Al night party - no adults

[Kareninfrance]

We live in france where parenting seems to be quite liberal. My son (15, 16 in july) has been invited to an all night party where there will be no adult supervision at all as her parents are away for the weekend. I trust him completely (he didn't lie about the supervision, etc) but half these kids smoke and I'm scared to death about someone falling asleep and burning the house down. Am I being unfair as trust him as he is sensible?

[eedibops]

I would worry about kids that age drinking, then the drama starts, then fights and things getting otu of control, i dont think you are being unfair to say no, if he was mines i would say no, nothing to do with not trusting him, its the rest that are going i would worry about. xxxx

[longingforsomesleep]

DS2 is the same age and never in a million years would I let him go to an unsupervised all night party!!

DS1 is 18 and this year has been a seemingly endless round of 18th birthday parties. The horror stories all come from the parties that were unsupervised. When he had his 18th party - at home - we all camped out upstairs and dh and I took turns to occasionally pop down to see what was going on.

To be honest, I'm more worried about alcohol. DS1 doesn't really drink and is normally very sensible but for some reason he decided to really go for it at one party and we got a panicked phone call from his girlfriend to go and collect them (and take a bucket for the car journey .....). Because he doesn't really drink he knocked back a load of alcohol without realising just how it would affect him. He was so drunk it doesn't bear thinking about what could have happened if he'd been at an all nighter and been slumped in a drunken stupour somewhere. As it was his girlfriend, dh and I spent hours trying to get him to drink water, propping him up while he vomited and making sure he was OK while he slept.

[syl1985]

I wouldn't let him go over there.

I understand that you trust him, but can you trust the others with your son?
Smoking, alcohol and maybe drugs?
But, alcohol alone could easily cause more then enough trouble.
Then the pressure of the other teens.

Here try this, try that. Don't be so silly do what we do... Try to smoke, drink this, etc.

It's dangerous and maybe he might think it's childish to stay at home. But in reality it's far more grown up to stay miles away from such parties.

If he'd go to a night club then there's also security over there and other staff that do keep an eye on things and jump in when things are getting out of hand.

Here is only a group or drunk teenagers. No one to keep an eye on things. When things do get out of hand it'll be difficult to get out of there or to stand up for yourself and tell them:

'I don't do this or that'.

It's not that he's a teenager, even for an adult to be at such a party is a recipe for disaster. Things might go well, but if they don't.....
It could get really ugly, really quickly.

[Doinmummy]

DO NOT LET HIM GO! Personal experience

[MuchBrighterNow]

I think there's a big cultural difference between French teens and Uk ones. In France kids are included in adult life much more, they stay up late and are included in adult parties, going out to restaurants at night etc. and tend as a result to be, IMO, far more responsible in party situations.

Presumably the parents are comfortable leaving the child unsupervised, maybe there's a neighbour or someone else local keeping an eye out, or older siblings.

Why not ring the parents to find out exactly what the situation will be.

[chrome100]

Ha ha muchbrighter, I used to live in France as a teenager/20 something and can assure you that is not the case. There was a lot of getting shit faced, smoking, drug taking, drink driving etc - in fact more than there I found here.