After last week’s break, it’s back to ideas from my students’ persuasive essays. This week is one we can probably all relate to from our youth: curfews.
Show of hands – how many of you didn’t like the curfew your parents imposed and/or tried to stretch it as far as you could without getting into too much trouble? That’s what I thought, all of you!
Curfews are always a hot topic in student essays. Shockingly, I’ve never seen one that asked for a shorter curfew. One area students struggle in, though, is knowing how much to ask for. Instead of asking for a curfew to be extended maybe half an hour, they go right for no curfew or something like 2 A.M.
When negotiating, one should understand where the limits are likely to fall. Teenagers have a hard time with this (okay, so do adults at times), because they think they deserve everything all at once. Instead, the idea of working toward the ultimate goal takes a little extra time and work, but you take what you can get right out of the chute and go from there. Something is better than nothing.
Once I got my driver’s license, my parents installed a curfew of 11 p.m. I wasn’t really fond of this. After all, sometimes my shift at the grocery store ended at 10. That didn’t give much time for tomfoolery or skullduggery!
So I tried something risky. I came in one Friday night at 11:15. Mom, of course, was still awake and wasn’t very pleased. I got scolded, naturally, but nothing of much consequence. Thus, I did the same thing the next Friday. When Mom and Dad saw that the apocalypse hadn’t occurred and I was okay, they just said I might as well stay out until 11:30. Mission accomplished!
And then, after a couple of weeks, I started coming home at 11:45.
Is that a good way to argue for something you want, to flatly go against it? Maybe not always, but it worked for me. I ultimately extended my curfew to midnight, and even later once I had graduated, before I headed off to college.
Kids hate curfews, but they are necessary. After all, most teenagers will make some poor decisions the later they stay up. And when they’re out driving around, that’s a real concern. Most parents are probably similar to my mom, in that you have a hard time falling asleep until your child is home, safe and sound. I know I might be able to fall asleep, but I’ll quickly awaken as soon as I hear my daughter arrive.
Jayna hasn’t been too demanding about her curfew yet. We often vary it, depending on the day of the week and what’s going on the next day. This might change over the next couple of years as she nears adulthood and seeks a little more freedom. We’ll have to wait and see!
And all of us that disliked our curfews while growing up understand the reasoning behind them as we become parents. We now get that our parents were concerned for us. Let’s be honest. Many of us probably engaged in some shenanigans that we shouldn’t have at times. We might look back and know that we were lucky to come out of those unscathed and without a visit from the police.
Being a teenager is about stretching the rules and checking boundaries. Being a parent is about setting those boundaries and keeping the rules from being stretched too far. “Nothing good happens after midnight” is probably something most of us have heard, and many of us have experienced.
In New Ulm, our Friday and Saturday nights were often spent cruising Broadway. There were designated turnaround points at each end, and you could usually assume you’d see cops in those areas as well as around the police department, which was just about at the halfway point. So we knew where the boundaries were. Don’t drive over the speed limit, which seems obvious when you’re just cruising. Don’t drink. Understand the upper limits of how loud your music can be.
There were parties back then. But curfews tended to be respected. If you left a gathering earlier than most, everyone else got it. We had a level of respect, and possibly fear, of our parents to not want to push things too much. There wasn’t a lot of peer pressure to stay longer if you said your parents expected you home. I’m not sure that’s the case anymore.
The other part of curfews when we were young is that our parents didn’t know where we were if we didn’t tell them. And you’d better believe we were expected to tell them! That still holds true, but now it’s so much easier to track down your child. Phones allow you to see where the teenager is at that moment. If you really don’t trust your kid or want to know for sure where he or she is, that’s pretty simple. Also, a quick text or call and you know they should respond. I know I’ve used that route occasionally, which usually means Jayna’s about to pull into the driveway anyway!
As long as I teach persuasive writing, students will write about changing curfews. They will write that they understand the need for safety and concern. But they will usually have a hard time refuting those reasons for a curfew. They might cite trustworthiness, and that’s often something that works, though it has to be earned and built over time. Otherwise, you’ve got to be careful when bending the rules; if something breaks, you’ll be back at square one.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is nidifugous, which means able to leave the nest soon after being born, as in, “The parent tried to explain that children were not nidifugous, so they needed close watch and strict rules until they were 18.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!