Drunk teenager- punishment or not?

Why don’t either of you drive? The £60 would be irrelevant if one of you did, that’s not for daughter’s fault. Yabu for not learning to drive. Dd is 18, some kids do this younger.

Get the hoover on, OP. 😈

The concept of "punishing" an 18yo is really bizarre. Make her pay for the taxi if you want (though it isn't her fault that you and DH have chosen to live in a rural location without your own transport) but definitely don't frame it as a punishment.

Personally, I would cover the cost of the taxi. You've said that your dd already feels bad about what happened, so hopefully she will learn from it. My priority would be to ensure that she would feel able to contact us for help in future if it happened again. If she thinks she might have to cough up £60 for a taxi, she might be tempted to get in a car with someone else who offers a lift...

Only punishment should be paying the money back

What she's hopefully learned from this is that at the moment she can't just get pissed without a plan like someone who lived more centrally could.

• She needs to be sober enough to remember to press the button on the bus

• She needs to be sober enough for a bus driver to allow her onto a bus

I mean, it happens, it certainly happened to me, but at worst I was a 1hr walk through well lit streets home, or the phone call of shame to either of my driving parents.

If she's usually sensible then she'll have learned. I think it can be a bit of a shock the first time alcohol really incapacitates you and it's not neccessarily something she could have fully predicted.

But now she knows. I'd give her a pass this time and go halves on the taxi.

i would not take her first paycheque - what an awful introduction to the world of work

you need to forget the £60

I think that she should deal with the consequences but not sure she needs a punishment. She should definitely go back to the pub today to thank the staff who helped her, maybe take a big tub of chocolate as a thank you, and repay the taxi money. Also apologise to you for stressing you out, but it sounds like she will do that. Binge drinking gets minimised but I'd also want to check that she understands the health risks and risks to her safety.

Ah I see. Well in that case, I agree with you.

She may have been spiked? If it’s very unusual it’s a possibility?

She needs to learn from this incident, not be punished for it.

She needs to know that she can call you any time of the day or night and that you will help her.

Next time she is in a sticky situation, she might not call if you punish her this time. And then she’ll be at the mercy of whoever is there.

Of course you don't punish her.

1. To be blunt, your inability to drive, albeit for justifiable reasons, coupled with your decision to live where there is a lack of public transport, is already putting her in a vulnerable position. You don't surely want to make things worse.

1. Personally I wouldn't make her pay the whole taxi fare either - again it's entirely not her fault that she has a domestic set-up that means there isn't even a taxi option she can reasonably use.

1. If it was only a cinema trip, and she is usually able to judge how much she's had to drink, can you be certain she hasn't been spiked?

Again, parents that don't drive, no local taxi, crap public transport, presumably living somewhere very small and quiet - she's really really vulnerable and you all need to work out how to reduce that vulnerability, not punish her for it.

I would not punish and feel like she will suffer enough today with her hangover and embarrassment. Of course, if she doesn't appear embarrassed/ apologise I would be reminding her of what happened and what it cost.

I wouldn't make her apologise to the pub - God, the shame. They are, after all, a pub, and deal with drunk people all the time. I guess you could go and say thank you as a parent, but I don't think a teenager turning up to thank security would be particularly normal/expected, and I think it would feel excruciating for her.

Good grief I was living on my own in London at 18. No mummy coming to collect me. She is lucky you all looked after her. If this is a one off I'd put it down to experience OP - I am sure her hangover will be enough. When she gets a job she can pay for the taxi, I hope she does get the job. Good luck.

possibly controversial but I wouldn't expect her to pay for the taxi given her living circumstances are out of her control. It's quite unusual to live in such a rural area that there is only one bus an hour and even more unusual to choose to live there when both parents don't drive, and I'm assuming that's not ideal for dd.

If she lived in a bigger town or city then there would be more buses, or taxis would be cheaper, or a friend could have given her a lift.
If either of her parents drove she could have got a 5 minute lift.

Me and my siblings all got too drunk at least once in our teens - dad just picked us up - no cost to anyone other than a 5 min drive for him - the only 'punishment' was the hangover.

I would have a talk with her about the danger she put herself in, maybe ask for a contribution to the taxi, but £60 is a lot for a teenager still in school. I'd be wary that if it happens again she'd just say 'fuck it' and walk, which would obviously be dangerous. Yes she did the wrong thing by getting drunk but she also did the right thing by trying to get home herself, and contacting you so I wouldn't come down too harshly on her.

Yes, I agree with this.

I wouldn't punish her, but I also wouldn't shield her from the consequences of her actions. She's an adult, and when adults get shit faced and end up costing other people money, they have to pay them back. No need for any drama.

My point is that if they punish their adult daughter, she won’t come to them when she’s in trouble, which is absolutely not what you want as the parent of a teenager, hence the hangover being ‘punishment’ enough.

I doubt she'll have a hangover anyway. I used to binge drink at that age - being ignorant rather than stupid, and I never had a hangover. I really wish my parents had explained alcohol better to me than giving me a single shot of vodka 'so you can feel what being drunk is like'. It felt really good to me so it wasn't a discouragement at all.

Could her drink have been spiked?
Another chat about safe drinking, not leaving your drink, not accepting drinks from others or you haven't seen poured etc might be in order.

We have 4 buses an hour till 8 which is quite good . It's only after 8 that it's hourly and she's never had a problem before.

<misses point of thread> I want to know where this rural place is that has 4 buses an hour until 8pm and hourly after that. I live rurally and we don’t have 4 buses a day let alone an hour and they stop at 6…anyway!

don’t punish her. The whole experience + hangover will be punishment enough and hopefully she’ll learn to drive soon

I think you may have missed my point there 😂

I can't get past how complicated arrangements must be if no one drives and there is one bus an hour. However to get to the initial question I would just leave her to her hangover and how foolish she must feel. She most likely won't do it again. Or have a better plan. Or an actual plan.

Punish an 18 year old adult? No, I'd just be having a conversation about her alcohol intake and making sensible decisions. I'd say she needs to reimburse you for the taxi when she gets a job.

Oh come on, OP, it's a rite of passage! I mean, she's 18 too, so it's perfectly legal. And stop meeting her from the bus stop - she's perfectly capable of walking home alone. You are way too involved and over-protective.
Just give the poor girl some tea and toast, and then let her sleep off her hangover.