Raising teen daughters sure isn’t easy. You are bound to get angry and frustrated as your teen pushes boundaries in her quest for more freedom and independence. One area that’s sure to cause friction is a curfew.

A teen’s curfew should be carefully set and completely enforced from the beginning. Discuss the curfew hours with your daughter and let her have a say in the consequences she should face for breaking them. Also, explain why a curfew is important and that you have legitimate reasons to worry whenever she stays out too long or comes home late.

If your daughter forms a habit of missing curfew and becomes immune to the discipline measures you agreed on, it’s time to come up with something more creative to grab her attention.

Here are some innovative ways to teach her a lesson:

• Develop a roll-back system. This one is basic but pretty effective. Every time your daughter comes home later than agreed, make her new curfew an hour earlier for the following week. If she’s still late again within that week, roll back the hours for the next two weeks and so on.
• Become her chauffeur and babysitter. Parents normally withdraw driving privileges as punishment for their teens. Go a step further and chauffeur or babysit your daughter everywhere she needs to go. If she plans to hang out with her friends after school, go with her and wait her out. The pain of having her freedom withdrawn coupled with the embarrassment of having her mom in tow wherever she goes will make her reconsider her ways.
• Interrupt her fun. Another great way to enforce a curfew and stress its importance is to show up where your teen is when she’s late coming home. Most teens would rather die than have their parents waltz into a party at 12 A.M. to take them back home. Do this once, and your daughter will have enough incentive to keep her curfew in future.
• Enlist her unwitting friends’ help. For this to work, ensure you have the real phone numbers of a couple of your daughter’s friends. Once calls and texts to your daughter go unanswered, start texting and calling her friends. Your daughter is sure to respond and pay more attention to you after this, if only to avoid you following up on her.
• Ground her, but with a twist. If your teen seems immune to being grounded, up the ante by drawing up a chores contract and make her earn a certain number of points to get un-grounded. Preparing dinner could earn her 50 points, for example, and cleaning out the oven or microwave could be worth 40 points. This way, you pass a message and get a clean house too.

While bringing up your teen daughter can be challenging, a continuous pattern of defiance and rebellion towards authority could point to a much deeper problem. Contact Help Your Teen Now and we’ll help you find a suitable solution to get her back on a positive path.