Open Writing

Like most parents I'd hoped that when my kids were past the 'teething age' I could take a good night's sleep for granted - minus the occasional wakeful night when they were ill.

Happily that's been the state of play for many years now. I even trained Only Son to sneak into Eldest Daughter's room to complain of feeling ill in the evenings, as she's usually still awake and more sympathetic than mum or dad.

In recent years E.D. has had her revenge, she has adopted the horrible habit of 'clubbing'. This habit condemns millions of poor, questionably, 'over-protective' parents, to wave a fond farewell to a good night's shuteye.

Note for clueless parents of pre-teens;- 'Clubbing' involves an expensive evening out touring the pubs, followed by a few hours in a Club. When the Clubs shut, at the ungodly hour of 2 or 2.30am, your teen then joins a mammoth queue for food or taxis, which is where most of the trouble starts. This queuing and taxi-sharing means your teen finally gets home around 3.30am. Meanwhile you're free to lie awake half the night worrying.

My regular worries go something like this; what if all is not well? What if E.D. ends up alone in a taxi with a dodgy driver? What if, as recently happened locally, she mistakes an ordinary car for a taxi, realises her mistake, leaps out and ends up in an accident or wandering around alone in the dark?

What if, after being safely dropped off by a taxi at the end of the drive, she is followed home and attacked on the doorstep? (Yes, this did actually happen and the girl was found dead outside her own home next morning)

Eldest Daughter, like most teens, thought 'The Parents' were completely paranoid and neurotic and was convinced all our worries were the result of listening to too much news and reading too many papers.

We were condemned to lying awake worrying all night until she finally breezed in sometime around dawn and then proceeded to sleep most of the next day away, leaving us to drag ourselves up at our usual hour and struggle through the next day half-asleep.

Then a friend (a strapping lad of six-foot-plus) was first mugged and on another occasion attacked. Next a couple of friends had a bad experience of modern-day highway robbery. They were locked in a taxi whilst the driver tried to scare them into paying more fare than they'd previously agreed (not by one of our excellent local firms, I hasten to add)

When I recently forgot to mention I'd be out when she got home from college and wasn't back at my usual hour of 3.45pm after collecting Only Son from school, E.D. had her first taste of what its like to worry about other people!!

These days we compromise and operate the ACS or Alarm Clock System to cover nights out. We agree to set an alarm clock on the landing near our room at a time when she should be home. If she returns home safely she shuts off the alarm and mum and dad get a normal night's kip. If the alarm goes off we wake and start ringing her mobile, her friends or the Police.

It's a good system that works well most of the time. In a year or so of using it we've only had a couple of 'alarms'. The first time we locked up as usual - including putting our door chain and extra bolt in place - which meant, of course, that ED couldn't open the door and had to phone us.

Our second alarm was last week when E.D. forgot her key. There's nothing like a phone blaring out at 3.30am that's guaranteed to get a dad leaping from his bed in a blind panic, followed by a frantic mum.

There's nothing like the resulting pints of adrenaline pumping through your veins to guarantee you'll be wide awake for hours with enough spare energy to tackle a Marathon - whilst your apologetic teen drifts off to the land of nod.

When I was a teenager, Nightclubs were for Thirtysomething adults who'd left home long ago. I had to be home on the last bus or face a long walk and a good telling off. Way back then, sometime in the Ice Age, getting a taxi was unheard of unless there was a medical emergency. Those were the days, my friend........