Born Yesterday?

The signs were all there. 
1. No Mum, I don’t need a lift. I’ll get the bus.  2.  No need to pick me up.  I’m getting a lift home.  3.  Arriving home the morning after at the uncharacteristic early hour of 9am, and 4.  Going straight back to bed where no amount of cajoling could budge her again before 3pm! 

Something was up.  Did my teenager think I was born yesterday?  She definitely wasn’t where she was supposed to be last night.  Time for some detective work.  After a little investigation and the tracking down of a trusty source, I felt suitably armed to interrogate the tearaway.  (Always pretend you know more than you actually do.  This is the basic entrapment technique which enables one to survive parenting through the teen years.) So after some Oscar worthy, dramatic, initial attempts protesting her innocence, she caved.  After which she came in with the classic,” I knew you’d say no so I didn’t ask you! So and so’s parent didn’t mind. “   A guilt tactic employed by teens to shame you into believing you are the strictest parent in the neighbourhood if not the world! 

The upshot of the episode was that my child received four things from me.  In no particular order, 1.  A debriefing on the danger, not to mention illegality (is that a real word?) of trespassing on private property and erecting a tent on said property.  2.  A lecture about the consequences of having co-ed camp outs.  (Never mind that she and her two friends believed their male ‘camping’ buddy to be gay!)  3.  A warning on the abuse of trust and honesty.  And 4. A grounding for a week, a ban on sleepovers for the next 3 weeks and a fate worse than death...no Blackberry for two days! 

Born yesterday?  I don’t think so!!