<p>Question, how can anyone with kids over 13 not have unlimited text for their child and/or family? It’s cheaper long term than paying for over limit text messages.</p>
<p>Is the texting issue actually financial?</p>
<p>If the money for the texting is the issue, upgrade your plan to unlimited texting with is usually another 10-15 a month.</p>
<p>My biggest concern is that with her texting all day and coming home every weekend to see the BF is that she is not cultivating any relationships or interests on campus. I would not even address the BF issue cause this too will pass. As he grows into his junior senior year, coming back to high school to attend the junior/senior prom is not going to be her idea of fun. When the relationship with the HS BF ends (and it will end, you will just have to wait it out) she will be upset because she has no friends on campus. Ask her about college and why she feels the need to get away every weekend to see the BF and why are all of her waking hours being used texting instead of meeting friends and participating in activities on campus.</p>
<p>While I understand the the physical car is hers (as a gift from grandma) to do what ever she wants, she is riding under your insurance. If the car is not reliable, t hen tell her she needs to pay for any repairs needed on the car and you will not continue to insure an unsafe car. I would not want her on the road in an unreliable vechicle being a danger to herself or someone else.</p>
<p>Denise, we bought our kids cell phones for our convenience, not theirs. The phones were purchased so that the kids could get in touch with us in an emergency or call 911 or call a taxi if they were stranded at a party with a group of friends who had been drinking and were unable to drive. So we bought the most cost-effective plan. The fact that the kids could use the phones for other things (i.e. calling their friends) was incidental. And they were welcome to do whatever they wished as long as it didn’t cost us anything.</p>
<p>Guess what? The kids got blackberries and laptops when they started their jobs and their employers told them the same thing. Their companies happily pay for the phones, the computers, upgrades, and 24/7 tech support anywhere in the world. But that’s for the convenience of the employer, not the employee. All personal calls, emails, texts, etc. are subject to review by Legal counsel; the devices remain the property of the employer; any calls over the plan max are to be paid for by the employee.</p>
<p>As my son said recently, “At least mom never read our emails!” And I think the kids are grateful that they got a lesson at an early age which seems pretty consistent with the way things work in the grown up world. If they don’t like their employers legal department being able to read their email they are free to head to Best Buy and buy their own Blackberry and pay the monthly fee.</p>
<p>Of course unlimited text messaging is a financially feasible plan. The issue for this mom is not the cost of text messaging. The issue is that the daughter is texting 650 times per day which is very very very excessive. It is not a money issue. It is how her time is being used at college. The OP says she can put a limit on the texts. She should do that. If her daughter wants to go above that, she can pay an extra fee per month. As I said, my younger D wanted email and internet on her phone and she pays us the extra per month that that service costs (my D doesn’t abuse the phone, different issue…simply this is an extra she wanted). The idea of making the OP’s D pay wasn’t cause mom can’t afford unlimited text messaging but that the D is abusing the phone/texting and one way to limit that is to limit D’s amount of allowable texts before she pays for going beyond the max. allowed (mom can set basic amount…100 per day sounds like plenty). As I said, my D is averaging 50 per day (though we have unlimited texting).</p>
<p>Blossom, same reason we got our kids phones. It was sort of a GPS without them realizing it. I got my kids unlimited text because I was not going to pay more for them to have extra minutes. So we have 1000 minutes a month we share between three people (two teenagers and myself) and unlimited text. It costs me $70 a month for three phones.</p>
<p>So the OP puts a ‘limit’ on her texts. The daughter (who has figured out how to lie to get what she wants) walks into Walmart and buys a paygo phone and pays $40 a month for that phone and now Mama has no idea what she’s doing…</p>
<p>Or she hears from other kids the NUMEROUS ways to text for free using downloaded software or online accounts.</p>
<p>Give these kids some credit. They might be young but they aren’t stupid.</p>
<p>Wow, denise! You know all the tricks!! :D</p>
<p>A friend of ours put a GPS in her daus car in HS. So, she parked her car and rode around in her bf’s car. Correct- these kids are no fools.</p>
<p>LOL, jym. Not sure about that but I am a bit of a tech junkie so I keep abreast of new stuff…</p>
<p>if only to know what my kids will be doing tech wise before they do. :)</p>
<p>Besides, I try to put myself in their shoes the way I was as a teenager with the tools and technology they have at their disposal now. That thought makes me shudder.</p>
<p>OP is delluding herself if she thinks restricting text is going to help. The daughter could discover Skype and then OP would have no idea what she’s doing. And it will be more addictive than text because she can actually see her fella.</p>
<p>At this point I can’t worry too much about what she’ll do when I take the car away or change her cell phone plan. I think I need to send a strong message that although we love her, We will not help facilitate or finance this bad behavior.
