The question
For the past two Fridays, my 13-year-old son has brought home six to eight friends after school, most of whom I've never met before. What really bugs me is that on the last visit these kids felt completely free to go through my refrigerator in front of me, even though they don't know me, looking for food (my son asked me to buy a pizza for them the first week). They never asked for permission. I remained speechless, not wanting to insult them. We have had many kids over and I'm happy to give them snacks, but this was too much. Perhaps I am uptight, but this never would have happened when I was growing up. So, I am a bit perplexed on how to deal with this. I need to figure this out as I will soon have two teenagers and their hungry friends to deal with. Any ideas?
The answer
It's incredible, isn't it?
We currently have two teenage boys – 18 and 15 – and one who, at 12, is not yet a teenager but is about (as they say on The Walking Dead of people who have died but are not yet zombies) to "turn."
An apt analogy, IMHO. Suddenly your effervescent, ray-of-sunshine child becomes taciturn, moody, ungrateful (teens put the "attitude" in "ingratitude"), slouches around, and, defying all laws of gravity, wears pants belted under his butt, so he has to walk bowlegged like a cowboy to prevent them from falling to the ground.
(Of all the hallmarks of modern adolescence, this one makes my wife the craziest.)
They travel in packs, and enter your house six-eight at a time. You're lucky if they make eye contact, let alone offer you some monosyllabic greeting: "Yo," or, "Sup." Music often seems to emanate from their very persons.
After brushing past, they retire to a bedroom or our family's basement technological compound, only to re-emerge when hungry, and start rooting through the kitchen like a pack of raccoons – going for whatever is sweet and/or salty and doesn't need to be cooked (though they are masters of the microwave and will go through pizza pops like a hot buzz saw through butter): ripping open bags of chips with their forepaws, upending boxes of cookies into their mouths, leaving crumbs and other detritus in their wake.
At least that's what they did at first. I read my kids the riot act: "Your friends are not welcome just to help themselves to our food. They have to ask you, you have to ask us, and you are responsible for cleanup afterward."
That's what you should do, too. Do not attempt to confront your kid's teenage friends directly. It's like a spaceman trying to communicate through his helmet to an orangutan: You don't speak the same language.
Rather, make it your kid's problem. That will have a two-pronged effect, I predict: 1) give him a whiff of what a nightmare it is to try to keep adolescents in check, 2) teach him a bit of responsibility.
At some point in the discussion make it clear his friends won't be welcome in your house if they don't adhere to his rules. Those are the stakes.
That's been my policy and I'm sticking to it. It's fun! I smile quietly to myself when I see my kid trying to keep his friends in check. Him: "Yo, no, dude, you can't have that. Put it down. Oh, man, that's not even food!"
I don't try to intervene because it's got nothing to do with me, get it? It's a nightmare, but it's a nightmare that's good for him! An instructive nightmare … The other thing I'm trying to teach my kids: advance notice. They'll say: "Hey, Dad, can my friends come over?"
Me: "When?"
"Uh, now." And it'll be around 5:30.
"It's too late notice. I can't feed a whole horde."
"Dad!" (Said like: "Duh!") "You don't have to worry about feeding them dinner!" (Said like: "You just don't get it, do you?")
"God, okay."
He's already texting. Two seconds later: Ding-dong! Like they were hiding in the bushes. An hour later they're ravenous … I hope it doesn't sound like I don't like teens. I do: I love them. And every once in a while they'll surprise you. Like last Thanksgiving, a horde cowboy-walked in, and one of them remembered to mutter: "Yo, Happy Thanksgiving."
They even gave advance notice. On these occasions I will brew up a vat of something hearty, e.g. chili, and they can help themselves to that.
You can do that, too. Because if they can behave according to the rules of polite society, then you can too.