Well I thought I would follow up on how my middle daughter is doing.

We went to court with her for her first set of charges for being a minor and drinking alcohol. The Judge gave her in-home detention for 17 days, until her next set of charges could be dealt with. She even has a detention worker who makes all the rules on a daily basis as she checks in and stops by the house to see how April is doing.

It's been five days now and she is doing ok. So she is now allowed to have friends come over to visit.

We were happy about that. Now she is not bugging us to death. We can actually get some things done without baby sitting her.

We have talked a lot while she has been home. About how not to be bored. What kind of things you can do when you are on detention to make the time pass. We also got on the subject of how easy it is to be at home with your own bed and your books and things, instead of being in jail with nothing but the low grade essentials everyone else gets.

Which we hope it will be a reminder to her when she gets herself through all of this, not to make other bad decisions.

She is lucky one more time, because mom and dad get sent the bill for all her boo boos. When she is 17 that will all change. She will no longer go to juvenile court. She will then go to adult court.

Home Detention is pretty cool for a troubled child. It is just like being grounded but more intensive. They essentially get cut off from the outside world. The only time they leave is for court or with the court detention worker or their parents. No telephone. No computer. No friends over.

Everything has to be earned back. It can go as easy as it comes also, if you abuse the privilege. The one nice thing about it is that as parents, you don't get the backlash because everything is set down from the judge, which demands respect.

So controlling an out of control person is so much easier. They know if they mess up, it's back to see the judge.

I am just glad that she has respect for the judge or this could be so much harder on all of us.

Well 17 more days to go of in-home detention, which is something parents should look at for hard to handle kids while they are young enough to be taught respect for the parent. It would work wonders for keeping them in line and out of trouble, if you can implement it and teach a child respect for freedom prior to having the court mandate it as punishment.

Just something to think about for all of us parents out there with the strong willed child, living in our home.