I’m also ok if she decided going away to college is not for her. She’s more then welcome to come back home & give it a shot at JC.
Going away to college was her dream & now I’m supposed to sit here and pretend that she didn’t talk about going away to college & how important it was for her to get to have the "college experience " because this boy entered her/our life.</p>
<p>denise, so what if the D can go buy some paygo phone for $40? The point is, she may think twice if SHE has to pay for unlimited text messaging. Perhaps it may not limit her but perhaps it will if she has to pay for going beyond X number of texts per day that mom is willing to pay for that is a reasonable amount of texts that someone who is busy in school should make per day. </p>
<p>And so what if she can use Skype. Skype is at the computer and this boy is in high school five days per week for a good chunk of the day and so he can’t get on Skype. </p>
<p>If the mom limits the use of the car to activities near campus and one trip home per month (or whatever mom finds to be reasonable) and D wants to make trips home every weekend, the car can be taken and left at home. </p>
<p>I agree with ls4218 in her saying that she needs to set limits and send a strong message and not facilitate or finance the overuse of text and the weekly trips home by car (let alone behind their back). </p>
<p>If D wants to come and live at home, fine. If she wants to be at a college away from home and the parents are helping to pay for the college experience, they have a right to set limits that the D actually lives at the college and not home town every weekend and also not on text messaging that they finance almost every waking minute.</p>
<p>What if the bf were two years older than her? Five years? Ten years? Or ten years younger? What if he is covered in tattoos and never graduated from high school, or doesn’t go to college, or doesn’t speak English? You can control her car use, control her cell phone use, try to control her college experience (don’t let her come home weekends), but you can’t control her heart. At some point, you have to let go. Or not, who cares? Of course if you are paying, you can set expectations. But if you think you can win the battle of the heart, and she seems love-struck, well good luck.</p>
<p>Awesome reply, shorty.</p>
<p>Mom can do any number of symbolic measures to feel like or convince herself that she is regaining some control of the situation. The reality is if the daughter is willing to alienate her parents AND ruin her college experience she’s past the point of ‘heart control’ and convincing yourself otherwise is really pointless.</p>
<p>Hope for the best and stay on her good side. Perhaps with less resistance from Mom the BF will start to lose his appeal. In the least, the power struggle over him will seem less appealing to her with Mom less willing to engage in it.</p>
<p>@Is4218 I think you are missing a great opportunity to have a heart to heart with your daughter. Start saying how much you love her and how much you miss her and how much you miss your relationship with her the way it was before. Acknowledge her feelings for this boy, and tell her you understand how it is to feel in love. Tell her, that you want to hear from her what are her plans to see her boyfriend. Pause and listen to her. Tell her you trust her judgement. If what she tells you does not seem reasonable, compromise. Try to say, I understand, but this is what I recommend you to do, and say whatever you think would be reasonable. Like every other weekend? Try to talk to her about the text messages, and share your concerns. Repeat again and again that you trust her, and ask her that if you should be concern. Ask flat out: Should I be concern with you? Confrontation WON"T work! My daughter is a freshman in college, and we as a family went to similar situation before they both left to college. They are 2 hours away from each other. We asked her, what were her plans with the relationship, how often they were planning to see each other and so forth…We also shared with her our concerns : Time dedicated to study, to her sport, and to the social life at her college and we set our expectations, and we asked her if she thought we were being reasonable. For our surprise the chat end p very well. We have nothing against her boyfriend, but deep inside we would rather her to be single right now and really taking full advantage of college life, which we know she won’t having a long distance relationship. But we want to stay close to her, we don’t want to push her away from us, and we want also to let her make her own decisions. Please be warm,open and forgiving with your daughter. She seems to me to be an amazing young lady. She is just in love and need some guidance, the rest will come.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is about controlling the relationship with a boyfriend. That is not anything a parent can control, manipulate or even really should have a say in. I think this is about expectations for college that the parents are paying for. If D wants to be in her hometown every weekend, she can go to college locally. If she wants to go to college away from home, it is fair to expect her to not leave every weekend. Having a car to do that is enabling her to do it. She can still have this boyfriend without going home every weekend. That’s fine. </p>
<p>Texting 650 times per day is not just a boyfriend issue. There is no way she can be engaged in her studies and college life if she texts 650 times per day. So, even if there was no boyfriend, that would be a concern. Allowing her to have unlimited texting is enabling her. Restricting text messaging and making her pay for use after a reasonable amount, is reasonable, boyfriend or no boyfriend.</p>
