My "kids" are grown now, but I thought it might be fun to start a thread about how we can "trick" our tricky teenagers. Maybe some who are going through the "fun" teenager stages with their kids can pick up a few pointers.
When my daughter was learning to drive there was a licensing rule that any new drivers were only allowed to have one passenger in the car with them. My mother's instincts told me my daughter was driving more than one of her friends at a time, so I decided to get a bit sneaky.
I snapped all the seatbelts in the back seat shut. If daughter had more than one friend in the car, they would have to sit in the back and that would mean they would have to open up the seatbelt to wear it. Well I caught her the first time. I went down to my car and noticed the back seatbelts were undone. I immediately went upstairs and reprimanded her for driving more then one person at a time (but I didn't tell hew HOW I knew *S*). I then went back to the car and resnapped the back seatbelts. Well if she didn't do it AGAIN!!!! Now I was hopping mad and she was grounded, etc., etc. Again, I resnapped the back seatbelts and AGAIN she broke the rules. Now hubby jumped in and there was an all out war.
She finally started to follow the rules but when she got older she wanted to know "how" I knew she was breaking the rules? Apparently she and her friends tore the car apart one day looking for a camera or microphone or something that would give them away but they just couldn't figure it out. I told her what I did and she just stared at me with her mouth hanging open. It was so simple and didn't cost me a dime but I knew every single time when she had more than one passenger in my car.