What do you do when they make "undesirable" friends?

[Surprise]

Bit of background ... we live in a small village, not far from a city, so consequently DD (14) goes to the local school, on the edge of the city. Most of her friends from primary live in the next village, so not too many girls of her own age to hang out with on an average weekend. Therefore, her friends tend to live in the city, and are far more street-wise,

Recently, she has started to want to go to youth club and into the city on a saturday, basically to hang around with a girl I don't like (from one of the roughest parts of the city). I'm happy for her to go into the city, but it seems as though this girl is hanging around with all the goths and many of them are 18 or so. Obviously DD thinks it's very cool etc, but I'm really not happy for this to go on. I think she's still far too young, and just wish that she would go out with some of her nicer friends. I have spoken to her about this new friend and tried to explain why I think she's not very nice (tells lies, exaggerates things etc) but I'd just like to think of more ways to discourage the friendship, as I do think she's a bad influence (wouldn't surprise me if she goes shop-lifting for example).

What would you do? My plan so far is to fill the weekends up with other things to do (avoidance tactics), but obviously I can't do that forever.

Do I just treat it as a phase and hope it will go away?

Or do I say that she can't go and mix with this crowd at all (but then I'm worried that she'll hate me and be all sneaky about it).

It's really worrying me, probably more than necessary but need to get some perspective/advice on this. Thanks.

[rainbowinthesky]

Ds is currently in his room with a boy I'd much rather he not be friends with but there isnt much I can do. He sees him at school every day and at other peoples houses all the time. Pointless to tell him not to be friends with him. You have to hope you have instilled them with enough maturity and morals to choose the right path. Ds is also 14.

[MrsBadger]

I'd find out more about this youth club

if it's well run and suoervised etc then you might be able to let her go there to see this crowd, even if you don't let her 'loose' in the city with them, iyswim.

[Surprise]

Thanks. Badger the youth club is run by local police and is at the school, but I don't think they check on whether the kids go in and out during the evening (it ends at 9.30). She has been with a friend that I know (and whose parents I know) so it's sort of okay, but still not happy with her choice of friends. As rainbow says I expect I have to hope that she is sensible enough not to get involved in anything daft.

[PositiveAttitude]

This is so hard. DD3 is now 16 and has lovely friends and has matured into a lovely young lady But when she was 14 she was very friendly with a girl that we really, really did not want her having anything to do with. I struggled with this for months and tried lots of different tactics that seemed to end up having the opposite effect than we wanted.

The one way that seemed to work for us was to back off a bit. When DD asked if she could go and stay with this girl we would encourage her to ask the friend to stay here instead. If she wanted to go over to her town to "hang out" with her, we would encourage them to spend the day at our house instead.

I REALLY didnt like this girl and it took every ounce of niceness in me to be as welcoming as possible to this girl and get to know her and "pretend" to accept her. All through this DD was aware that we did not want her to have anything to do with this friend.

As we did this DD started to lose interest a little and the second a new, very nice friend became mentioned we encouraged DD to meet her, had her to stay and were prepared to take them places and do anything for them to be together.

Now DD is far happier with the nice friend and will always choose her to see, be with. The other girl is now nearly off the radar all together, so result as far as I am concerned and DD and her friend are both going to college together in September.

Sorry for all that rambling, what I am trying to say is:
Dont push it too far, your DD may push against you.
Try to put up with the friend in your house, instead of DD going to hers.
Encourage any other friendships, even if it means being a taxi driver for a while.
Keep communication open with DD so that she can talk through any awkward situations she may get herself into.
Point all the positive things about your DD so that she is confident about herself.
IF you suspect any behaviour that you definitely do not want DD involved in (ie: shoplifting) discuss a "get out" plan with your DD so that she knows how to deal with it if she finds herself getting into a bad situation.

I have noticed with all my DDs that htey have had times of dodgy friendships, but ultimately they have all made good choices and have doen well with friends, but not after some hairy times and sleepless nights for me!!

Good luck.

[Surprise]

Positive that's really helpful, and very reassuring thank you. What makes it tricky for DD to have her friends here is that we are a bit out on a limb in our village and it is obviously very dull for teenagers. But will try to invent interesting things for them to do if necessary!