AGREE ON HOW TO STAY IN TOUCH
Talk to one another about the best way to reduce the worry you feel as a parent. Maybe your teenager could call or message you during the evening.
One tip is to agree agree on a time when they’ll be in touch, so you avoid calling a mobile phone that no one answers and getting even more worried.
TELL THEM HOW YOU FEEL
Teenagers are perfectly capable, just like everyone else, of empathising with another person’s feelings. Tell them what it feels like to be a parent, how it feels when you don’t really know what’s happening. That way, you’re showing them that you trust them to be responsible.
The chances of a teenager taking slightly better care of themselves increase when they know they have a parent who cares.
YOU CAN’T CONTROL EVERYTHING
If a teenager has made up their mind to drink, then they will probably do precisely that. Unfortunately, it’s often easy for teenagers to get hold of alcohol, and not something you can guarantee to prevent.
So shouldering all of the blame and feeling like a bad parent is unfair to yourself. There’s a lot you can do as a parent, but you can’t control everything that goes on around your child.