<p>Nobody is suggesting trying to cut her off from the boyfriend. A parent cannot do that, nor should do that. But a parent does have a say in paying for college away from home, paying for excessive use of a phone and paying for a kid to use a car that is not meant to be used to leave campus on weekends. All this is important whether or not there is or isn’t a boyfriend in the picture.</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t think the parent should give any opinion about the boyfriend. </p>
<p>The issue should focus on acclimating to college and being involved, doing well, and staying there (if parents are footing the bill), not using the car for weekly long distance trips which it was not intended for when she took it to college (and parents are paying for some of the car expenses) and not abusing text messaging (which parents are paying for) and limiting the use of that (the amount they are willing to fund so that she has to think twice if she wants to pay to use it an unreasonable amount).</p>
<p>Lasly, lying is a big no no in my book. There should be consequences for lying. If she is going to use the car and leave campus for weekly overnights without their knowledge and lying about it, then the privilege of having the car at college should be removed (with warning and ground rules first in place). The parents could put a limit on trips home, such as one per month, using the car. This doesn’t mean D cannot date this boy. But she is away at college and should not be traveling home every week. Lots of couples in college date long distance and don’t see one another every week.</p>
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<p>Yes, the car usage is part of the problem. In driving an older car for long distances while tired, this young woman is demonstrating her lack of good judgement.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the boyfriend is the very least of worries here and as has been pointed out he could easily be replaced with an even worse one. However, the excessive texts, the lack of judgement concerning something that can easily kill the driver or an innocent victim plus the continued lying are real problems. I would encourage any parent not to look the other way when their child is showing signs of trouble.</p>
<p>I have talked with her using calm tones and a loving, yet concerned voice, but it didn’t work.
I have even sat her down with her boyfriend ( when I caught her in town lying about the second time) and told them how dissapointed in the lying, and that it made it very difficult to be supportive given the lies and sneaking around. I also made it clear I was not happy with the excessive texting. I even went so far is to tell this young man that if my daughter loved Him, then we loved him & would be supportive if the lying & sneaking around stopped.
They both had nothing to say but sorry & that they understood. My daughter seems to have a one track mind right now & it’s all about him. As I young girl I went thru a similar situation. I know how it feels to be in young uncontrollable love. This us why I won’t make it about the boyfriend. I’m quite certain he’ll be one if many boyfriends that come into her life.</p>
<p>Even if this girl had NO boyfriend, it is usually inadvisable for a freshman to have a car at college and it is also inadvisable for a freshman to go home every weekend. Perhaps she should not have a car at college at this time. </p>
<p>Even if this girl had no boyfriend, it is not advisable for a student to have enough time in the day to text 650 times (or something else like play video games, for example, as we have seen some threads by some parents here over the years about their college freshman).</p>
<p>ls4218, good for you for making the issue with your D in that situation when you caught them to be the lying and sneaking and not the fact that they are dating, etc.</p>
<p>The other thing you might consider here is that studies have shown the first 6-8 weeks of college are crucial and quite challenging for incoming freshman. Perhaps this is a short term phase she’s going through with her BF being a mechanism to help her cope. </p>
<p>If this is the case and if what you focus on increases then blowing this out of proportion will only make the issue bigger not better.</p>
<p>Maybe give it some time to see if this pattern continues past her first two months of college. Perhaps after she’s more settled she won’t feel as insecure and more able to cope on her own.</p>
<p>In addition, she sounds like a great kid who is giving you fits for the first time in her life. As such, it’s quite normal to not only be unsure how to react but to overreact. I’m not saying you’ve done so but you could if not careful. </p>
<p>This situation is new territory in a number of ways. The college experience for her being only one of them. The bigger one being that your good girl has finally done something you deem bad which only magnifies the situation. You see it as lying and betraying trust. She sees it as asserting her independence and testing boundaries.<br>
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In reality, it’s all of the above. Many kids live this thru high school with the parents surrendered to the fact that there is little to nothing they can do about it when the kid gets to college. It sounds like she got there a bit late and her age and absence from your supervision make dealing with it more challenging and acceptance of your limitations regarding options more difficult.</p>