How do I get my parents to let me go to the mall alone with my friend who's a guy ?

You get them to see he’s smart enough to correct bad punctuation.

You demonstrate that you can handle increasing responsibility.

You ask them what their objections are and try to counter those.

You do what I did….you take your little brother with you. It worked for me. (Or little sister…or cousin or someone related to you.)

The other thing is this, you invite your friend to come to the house and hang out at your house where your parents can see you. You can watch TV and he can have dinner with your family. After you hang out for a month or so at your house, then they will let you go to the mall….they just need to know he is a nice guy. You can even arrange for them to drop you off and pick you up so they know where you are. That works, too. Trust sometimes has to come in increments…a bit at a time….and whatever you do, don’t break their trust or it’s back to zero again…and then it gets harder to do.

Good luck!!

@DarlingRhadamanthus – you’ve got it.

@TheOneAndOnly, let your parents meet the boy and see for themselves that he’s a good kid.

Yes, for a start, you show them that 13 years of life has taught you basic grammar and punctuation. That would show them that you’re above average in intelligence and that you pay attention in school.

I did not allow my kids to hang out at the mall; maybe your parents feel the way I do.

I didn’t let my kids hang out at the mall at your age unless they were with a group, and someone’s mom was shopping at the mall while the kids “hung out.” At the time, the reason was that I didn’t want to be the mother of a mall rat. Kids were always welcome to come here, go to the park in the neighborhood, go to the pool, ride bikes, have a cook-out, watch a DVD, work on a service project, play board games.

I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall to hang out alone until I was old enough to drive myself there (and by then, we went there to go shopping or go to the movies with our own money). Will your parents allow you to go to the mall alone at all? Before trying to get them to allow you to go with a boy, you should see if they will let you go with some girl friends first. Do not be surprised though if they are against you just hanging out at the mall. I do not plan on allowing my kids to do so.

OH i just realized my horrible grammar,spelling and punctuation. x) MY parents aren’t really open like that marinelife. ): And well… my parents are parents of a mall rat lol. I’m there every weekend. None of my friends from school live near me though so i cant do that. Plus,my house is very boring and hes shy so he’d feel ackward. sigh Thanks for the advice though guys.

And i highly doubt they will allow me to take my sibling! Me and my siblings dont really get along.

First, now most malls will not allow a teenager in their mall, unless the parents are nearby. this is a safety feature of the malls that i agree with. after all, the mall is not a babysitter.

my daughter is a good kid. she gets good grades, is respectful at home. I let her hang with other kids and some are boys. she knows she must have her phone on at all times and I have to know where she is, what she is doing and whom she is with. She is allowed to go to the mall with her friends. They buy popcorn, bracelets, stuff like that. They don’t spend all day there. It’s ok with me. I think if your parents know where you are, and what you are doing, they’ll lighten up.

The malls around here will call the parents of unsupervised kids and make them come get them. You have to be with an adult to be wandering here. I agree with this.

Okay….I was just going by what my straight-A, intelligent, class officer, non-trouble making, in bed by 11, gorgeous nieces do (with permission from their parents who drive them there)....they do go to the mall. It seems that a lot of people on this board have objections to that….I suppose in some areas going to the mall is probably “dicey”. I raised my own daughter in “mall avoidance” because we were sort of into alternative health, shopping and alternative (homeschool/unschool) education. So, for that reason, we didn’t go to the mall, when we could frequent smaller shops with Fair Trade or handmade items or ethnic items or even vintage things. However, that’s not how my brothers are raising their own teens. Hence the following:

My nieces do go to the mall——they go window shopping with their friends, and some of them are boys (that are coached by my brother and if any of them do anything, they won’t be playing ball!) They all know their boundaries because they were raised to respect their parents. The mall is (unfortunately) the only entertainment venue in a town that is out in the sticks. The movies are there and they can sit and have something to eat and chat and it is during the day, then, my brother or sis-in-law will pick the gang up and bring them over to their house where all of them spend Saturday evening, shooting hoops, bar-b-queing and just generally being teenagers. It’s all really great. My brother and sis-in-law know the boys (all of them) and their families and the one boy who is interested in my niece is also now part of the group, too….so it’s all quite harmless and fun and they get to keep an eye on them, too.

Just let the parents get to know the boy….and it will all be okay. Invite him to the house or invite him with a group of people.

@DarlingRhadamanthus The mall where I grew up now has a curfew for minors. A few years ago, they handed out fliers to parents as they were dropping off their children stating what teens had been caught doing at the mall while without their parents. The flier included things from stealing, to performing oral sex, and having actual intercourse in the bathrooms. The mall got tired of dealing with it and had many businesses complain that the teens were causing them to lose customers (some even threatened to take their business elsewhere). That is why they enacted the curfew about a year after they started passing out the fliers. They also closed down the movie theater and the arcade.

@Seaofclouds….Whoa! I am out of the loop! What has been happening?? This is a long way from cruising the Dairy Queen to see who is hanging out there, huh?

Where is the mall @Seaofclouds? That is awful! So sorry to hear that. I guess the area where my nieces go….is relatively safe still…or they would not be allowed to go, either.

Thanks for sharing that information as sad as it is.

@DarlingRhadamanthus It was the Christiana Mall in Delaware. It’s not in a bad area, it just attracts a lot of business (especially around the holidays). It is located just off the interstate and Delaware does not have any sales tax. During the holidays, people from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland frequently make the drive to avoid sales tax. Having businesses pull away from the mall would have seriously hurt it. According to this the curfew is only on Friday and Saturday nights. I haven’t been there in several years, but I’ve heard it has made a big difference at the mall.

I was just going to say the same thing as @john65pennington Our mall doesn’t allow teens inside without an adult.

I was about 12 when my parents started letting me hang out at the mall with my friends. My mom was always at the mall as well, and we’d arrange to meet up again at a certain time and place. I don’t remember us ever getting into trouble or having problems. We just window-shopped and people-watched.

However, when I was 14 I was asked out by a boy for the first time. We planned to meet at the mall. My parents would only let me go if I took at least one friend with me. My mom also stayed at the mall. This was back in the dark ages before cell phones. I never gave my parents reason to not trust me, so by the time I was driving I had no curfew and was trusted to do pretty much whatever I wanted.

No matter how “awkward” your friend feels, he needs to get to know your parents if he wants any kind of trust to be established. Have him over for dinner. If that’s too formal and intimidating, rent a movie and order pizza. When school starts up, do homework together. It will probably also impress your parents if HIS parents call them and make an effort to get to know them. Show your parents how responsible you are, and stick to their rules. Eventually they will give you more trust and freedom. Try to remember that they care about you and are protecting you. It really is better than having them let you do whatever you want because they can’t be bothered.

You are only old enough to go to the mall alone with a friend when you can ask a question in fluther with proper grammar, especially, but not limited to, punctuation and capitalization.

@Seaofclouds…..I’ve actually BEEN to the Christiana Mall! But that was ages ago! (AGES!) I think it was in the mid-80’s. It wasn’t like that then. :) LOL

@DarlingRhadamanthus It wasn’t that bad in the early 90s either. It started getting worse right at the end of the 90s. It really go worse in the early 2000s.