Teen girl defending convicted felons.

My daughter is 16 and we've always been super close so she tells me everything that is going on in her life. We used to never fight badly but I've found a sticking point and we are butting heads daily.

Started out over the summer, a neighbor guy (19) who had been living away from home for 2 year. Without going into too much detail he was on probation for a felony for breaking and entering trying to fuel his then drug habit. My daughter quickly let their old friendship fall back into place, my daughter has the goal in life to become be in a job where she can't ever have a criminal record. I sat her down discussed being guilty by association if this guy were to do something wrong again. The kid only lasted 2 months before being sent back to jail for violating his probation.

Daughter and I got into a heated argument because I made a comment about him being a criminal she said I was being judgmental and didn't have a right to be. I told her NO a judge has deemed him a CRIMINAL!

So then a couple weeks ago she mentions that she was out with her friends and another friend let it slip that one of them was missing because he got a new mugshot. This time the guy is 18 and on probation for drugs (I looked it up after my daughter told me about it) and got in trouble again for careless driving. So daughter was again upset that her friend was back in jail and told me.

I started to try to again discuss with her the friends she's clinging to and how she can get in trouble by just being friends with them. That a cop will quickly charge her too if she were out with them and they got caught with drugs or stolen property. I told her it would ruin her entire life to have charges like that following her around.

She went to bed last night not speaking to me at all because we got in a huge fight over this , she tried to throw it in my face that I did bad stuff as a teen but I was just lucky enough to not get caught. That's not quite how it was, I admitted to doing drugs as a teen, drinking when I shouldn't of etc... but I wasn't carrying drugs around it was a social thing, I wasn't driving drug or carelessly ever. I pushed the limits yes, and yes I hung around a lot of guys I shouldn't have but that is because my mom had her head in the sand about life with a teenager. She screamed at me how she could be out doing drugs or drinking that it's been offered to her but she knows better then to do it. I told her I was proud of her for those choices but she still needed to make better choices in her friends and not cling to guys that are on probation and not learning from their mistakes.

It's one thing to make a mistake as a late teenager get yourself in trouble and learn from it but both of these guys she's defending to the hilt haven't learned one bit which is obvious from their rearrests. I just want her to not fall victim to the guilty by association and make some better choices then to think these guys are okay to hang out with.

Hell the cops had to come to MY HOUSE and search for the first one because when he violated his probation because my daughter was a known friend of his and we lived close. That should tell her something right there!!

Any advice on how to handle this without driving a larger wedge between us.

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