to say to 16 year old dd 'no, you are not going on a post-GCSE piss-up to Vile Newquay?

[GetOrfMoiiLand]

Apparently I am the only mother in the entire United Kingdom who has said no.

She has said that she won't drink, she just wants to go because 'everybody in year 11 is going, mum, and I will feel left out'.

She evidently thinks I was born yesterday.

Also LeQueen coffee, kir and Ile St Louis has transported my to post A Level days and summoned the same sense of wistfulness I get walking through St Pancras seeing the Eurostar signage on the way to work. Thanks god I don't take my passport to work!

I went for a week when i was 16 (just turning 17) with friends and had an amazing time, remember it like it was yesterday There were sights my mum and dad wouldn't have wanted to see tho and i certainly wouldn't have promised not to drink and it was 15 years ago so IMO depends on your daughter and her friends, how well you know them etc. Is there a compromise? Somewhere else a little less, er, touristy, in a smaller group and closer to home? Who'd be paying for it/transporting etc? Is it the going away or the location thats the prob?

these newquay beanos are totally beyond me, i could sort of understand if it were a university end of degree thing but 16 year olds?? it's quite shocking that parents let them at all - and bet the locals love it

it's quite a middle class thing isn't it?

I was staying just outside Newquay last summer (late July) and we went there in both the day and the evenings quite a few times... it actually seemed rather dead, totally unthreatening and mild, and we had a nice time there.

No decent restaurants to speak of, although the Christian surfing cafe (we live large, we do) up the hill from the aquarium did the best milkshake I've ever had...

I'm really bemused at the reputation Newquay has from reading this thread!

I would speak to other parents. I bet you're not the only one. ATM, with DD being not quite 7, I would err towards letting her go providing some ground rules about safety and sticking with your friends were laid down (if you believe she'd stick to them). Ask me again in 9 years' time...

I'm in the "yes" to holiday, "no" to Newquay camp
IMO festivals are a really good starting point, as at least there are stewards and st. john's ambulance and other sober adults who are not bouncers or rozzers to look out for them at bit. as long as they buy their drugs from a trusted source before they go.
Newquay OTOH - loads of other pissed teens to fight with, potential trouble with getting separated from your mates kicked out of clubs by bouncers. a gang of my nephew's (female) friends got chucked out of their holiday rental at 4am by the owner following noise complaints. One of the mums had to drive down from Surrey to pick up 4 drunk, cold, scared 16yo girls.

My cousin's eldest son wanted to go to Newquay after GCSEs with his mates and the various parents all got together and agreed that the only way they could go was if some of the parents went along to police them! The kids went as planned and my cousin said it was a bl**dy good job they went along too because they had various scrapes to sort out.

It's a hard one - I was very a bit wayward at 16 and was already raving in fields and the like, and going out for a whole weekend at a time and would almost certainly have got wasted and done some serious snogging at the very least... (ironic that I fall asleep if I have more than 2 glasses of wine now but I digress)

HOWEVER, I actually think that kids are more mature now in many respects - perhaps because they are more informed, and most of them don't want to end the night drunken twats skidding on their high-heels before collapsing, skirts askew, in their own vomit - and I think if your DD has a good track record, then maybe you should say ok but put a curfew on it. Could you arrange to collect her (unseen to her friends) somewhere as a compromise??

The fact that Newquay is a vile cauldron of hen/stag vomit, is the appeal you understand?

Alternatively can you tell her she can invite some mates round to hers for a celebration or would that be considered boring and embarrassing?

I love and adore Cornwall and hope to live there someday, and LeQ's description of Newquay as the seventh circle of hell is spot on.

PILs live just round the corner and we went in one night to get cash out. It was like those zombie movies where you stand back-to-back with your guns out blazing away in order to survive. I swear I got grey hairs.

However - I went to Ayia Napa with two friends for 3 days for our post-GCSE piss up and all that happened is we got drunk (but not legless), friend 1 snogged a guy who looked like Bart Simpson, I came last in a lovely legs competition and friend 2 got chatted up by a barman with a comedy moustache. 16 year olds don't always end up unconscious in the gutter

Absolutely no way. I have a 16 yr old sister and she is not leaving the house until she's 25 if I have anything to do with it!

