Tattling on teens

[spotty_dog]

My oldest is only a tween, but I'm friends with lots of teen parents, and acquaintances with a number of teens. It's a feature of our small community that there is no expectation of privacy. Kids know they will see their parents' friends in public and that those adults will know exactly whom to contact in the case of misbehavior. The teens themselves laugh about it. But at this point my gut instinct would be to approach the child about most of those things, not the parent. You're right that the trust is super important. I teach my kids that we always keep secrets UNLESS someone would be hurt by the keeping. Cutting and maybe sex would be the things that would cross that line for me. Pot, vaping, shoplifting, and class cutting are not quite as urgent in my mind, but if I cared about the child (or my kid did) I'd reach out to them directly, and see if it's any easier for them to talk to an adult who's not their parent or teacher. Those things feel like a cry for help...but maybe I'm just naive because I was a goody-goody teen myself, and because I have goody-goody children who (so far) trust me with a lot of stuff.