would you let your teen holiday with friends with no parental supervision?...

[MamaRuthie]

its schoolies week in Australia at the moment which is when kids who have graduated high school go on holidays with just their friends and its usually a big mess

makes me think about when ellie is going to be that age she is obviously goiung to want to go but it makes me scared

would you let your teen say 17-18 go on holidays with just their friends and no prarents?? would you trust them??

 

[cybele]

I think schoolies and general holidays are two completely different kettles of fish, one doesn't usually go on a holiday with the intent of spending the entire week drunk and non-stop partying with thousands of other drunk non-stop partying teenagers.

So I guess I will answer them separately.

General holidays, my 17yr old has a friend whose parents own a beach house and their group has gone down there for new years the past two years, I assume they will be doing the same this year. I don't worry about them, I know his friends and they're all pretty sensible, I am sure that they do some stupid crap while they are down there, but they are teenagers and I believe that stupid crap is part of their job description. But all in all, they are yet to give me a reason to be worried.

Schoolies. Well, I didn't get to do schoolies, my parents strictly forbade it. Then I met my now husband and I went as a toolie when I was almost 19, mainly as the supplier of alcohol as him and most of his friends were underage.
My 19yr old went last year. Um, yeah, I'll be blunt, she did some really stupid shit and I doubt she was sober for a second of it. I got a few text messages, received two phone calls during her absence and I have seen the photos. However, my philosophy is that it is one week in a lifetime, so I turned a blind eye. It's not the way everyone would deal with it, and I both respect and understand that, but that is how I have chosen to approach it. Overall she's a good kid and as long as the schoolies attitude stays at schoolies, then I am okay with it.

 

[TabascoNatalie]

I was 16 or 17, went camping with classmates. All the parents were convinced that other parents are coming, so they don't need to :cute:

 

[akmom]

I'm in the U.S., so I'm not familiar with any cultural practices unique to Australia, such as "schoolies."

My parents allowed me to go camping with friends as a teen, and I would do the same with my kids if they are trustworthy at that age. Assuming they are legally adults (I think someone verified that's 18 in another thread), there's not much you can do about it if they choose to go. I mean, if they still live with you, I guess you can give ultimatums and hope for the best.

But if they are minors, and you don't feel comfortable with their judgment, their friends, or the event, then I think it is worth saying no. There is just so much that can happen in a situation where a lot of people are inebriated for a long time. Most rapes occur when alcohol is involved, for example. The chances of someone engaging in dangerous behavior (due to prolonged intoxication or drunk peer pressure) is high... such as driving, swimming, diving into a pool, alcohol poisoning, etc. It's not the best environment for novice drinkers, you know?

Personally, if I became aware of underage drinking or drug use (or had a compelling reason to suspect it), I'd report the whole thing to police. But over here, the legal drinking age is 21, so there's less opportunity for legal binge-drinking in recent high school graduates. Regardless of how I feel about it, I expect my kids to behave within the law. So that would be another preventive measure, in my opinion (if my kids absolutely insisted on going and I didn't).

 

[singledad]

We have a similar tradition, with thousands of 18-year-olds descending on beaches immediately after their final exam (with gallons of booze, of course). Whether or not I would let my daughter go, would depend on a number of things -
- her level of maturity/responsibility at the time. Basically, whether I can trust her to keep herself out of trouble.
- Who she wants to go with, how well I know them, and how much I trust them.
- Where they want to go. Some places are just traditional teenage hard-partying and binge drinking spots, others aren't.

I agree with Cybele that one should expect teenagers to do stupid things, but it is also true that, unfair as it is, being drunk among a bunch of equally drunk strangers, is one of the most dangerous places a young girl can find herself. So you can't just completely turn a blind eye to a week of drunken partying. There has to be limits. And I won't be there to impose those limits....

Scary thought, to be honest... :/

 

[IADad]

...and frankly as the dad of boys, it scares me almost as much, that one of them might do something in an impaired state that they would be responsible for.

Akmom, probably doesn't have to deal with "Spring Break" as much as we "contigous-ites."

Spring Break used to be a tradiiton where college students (primarily from the north) would take their spring break time from college and travel to a sunny beach somewhere, drink and do all the things drunk "kids" do. Over time this has gotten increasingly out of control, and now extends to some High School kids. I would never dream of allowing my HS kid to join in this. If they were college -aged and over 18, there's not much I can do about it, I wouldn't be funding it and would be sure to have some discussions about the difference between having fun/blowing off some steam and ruining someone's life and just how close those two things sometimes come to each other.

 

[IADad]

oh, and case and poin: I know of a situation a couple of years ago, between much older adults, who had a sexual history with each other, who were at an event, many people ended up getting quite drunk, and apparently the woman, went to the guy's room, stripped out of her pants and crawled into bed. He (who was, we believe, equally drunk) proceeded to have sex with her, she was not passed out or anything, never asked him to stop,etc...the next day she regretted her actions, and started talking about how she felt violated, that she was in no condition to consent, never mind the fact that he was in no apparent condition to analyse her condition. It was an ugly scene, that eventually calmed down, but it just illustrates how even older, supposedly more experienced and in control adults can make really bad decisions while drunk. Now, add the inexperience of youth to that equation and things get even uglier much quicker.

 

[mom2many]

Spring break here, and the answer is nope, not gonna happen.

This is one area I'm strict about. No parents, you don't go. I'm not handing you the card to do stupid stuff. They find enough stupid crap to do on their own. They don't need me to hand them carte blanch.

We let Sam go to Rock the Mountain a week of camping and bands out in the middle of bum fudge Idaho. There were no adults in their camp, but their were adults in the camp adjacent.

They kept an eye on the kids, but kept their distance. I was fine with that.

 

[cybele]

All our music festivals have gone to shit. We used to have really fantastic ones, now they're all niche music and drugs. Were coming up to festival season now so it will be interesting what happens, but last year a few were cancelled and the ones that stayed running had sniffer dogs at every gate.

 

[mom2many]

Sadly, I think, Rock the Mountain has stopped. Not cause of the rowdyness, but because they (the forest people) felt that there was to much of a negative impact impact on the environment.