Really not sure what the answer is to this.

Bit confused as I grew up in Blackpool (assume people's opinion's of Blackpool will be similar to Newquay). I think if you're not from one of these places your view of them can bit a wee bit on the hysterical side. On the other hand though growing up in a place like that maybe makes you a bit more streetwise towards it iyswim.

I think it depends on your 16 year old and her friends. Is she a mature 16? Have any previous form?

On balance I think I'd let her go but on the condition she rings you at certain times, etc

I said no to mine. My concern was that she was sensible but some of her friends were wild. I already had enough angst with her feeling responsible for them on home territory. No way did I want her exposed to that type of pressure hundreds of miles away. She was relieved I had said no!

Mind you she is now 18 and off to Xante for her post A level bash this summer. but she's an adult now.

I grew up in Devon and from the age of 14 would go to beach parties, there was alcohol, sex and drugs, though I didn't partake of everything, at least not until I was older. I've had teen weekends away in Newquay as well, though my mother thought I was staying with a friend, we'd hitched a ride with some surfers and bunked down in random people's tents, plastered. It was a great adventure, but we were lucky to come back alive and utterly utterly stupid.

YANBU Gerorf

It's tricky, isn't it? I left home just after my 17 birthday an went to a Uni 500 miles away from my parents and lived in a flat with no telephone (or heating....but it had slugs!) That was in Glasgow where on a bad night you can get into easily as much trouble as you can in Newquay.

I would disagree with the poster that says that teenagers these days are more knowledgeable. They THINK they are more knowledgeable, but reading about it on the internet is actually a lot different to experiencing it. I think we are lot more protective of our children/teenagers growing up than was the norm 2/3 decades ago and hence I don't actually think they get to spend that much time away from home, understanding what being streetwise is, and getting a sense for what situations make you vulnerable - getting a 'feel' for what is stupid to do. That said, mobile phones mean that help is much more easily summonsed.

In answer to the question - it's down to how you feel about your daughter and how she will behave and whether she will cope with it. At 16, i would probably have done anyway, tbh - but I would funded it myself and wouldn't have expected any assistance either financially or physically from my parents.

(I was a much loved only child BTW. Just keen on doing my own thing and unwilling to listen to anyone. )

no at 16 maybe yes at 17/18

Whats your DD like ? That would be the key thing for me.

I was always given loads of freedomn and so never felt the need to rebel and was always pretty sensible. I always try and give my DC 15 and 13 the message that I trust them . So far so good.

Read the papers and you will see how the police are clamping down not only on the 16 yr olds but also on their parents if they are caught drinking, trying to get into clubs or drunk. do you really want a call to come and get your child? Yes, i know its fun and i know a lot of people did it but Newquay will really be fighting back this year as its reputation is scaring off other holidaymakers. alternatively, go there yourself with the kids and see the situation at first hand - if my girl wants to go away at 16 she can go to PGL or youth hostelling with a group not drunkquay!

Id have had no problem at all letting my children go.

None.

My kids have always been sensible, never drank or smoked or had girlfriends.

My son was 19 before he had a gf, my youngest of 18 still hasn't had one.

And they are good looking dudes too just sensible.

Alcohol + teenagers + beach + cliffs = trouble in my mind. Nobody ever drowned at Glastonbury.

Not a snowballs chance in hell. But then my three are AS.

Sensible men LeQ.

Funnily enough I spent New Years there a few years back and it was much less full on.

I think the fact uni students were out in force rather than hen and stag parties, plus the fact it's a huge fancy dress party and we were pissed, meant it was much less horrible.

Dawn I've been out in Blackpool and it ain't got nothing on Newquay for drink teens!

I wouldn't let my DD go 2 years' ago. She is now 18 and because she can pay for it herself, she is going off to Greece after her A levels with friends. Still not particularly happy about it so I think you are sensible saying no.

I let dd go to the Reading festival the summer after her gcse's.

She loved it .
She went to Newquay when she was 18 , said it was full of 16yr olds and the campsite was quite strict about drinking.

I would say yes.

drunk teens

mummyM that's a really good point - the Newquay elders have had it with the drinking. It might even be ok for your DD GetOrf