Did you ever sneak out of the house when you were a teenager?

[DawnM]

I am curious how many of you snuck out.

My friend and I were discussing.  I never snuck out of my parent's home, I would have been too afraid to do that, and most of my teen years were spent where there was nowhere to sneak to!

But I did sneak out of my dorm a few times at boarding school.  Most of it was stupid and innocent, just sneaking out to sneak out and say we did it mostly.

Edited February 17, 2020 by DawnM

[ikslo]

No.  But I snuck a boyfriend IN.  Does that count? 🤪

[DawnM]

1 minute ago, ikslo said:

No.  But I snuck a boyfriend IN.  Does that count? 🤪

 

YUP!  And I didn't even think of that one.

[Carrie12345]

The house? No. But we spent summers and weekends at a seasonal campground, where we’d have tent sleepovers and sneak out of tents.

Very, very, VERY innocent (imo.) No sex, drugs, or drinking. Just running around in the woods. Maybe some making out.

I’m confident my kids haven’t snuck out. There’s nowhere to walk to, none of their friends live nearby, and guests have to be called in with a code.  Kind of a bummer for them!

[Chris in VA]

Can you make it so we can pick more than one? I picked yes/innocent but itxs complicated. 

Dh tapped on my window one night (we dated in college in the summers) and I wen t outside and talked with him in his car. So yeah, that is sneaking out. 

But I also snuck out of a youth retreat when I was in high school and we went across the street to the beach. Got caught, too. 

Aaaand...I staffed a church conference/ retreat for elementary kids and we went out (not really sneaking) and got drunk in someone's open van parked by a school field. I didn't really feel it was wrong, exactly. Yeah. What an idiot. I felt like, sure, you "shouldn't do that" but that surely the adults knew and it was really just some fun. Honestly, coming from an alcoholic family and having Asperger's is such a fun combo....I did feel guilty later, though. And confessed. 

[J-rap]

I was the "Yes, but it was a different situation" category.   I'd say I was staying overnight at my friend's house, and I WAS with my friend, just not at her house.  Most of the time it was fairly innocent, but not always.  There are some things I regret.  

I'm confident that my children never snuck out.  I know there were times every now and then when they said they were going somewhere with a friend, and ended up going somewhere else, but just for a few hours -- not for the night.   I also know it was all very innocent.  Now that they're all grown up, several of them have told me they can't believe what rule-followers there were!!  And they were. It was just the way their brains worked, so I never had to worry about them.  😄 

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by J-rap

[Pawz4me]

No. I never had any reason to. If I wanted to go somewhere/do something I'd just tell my parents and go. But I'm an introvert and have never wanted to do wild or risky things. And we were always very easy going with our boys. If they wanted to go somewhere/do something they told us, and we were okay with it. We never believed in curfews. Our only rules were that they let us know where they were and at least kinda sorta what they were doing (and with whom they were doing it) and when we could expect them to be home. We never had any reason to not trust them.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Pawz4me

[Selkie]

I never snuck out because there was no need to - my parents were way too permissive and let me do all kinds of things I shouldn't have been doing. Or rather, my mom was way too permissive and my dad was totally uninvolved.

I'm fairly certain none of my kids have ever snuck out. We have a security system and a bunch of noisy dogs, so sneaking out would be tricky!

[Meriwether]

No, I had a lot of respect for my parents. I also never  wanted to do something they didn't want me doing. My kids haven't given me any reason to think they might either. I say yes to everything I can, and they seem to respect when I say no to something.

[Jaybee]

No, I learned early on that as long as I kept my parents informed as to where I was and who I was with, things ran smoothly. So I respected their need to know so they didn't worry. I was only hanging out with my church friends playing Rook or Spades, anyway, at one of our houses. I also said no as to my kids, because of the circumstances where we were living at the time.

[Sneezyone]

I said yes, my kid snuck out, but it wasn’t for a nefarious purpose. In an attempt to let the dog use the bathroom, she failed to latch the leash and the dog escaped. In her infinite wisdom, she decided to phone a friend down the block to help her with the search since it was so late. We had no idea she was out chasing the dog until the following week, neither did the other family. The school called after an adult overheard them talking about it at school.

