To get DD out of a rave

Not mollycoddling but its not unreasonable to know where your dc is and for them to be home at a decent hour while they're children/developing frontal lobe and living at home. I dont agree with tracking, but honesty and communication are not unreasonable.

My thoughts
Yes when someone is 18 and an adult you can't confine them sure
17 is not 18
However as adults there are still rules, we have rules at work, its ok to have rules at home. If your partner said they were at x but were at y or would be home by 12 but stayed out til 6, you'd have a problem maybe? Its courtesy. Same if living in a shared house, its courtesy and safer to let people you live with know vaguely where you're going and when you'll be back.
Have fun, sure. But educate yourselves and your kids. The culture and the drugs have changed.

Oh well thats better then.. not like ketamine is causing irreversible damage to young people's bladders and kidneys.

lol she sounds brilliant, had the time of her life and obviously always had the plan to get collected when she was ready to come home/ down

Yeah see im on the opposite end of the spectrum. I have to worry about knife crime, muggings, rape. I know it can happen anywhere but I live in a city and its a fact of where I live. An 11 year old boy was stabbed walking home from school in January, just for no reason. At the moment we have this red vs blue shite going on in the secondary schools, extra points if you take a blade!

I would never, ever let my kids even get on a bus to go to school. Let alone walk the streets of a night. Id never let them ride a bike on the street. For ref my kids are 8 and 5 so they are a bit young for this, but thinking ahead, its just an absolute no.

Moving away is on the cards, and this is the main factor in our decision. Id love my kids to have the same freedom as yours.

I have to agree with @PixieTales here, that poster tried to involve me with a discussion about her individual situation, how she “had” to have tracking for a very specific reason.

We’re not talking about an individual DD situation, we’re talking about a general consensus and how parents should/shouldn’t track.

She is the minority (by a long way), not the majority.

its totally irrelevant to this thread, which of course is about the majority of older children turning adults.

I’m not ‘picking a fight’ I’m responding to someone who decided to interject themselves on my comment to another poster, then derail the thread talking about how eating disorders shrink brains and bringing up neurodiversity - non of which has any relevance to this thread.

So yes I will call that out.

@CuppaTeaBab yes of course your location affects your views and your perception of danger. I thought nothing of letting DCs walk to and from grandparents (15 minutes through woodlands and fields) when they was little. They're hardly going to get abducted by a badger, or mugged by a gang of voles.

By far the biggest danger to children, whether they are in a city or in the countryside, are car drivers. Avoid those - by avoiding roads, easy to do in most areas of the countryside - and your child will be safe. They do have tracking on their phones (life360), but reception is incredibly patchy so it comes down to trust. I trust them, and we live in an incredibly safe area where a loose horse will be the talk of the village for weeks so yes, I don't waste a moment worrying about their safety just walking around. They cycle a lot (mostly off road) and of course have helmets and lights to switch on on the road sections.

So basically, keep your children away from cars, and give them the best chances of being seen if cars are unavoidable, and they'll be fine.

Spiral Tribe, UK Free Party, UK Tek etc were always in woods or fields (usually without the landowner's permission). Pretty sure the same thing still happens.

We used to go raving in woods, fields, carparks... don't ever remember feeling cold!

Sorry to add to this, but I have been thinking about this a lot last this morning. I think the fact that some people are saying its crazy to behave like this towards your children, I even saw one compare to an abusive relationship, which is just ludicrous.

I live in a main city and would categorically never allow my children to do certain things. I was away at a family party yesterday, they live in a small rural village. My cousin allowed her daughter to walk to the shop, in the dark I was shocked, but then I get that they live somewhere different to me. When I was at school, I loved spending school holdiays at hers we had so much freedom. It made me think of this post and all of the conflicting views.

Does your location reflect your views?

This, don't alert her to his presence if not necessary. Patenting never gets any easier, does it?

I feel like people are acting like you've been proper paranoid here OP and I just want to say - if she implied shes at a party in the city and then you see her location is in a remote woodland location... yes you were right to worry!

They'd all have been kicking themselves if it had turned out she'd been grabbed and dragged out to the middle of the woods to have unmentionable consequences, and OP was sat at home thinking 'everyone thinks I'm overkill on mumsnet so we wont worry until tomorrow morning'

Let this be a lesson to her, let you know her location in advance so you don't have to worry. It's about responsibility nevermind that shes nearly an adult. She's NOT yet.
No, they didn't have location tracking in our day BUT she knows her mum DOES have location tracking and it is part of her life/upbringing. So if she knows her mum may well login and see her in the middle of the woods, then as practically an adult she should have the foresight to send her mum a message saying 'just to let you know, I'm here and I don't need a lift home'

You need to read the OPs updates

Leave her to it. But when you next see her (sober) have a genuine conversation with her about never getting into a car with a drunk or high driver. And ask her how she got home from her party. Don’t mention you checked the location of her phone.

Stop picking a fight with the mother of a teen with an eating disorder about her own child. She has quoted scientific studies to back up what she says about brain differences and you’re still at her.
In case you didn’t open the first link, it says “A major study, coordinated by neuroscientists at the University of Bath (UK) with international partners, has revealed key differences in brain structure between people with and without anorexia nervosa.” that’s the opposite of a conspiracy theory.
She knows her daughter..you don’t. If she’s regressed by a couple of years then parenting appropriate to that age makes sense. Have some compassion for the love of God.

Thats extremely ironic considering you are the one who interjected yourself into my reply to a completely different poster to you - non of which had nothing to do with you.

There was literally no reason for you to quote me, but you did. You don’t like my response, that’s on you.

@PixieTales
You are making some big assumptions about my parenting here. I’m not going to engage any further, not because I believe you’re correct but because I think you are looking for a fight. And I don’t want one. So I’m going to step away now.

And like I said, which you have blatantly ignored, what does neurodiversity have anything to do with this thread?

No, sorry this is not scientific or correct.

People with eating disorders brains do not shrink - you are being ridiculous and yes we can all find an articles on this sort of conspiracy nonsense, it doesn’t mean it’s scientifically correct.

And even if it was, does that mean you treat a 17 year old like a little child? How is that meant to help their development and transition into adulthood? At what age would you deem them able to take accountability?

Or will they always be excused by you?

Your post is really unkind and factually incorrect.

The brain atrophies and reduces in size. Aka shrinks.

Largest university of Bath study to date https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/largest-study-to-date-reveals-stark-changes-in-brain-structure-for-people-with-anorexia/ cites sizeable reductions in three measures in the brain.

https://www.gaudianiclinic.com/gaudiani-clinic-blog/2015/11/2/how-anorexia-causes-a-starved-brain-understanding-cerebral-atrophy cerebral atrophy in the title.

Due to these structural changes, it is not uncommon to regress by several years.

That's literally insane.

‘The brain shrinks and takes a long, long time to recover’

Sorry you are just talking out your arse now.

A massive amount of it IS down to the parents. If you are tracking your 17/18 year old on an app, setting curfews and generally treating them like a little child, then yes the parents are stunting their adult development.

Why have you brought ND into this when it has absolutely no relevance to this thread?

Again... I dont understand parents these days. 3am, not in contact, possibly at a rave at 17 yet the concerned parent is at fault??