ FB use on another thread. </p>
<p>You had posted before:</p>
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<p>So, I am not sure I understand the distinction of keeping tabs on a college kid on FB to make sure they handle independence and responsibility appropriately if they are not yet mature in the ways you would hope and the OP needing to monitor and guide her D who is texting 650 times per day which is truly not normal and is harmful to her in certain ways too.</p>
<p>I see a cell phone bill; I get it online. It’s the same every month because it’s a family plan, so I don’t have to open it up to see who’s been calling or texting whom. I just pay it and go my merry way. I just think some parents, and I am not naming any names, friends, no one on this blog, are WAY too controlling of their ADULT children. One couple I know told me they plan to buy their daughter a house when she gets married, but it will be in her name only, not the husband’s (this young lady doesn’t even have a boyfriend yet). And he will have to sign a pre-nup to live in it. If I were that man, I wouldn’t set one foot in that house.
Are they old enough at 18 to control their own love life, their own “college experience”? I don’t think you have much choice in that, because they will, no matter what you try to impose, if they have the slightest bit of backbone. What if they end up coming out? Or getting pierced? At some point, they will do what they need to do to be themselves (if they have the slightest bit of backbone). And they should, in my opinion, unless they are in danger of harming themselves. Nothing about this girl’s behavior seems that bad to me, not the texting, not the driving, not the young boyfriend- she is not going to get arrested for statutory rape. Maybe she’ll fail a class- maybe she needs to. Not the end of the world. “Failure isn’t fatal”.</p>
<p>I don’t think that keeping the car at home is due to the D lying as much as that the parents let her take it freshman year to college for the purpose of getting to her job and then as transportation home for visits HOME (to her home) and not to leave campus on a four hour roundtrip every weekend. Now, I can’t tell if the parents set up their expectations that “if we let you take a car to college, it is just to be used for X” and if not, then she deserves fair warning and another chance. I don’t see the car staying home as punishment but more that the parents only want her to have a car at school mostly for work at places near school and not trips. Having a car at college is a privilege, particularly for freshmen year and if parents do not want the car making long trips weekly, I think that stipulation is fair and reasonable, though they should make the groundrules known.</p>
<p>tptshorty, that story about the parents and buying a home for D when she gets married and only in D’s name is unreal. </p>
<p>I didn’t even know that a phone bill shows who calls whom. Our bill just has like total number of minutes, text, etc. per phone. I don’t even look at that unless there are unusual charges.</p>
<p>Apples and oranges.</p>
<p>THERE IS NO PRIVACY ON FB or the internet. A parent has the responsibility to convey to their child (adult or otherwise) that there is NO privacy on the internet ESPECIALLY Facebook. A parent is not spying on their kids if the parent was invited to be their friend on FB. If a college kid is posting pictures of themselves drunk at a party, scantily clad, having sex, dressed like a Nazi, flipping off police, etc. and a parent sees it they have the obligation to tell their kid that they’ve made a mistake even if the kid is 30 freaking 2. That doesn’t mean they go looking for this sort of stuff. FWIW, if I saw my college aged kid’s friends doing this I would kindly and gently approach them about if they understood the ramifications of such a dangerous and reckless post. But then I’ve cultivated the relationships necessary to approach them in this fashion having ‘adopted’ many of them.</p>
<p>That does not mean as a parent I would punish a college aged kid by trying to ban them from FB, cut off their usage, take away their computer, or try to get their GF/BF’s parents mad a them.</p>
<p>That “have a backbone” attitude that you are encouraging the adult children to have towards their parents sounds like a set up for confrontation and power struggles. That can be quite unhealthy. I agree with moonchild. Watch out for your kid, OP. You know her better than we do. Good luck this weekend.</p>
<p>Hopefully she does. But she’s on an internet message board posting that she doesn’t feel like she knows her anymore and asking strangers for advice…</p>
<p>not a real convincing case that she in fact does.</p>
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<p>Just try to read some posts on the HS or College Forum, there are not that many teenagers who like to have their parents as their FB friends. In my opinion, looking at kid’s FB is a lot more intrusive than knowing how often they text.</p>