Quote:
Originally posted by taxwonk
Give her an hour or two to cool off, call her home, and then apply whatever punishment or discipline presumably led to the blow-up in the first place.
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Concur, of course. However, because this is likely to be a recurring fact pattern, I would encourage the imposition of a rule that the teenager needing to cool off at someone else's house MUST MUST MUST call a third person, neutral and trusted by both sides, to let him/her know where they are. I suggest a spinster aunt, if one can be located. The rules can include the proviso that the trusted third party cannot disclose to the parents where the runaway is until after he/she cools off.
I now know of two separate occasions where "temporary runaway" teens (both girls, NTTAWWT) went to one of their many friends' houses, and Parents at Safe House never thought to call to tell Parents of Runaway she was there --- they assumed too much, or didn't realize the Runaway was spending nights upstairs, too --- and the police got called etc. because the Parents of Runaway couldn't figure out which of their daughters' twenty or so friends was acting as hostess, and all of the friends (at the daughters' instruction!) refused to answer questions. On one of the two occasions, the friends refused to respond even when questioned by uniformed officers, because they had "promised."
Neither girl had any idea how much trouble she'd caused by that simple instruction to her friends not to tell her parents where she was. It makes sense to play out the scenario in advance, so the potential runaway knows that it's not just her parents to whom she's causing agony.