[DawnM]

2 hours ago, Chris in VA said:

Can you make it so we can pick more than one? I picked yes/innocent but itxs complicated. 

Dh tapped on my window one night (we dated in college in the summers) and I wen t outside and talked with him in his car. So yeah, that is sneaking out. 

But I also snuck out of a youth retreat when I was in high school and we went across the street to the beach. Got caught, too. 

Aaaand...I staffed a church conference/ retreat for elementary kids and we went out (not really sneaking) and got drunk in someone's open van parked by a school field. I didn't really feel it was wrong, exactly. Yeah. What an idiot. I felt like, sure, you "shouldn't do that" but that surely the adults knew and it was really just some fun. Honestly, coming from an alcoholic family and having Asperger's is such a fun combo....I did feel guilty later, though. And confessed. 

 

Ok, try it now!

Edited February 17, 2020 by DawnM

[Junie]

I snuck out of my dorm at camp a few times.  With my parents' permission!

We were at a family church camp for two weeks.  My sister and I worked long hours in the kitchen and we had very little free time.  My parents gave us permission to sneak out after curfew to hang out with our friends who also worked in the kitchen.  We never did anything bad.  There was just a group of about 10 teenagers sitting in the picnic pavillion talking into the wee hours of the morning.

[Wheres Toto]

I never snuck you but my mother was very strict and I was scared.  I also shared a bedroom with my grandmother dying from cancer as a young teen so never knew when someone would be coming in to check on things.

I know my kids haven't.  Oldest was able to go out when she wanted to pretty much and we knew about it.   Younger two have no where to sneak off too.  There friends all live really far away, we live in a neighborhood with no streetlights and bears, plus our house is very small and you can hear everything, plus our dog would bark like a lunatic.  

[MysteryJen]

My brother and sister and I all either snuck out or lied about our whereabouts to our parents. Why? Mostly because our mother was super controlling and liked to use grounding as a punishment for teens.  I am not sure what she was so afraid of-we weren't bad kids- just needed a little bit of freedom.

This is why I don't use grounding as a punishment or say "no" to things as a knee jerk reaction. My dd2 says she is the only one of her friends that hasn't snuck out- because she doesn't have any need to. Curfew is flexible or non-existent depending on circumstance, she enables "find my friends" whenever she drives the group, and mostly I don't "freak out."  The latest she has been in was after homecoming and New Years (1:30am or 2 am). Other than that, she is reliably in by 1 am- our house is small and I hear everything.

[wendyroo]

No, I never stuck out; I was a complete introvert who had no desire to be out.

I did occasionally sneak in.  My mom thought I spent far too much of my summers inside reading and studying so she would shoo me outside to get some sun and fresh air.  I hated sun and fresh air and bugs and breezes that blew my hair into my eyes while I was trying to read out there.  So I would sneak back inside to read in the basement.

[Lady Florida.]

I never snuck out but it was fairly common for my friends and I to each tell our parents we were at one of the other friends' houses when we weren't. Most often when that was the case we went to a party that we knew our parents would say no to. 

On the kids question - dss snuck out a few times, ds never did. Most of dss' were sort of innocent. He snuck out because he was grounded, not because he was going somewhere/doing something we wouldn't approve of. Of course we found out or I wouldn't have checked yes. 🙂 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Lady Florida.

[Arcadia]

I was a latchkey kid so there wasn’t a need to sneak out since I have no curfew anyway. 
My kids don’t even want to get out of the house unless they have to so the likelihood is slim.

[SKL]

I said no because I don't remember ever doing it at age 13 up.  I had so much freedom that I can't imagine having a reason to sneak out.

But I did climb out the window at night when I was under 13.  Pretty sure we did that more than once.  (And it was fairly innocent, other than the fact of sneaking in the first place.)

My kids - as far as I know they have not, but there really isn't much to do around here worth sneaking out for.  They are too lazy to put in the effort to get into that kind of trouble, at least so far.

