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Expert Q&A

	By Sonny Elliott Family Counselor/Author

My 17-year-old son always wants to go out late. And he always gets upset when I tell him to be home at 10. He said that it's way too early and if I trust him, I should let him not have a curfew. I don't want to wait up for him to get back home. He has no consideration that I have to wake up early to go to work in the morning. Why should I let him stay out late, like 12 a.m. like he wants to? What should I do to convince him that I'm right?

Compromise can be a golden opportunity and I suspect this is one of those situations. Your son is a 17-year-old young man struggling to be accepted by his peers, as well as discovering his own identity, while still under mom's care. Not an easy place to be for him or yourself. Of course trust is the key element here, and in trusting another, one must know that this includes someone not keeping their word from time to time or mistakes being made which some would use to undermine their trust of another. Trust is knowing one will not always conform to what we want or even what we were promised. I invite you to look at a compromise such as: During the school year, during the week, your son be home at your requested time in order to be consistent with your getting sufficient rest for work the next day. However, on the weekend nights I would suggest you ease up on the curfew hour and allow him to be out later. A question you might ask yourself: Is this about trusting your son, control of your son, or about rest? Perhaps if your son calls you at 10 p.m. to let you know what he's doing and where he is, you could go to sleep knowing all is well. This is a difficult time for a mother, because your job is to start letting go, and this naturally brings up fears as you begin your grieving process which we all go through, whether a child is leaving the nest or when a pet goes to the afterlife. I suspect if you sit down with your son, confide in him your fears (I say it goes beyond sufficient rest) and make appropriate agreements, that will allow him more freedom while you have more confidence in him. If you don't arrive at some compromise, he will eventually take himself away (physically or emotionally or both) and you will both be the poorer for it. Trust the process, as he has one job in life, and that is to test you, and your job is teaching him about boundaries, trust and respect.

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