Dear Jellybean,
I have known my best friends my whole life. we grew up together since we were like 4! and now that the 3 of us got into high school 2 of us are in 10th and the other one in 9th we have ditched and came to my house and my dad caught us both times and now my dad says i cant hang out with them anymore but i do at school and i want my dad to let me hang out with them becuase there my best friends and i love them to death and it really pisses me off that my dad is keeping me away from them he knows how much they mean to me and he still does it! i dont know what i do to let him let me hang out with them again!!! My mom doesnt care but she always leaves the decisions up to my dad and the answer to hanging out with them is always "no'! im tired of it!
-Aly-cali
Dear Aly-cali,
I hate to sound just like your parents - but read my whole answer 'cause even if what I say bugs you, I'm going to give you the information to get what you want from your folks. But first, a reality check: you are in this situation because you put yourself there. After all, nobody forced you to skip school - you chose to do that. You got caught, and now you are dealing with the consequences. Your parents must have lost a lot of trust in you when they found out you were ditching class. They actually love you so much that they think you wouldn't do this on your own. No, they think your friends are a bad influence and it was their fault that you skipped. Your parents probably think if they can keep you away from the friends you did something bad with, then the bad behaviour will stop. Hopefully that's true anyway and you'll forget about ditching school again. Skipping is stupid and as you have learned already, it just causes problems in your life.
I have to tell you that things could be WAY worse for you. You do get to hang out with your friends at school, and that's a big deal. At least your parents didn't pull you out of school and make you go somewhere else - that's not uncommon when parents find out their kids are misbehaving! So try to chill out and not be so angry with your parents, 'cause they're more tolerant than a lot of adults would be. You ask what you can do to get your parents to let you hang out with your friends again? Well, read on for the answer...
First, you will have to do something that's may be a bit embarrassing. You have to go to your parents and admit that you were totally responsible for your own behavior when you skipped school. Tell them you knew it was wrong, but you did it anyway, and your friends influence had nothing to do with it. Apologize and MEAN it. Say you are really sorry that you broke your parents trust in you. THEN... tell them you want to earn back their trust. Ask them what you can do to show that you're worthy of being trusted to make your own friendship choices. Offer to do stuff around the house, help your folks clean up on weekends, cook dinner once a week - whatever it takes to show you are more mature than your recent behavior let on. You're probably going to have to do a lot first, before they give in and give you what you want. But you have to earn that right, you don't just get it handed to you.
You can also ask your folks what your friends can do to earn back their trust. Maybe after you're an angel child for a while, you could ask your folks if you could invite your friends over under their supervision. Yes, it's cheesey and embarrassing, but you're going to have to take baby steps here. Also, you could ask your folks to talk to your friends' folks. Maybe if they realized your friends' parents feel the same way about you (that you're a bad influence on THEIR kids), they will see that things are not all black and white. Good luck with all this.