Edited February 17, 2020 by SKL

[Tap]

My friend and I snuck out of her house all the time. We would walk a mile or so to the store, buy Reeses and go sit on top of a parking garage talking. It was a smallish city maybe 40,000 or so people and no major gang activity. But there were homeless people mucking about and other people walking to the store etc. It wasn't safe, but not as dangerous as it would have been in other cities. 

My husband once kidnapped me. LOL We were about 18 at the time. I had a friend over and were were in bed. He threw rocks at my window and we went outside to talk to him and his friend. They picked us up (gravel driveway) and put us in their car. We thought it was a joke and we were just going to sit in the driveway talking....but nope, they planned to take us to the hot springs about 1.5 hours away. We had no shoes and were in night gowns. It took my about 30 minutes to convince him to turn around  and take us home.

DD13 has snuck out twice. We now have a security system on the house to alert me when the door/windows open at night. She is going to be my teenage rebel.  One time she just walked around our neighborhood, and the other time, she met someone outside. 

I don't think my older kids snuck out of our house, but I wouldn't put it past dd21 that she snuck out of someone else's house.  We live in a suburb with nothing to walk to, so she wouldn't have gone out to just wander like we did, she would have been going to a party or such. 

Horrible story... stop reading if are prone to triggers.....I have a friend whose young teen daughter and  friend snuck out (inner-city) to walk around a park. My friend's daughter was caught by a gang and gang-######. The other girl ran away to escape. My friend's daughter didn't know how to get back to the house so she was left wandering. I don't remember how she got home. The daughter didn't tell the parents and it was a year or two later before the mom found out (when the daughter was having major psych issues related to the assault). This girl is now a heroin addict (in an out of treatment) as she self medicated the trauma away. This girl was like a sister to my daughter, and it was so very sad to see her spiral from a sweet home schooled girl,  to where she ended up. I never told my daughter the name of this person for privacy reasons, but I did use this story to warn her of the dangers.  

Edited February 17, 2020 by Tap

[Angie in VA]

Nope. Never sneaked out, never hid anything (also never have done drugs), HOWEVER, I have, on more than one occasion while my dc were still at home, gone to Mickey D's and gotten fries which I ate while my dc were at a drop off activity. 

Amazingly, I used tactics that drinkers and smokers use to get rid of all evidence - including the smell of those fries from my car and my breath - before picking up said children.

I am proud to say that I was 100% successful.  👏👏👏 Angie takes a bow.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Didn’t live at home after age 11 (just short visits) so no. Snuck out of the upper two story windows of the dorm all the time. Should have gotten in deep trouble with what I was doing out but by God’s grace He kept me safe. 
 

 

[WendyLady]

We would sneak out during sleepovers and just walk around the neighborhood at night. It seemed fun and mysterious, but nothing bad. 
 

We haven’t let our kids have sleepovers, which seems to have limited their sneak-out opportunities. 
 

But I don’t think that meant our kids were always where they said they were going to be. One day I was driving dd3 to a violin lesson and I passed dd2 driving a boy in her car - she was supposed to be up at her friends house (different direction!) I called dd2, she had to take the boy home and go home. She was very limited in her chance to drive that summer. I think it was actually not a big deal, but I needed her to know she needed to be honest about her plans, etc. 

It’s a funny thing to go from no sleepovers and knowing almost everything our kids were doing, to sending them to college and going for the best... sending our oldest dd to college helped me see that I needed to give our younger kids more independence.

[stephanier.1765]

Religiously! My parents were very strict so I had to be home while everyone else would still be out having fun. I'd go straight to my room, turn on the radio to a low level to help disguise my comings and goings, and then head right back out the window. Even worse, I didn't have a driver's license but I would still roll the car down the drive way and then head off back to my friends. There were plenty of times I headed out my window even before those teen years to sneak off with my neighborhood friends. I was a rotten child.

To head off the the desire for my children to do the same thing, we just asked when they would be home. If it was 2 am then it was 2 am, but we wouldn't need to worry unless it was later than that. Oddly enough, it was rarely that late. Usually they would be home before midnight. And never once did they not come home by the time they said they would.

[teachermom2834]

No. It wouldn't have occurred to me. I am just a rule follower and my parents were strict so if they found out I can't imagine how much trouble I would have been in.

