Other Kids' Rules

By Eugenie Allen

A friend's nine-year-old son recently returned, elated, after a weekend with a classmate and his family. "Guess what, Mom?" he crowed. He and his buddy had eaten loads of junk, dodged two bedtimes and, best of all, played with BB guns and pocketknives. His mother, an admitted health and safety nut, was shocked. "These are such nice people," she said. "I can't believe they let my kid run wild without giving me the chance to say no--and believe me, I would have!"

All parents are worried when their children are in the care of someone else, but the anxieties mount when the child is in his or her "tweens"--the awkward years between 8 and 14, when almost anyone seems cooler than Mom and Dad. While these kids are old enough to call you mean and overprotective, they're not old enough to grab the car keys. Hence my friend's concern with the stand-ins she didn't know she had appointed: the classmate's more permissive parents.

According to Anthony E. Wolf, a psychologist and author of It's Not Fair: Jeremy Spencer's Parents Let Him Stay Up All Night!, kids this age are learning to see themselves not just as part of your family but also in the larger social context of, say, the fifth-grade class. One result is that kids try on other families' rules for size.

During this phase, you'll do well to choose your battles carefully. It's silly to expect all parents to share your rules. Says Wolf: "That doesn't even happen in a two-parent family." (Memo to father of 10-year-old girl I know, irked when daughter gleefully watched forbidden The Spy Who Shagged Me at friend's birthday party: It's hardly a matter of physical danger or moral corruption, so give it a rest.)

But to prevent real dangers like the ones my friend's son faced, it's critical to get to know other parents and clarify your concerns before your child visits. Margaret Sagarese, co-author of The Roller-Coaster Years, suggests this icebreaker: confess that you're struggling with a certain child-safety issue, and ask the other parent how she deals with it. "I know what you mean" is an encouraging response. "I don't know what you're talking about" is not.

Even when you think another parent is simpatico, problems are bound to arise. Sagarese recalls a sticky situation several years ago when her preteen daughter planned to ride to soccer practice with a friend and the friend's brother, who'd just got his driver's license. "I had to tell the other mother, 'I just have a thing about teenage drivers, so I'd rather take her myself.'" A hidden bonus: her daughter learned to handle the humiliation of a hands-on mom early on, so now she expects Sagarese to check in with her friends' parents--and behaves accordingly.

While you can't stamp out all threats to your child, now's the time to teach her how to handle them--especially the ones that wear a friendly face: "Your kid is going to be exposed to values you don't like, kids you don't like and other parents you don't like," says Sagarese. "And by the end of adolescence, she will have adopted a code of values that will take her through life."

Meanwhile, my friend is still smarting from her son's illicit weekend, which gave him the dangerous impression that his parents' rules don't apply when he's away from home. "I'm not sure what to say to the other mom without offending her," reports my friend, "but I know I have to say something." She'd better think fast: her son has a standing invitation to go back.

See our website at time.com/personal for more about dealing with "tweens" and their friends' more permissive parents.