However, I did do something once that was so stupid I still think about it pretty regularly. (Sorry - Off topic!)  I was sleeping over with a two friends and we went to a dance at a local high school (that we didn't attend). We got a ride there from one of the parents but we had no ride home. We still wanted to go, though, so we all told the parents we had a ride. When we left the dance on foot we starting walking toward the house we were staying at. (It was a long way. Not sure how far, now, but it was not the local high school. It was at least a town over so several miles). Our plan was just to walk and attempt to hitchhike. So there we were walking in the dark and attempting to hitchhike. The first car that stopped we didn't like so we declined to get in but then we got in a car with two young men. They drove us where we were going, though they did seem slightly annoyed that we really just wanted a ride and nothing else.

What the heck? What a stupid thing to do. And we weren't stupid girls. It is what I always think about when I start to say that my kids would never do something. 

I think run of the mill sneaking out would be less dangerous than getting in cars with strangers! But I wouldn't have done that. Teenage brains.

[purpleowl]

No, never sneaked out. And as far as I can recall, I was pretty much always where I said I would be and/or with who I said I'd be with. (Okay, my parents didn't know how often I went to the Burger King drive-thru for breakfast on my way to my dual enrollment classes.)

I voted "other" on the question about my own kids because my oldest is 11, so my "no" wouldn't be terribly meaningful at this point. 😉 

[RootAnn]

4 hours ago, WendyLady said:

... sending our oldest dd to college helped me see that I needed to give our younger kids more independence.

I remember my upbringing enough that I saw this coming. My DD commented several times that I was the most permissive & least check-in-with-me of all the parents of her local friends. Half of them are the oldest children so that makes sense. Another mom worries a lot. As long as my kids don't give me reason to distrust them, they can pretty much do whatever. They need to let me know where they are going & when they will be back, though. 

As far as me, I chose "other" because while I didn't sneak out of the house, I did climb out of the 3rd story window of a hotel in Portugal in broad daylight (and the nuns heard about it & took turns staying up to monitor my side of the hotel to keep us from sneaking out to party with the local boys). I did it just to see if I could. I also did the telling my mom I was one place when I was really another a couple of times. Mostly because I was grounded for (being caught) having my boyfriend over during the day when no one else was home. (!)

[73349]

I had no money, no car, nowhere to go. It never even occurred to me.

[Momto6inIN]

I didn't have to sneak out because I was too good at lying to my parents and telling them stories they wanted to hear instead of what I was actually planning on doing. I never got caught, but I wish I had sometimes because I have a lot of regrets from those escapades ...

I worried for years that my kids would grow up to be teenagers like me, but oddly enough they aren't. Thank goodness!

[Pippen]

My friend and I would sneak out and toilet paper houses. 

[rdj2027]

No, I was a homebody and had no interest and as my mother was very permissible, I had no reason.  My kiddos also have no interest and are free to come and go as they please.

[Farrar]

I picked other. I didn't have to sneak. I was way unsupervised. I mean, occasionally there was some subterfuge, but mostly I just walked out the door and no one noticed. Once when I was 16, I got "caught" and I remember being confused, like... I can't go walk around at 2am? Why not? You've never tried to stop me before. I think my mother was deeply exasperated by me. It wasn't "innocent" necessarily. I'd meet friends... we'd break into swimming pools in the summer a lot. That was fun, especially when you were too poor to go swimming any other way. And I was sexually active. But I also am not necessarily against that for my kids. I mean, I don't really regret my teenage decisions on the whole, so if my kids also snuck onto football fields with binoculars to stargaze or into community pools to swim at 3 in the morning or to be the last customers kicked out of the Taco Bell in the middle of the night or to have totally consensual sex as older teens... honestly, I'm not that upset. We used to take over playgrounds in the dead of night a lot. I remember thinking that was fun. We'd bring wax paper and make the slides go crazy fast.

I'm pretty sure my kids have never snuck out. I would worry about them a teeny bit more because there's a curfew here. Also, we live in the inner city. I feel like it wouldn't be super safe. I committed most of my neighborhood recreation breaking and entering in Cary, NC, which was just a really dead suburb. But they're just not the kind to do it.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Farrar