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.

Ruby, you're not alone. DS is 17 so just done lower sixth and his summer plans are:

1. Ibiza for a week staying in San Antonio (aka Seedytown)

1. Newquay for a week with another set of friends, all of whom are stoners to some degree or other (except ds who can't afford to risk being tested or he'llget chucked out of the TA)

1. Reading Festival

None of which will be remotely supervised, and dh and I will be in Tuscany while he's in Newquay and Reading so if anything goes wrong he's on his own.

They're never going to learn to be independant if you don't let them try these things imo.

17 better than 16 though I do not know why just is, obviously older but I can see me doing this at 17

Why all the no's?

I have a ds and would let him go.

I think sometimes people without teenagers can't imagine letting them do stuff when they're 16/17, but they really do grow up a hell of a lot between 17/18 imo.

I had my own bedsit and worked full time at 17, if my mum had given me more freedom I might not have been in such a hurry to leave home.

I love the fact that a GCSE student has found this and is giving us their point of view.

DD hasn't gone to Newquay in the end, she is going to Weymouth with a friend and her family next week, and she starts two jobs (one in Macdonalds, one as a lifeguard in a pool) after that. Well - that is the plan. She might have broken her arm (fracture clinic tomorrow).

She has got a day at Wireless and a day at Reading though.

Funnily enough none of the original group of pals are going to Newquay either. It was never mentioned again.

I'd be unlikely to let a 16 year old do this but yes to a 17 year old - I was at uni at 17 and entirely on my own running my own life.

Do you know you are right mumble at the moment my eldest is nearly 14
and it scares me to think in a couple of years this will be her. Actually if she has been trustworthy through the years worked hard and is in general a sensible girl then thinking how my DD has grown up since the start of High School then probably will. I stand corrected. And valium I left home at 17 too and perhaps it was as you said my Mum would not let me go to Glastonbury with my mates.

They do grow up so quickly. She has matured so much in 6 months. Am sure she will be even more mature when she is 17.

Like i said upthread she has been bombing around the city on a motorbike since December, it seems a bit silly to worry about the dangers of a Cornish seaside town.

Me and a friend went to Spewquay for a week when we were 23.

We felt old and sensible next to all the 16-18 year olds spewing their hoops up.

It was vile!

And at dd's exact age (16 and a half) I had left home and had my own job and flat, and was self sufficient from then on.

We were talking about it the other day - she is a really sensible and mature girl, but I wouldn't want that life for her. I will molly coddle her for a few more years yet I think.

Imnotmymum Are you ok? I didn't mean to horrify you

Its funny when I think to what I was doing at 16/17 even 15 I'm quite horrified, god knows what my mother was thinking or more appropriately where was my mother I don't think I ever saw her and she certainly never had any idea where I was. Going off to Shagaluf Magaluf for a week with her mates is virtually vanilla.

I guess its what they're used to as well, my DCs are regularly shipped off to Jamaica to stay with DHs family and they live a very unsupervised life while they're over there so I have faith they can handle the delights of southend-on-sun.

Also have to say I'm quite proud that she has funded it all herself, and even bought travel insurance without my suggestion and I'm just grateful all that lovely drunk vomiting will be a sea away from me for once!

I'd say yes. I had a very strict rural upbringing and even I went to a festival a week after my 16th birthday, then Ibiza a week after my 17th birthday. I was given a bottle of immodium and told to have fun.

Ruby, I went on precisely that kind of holiday when I was 16. Had a great time (but not incident free!) I think my parents had no idea what my friends and I were like because we all did well at school etc. so we were assumed to be sensible. They probably had no idea what magaluf was like either!

I, on the other hand, know exactly what Magaluf is like and what I was like, so suspect I will be a lot less willing to let my DCs do this when the time comes!

Oh Ive been wine I know exactly what its like but i sort of figured, I lived through it and I was a lot more into erm.. 'illegal substances' than DD1. I imagine there may well be a few incidents but I'm just trying not to worry and work on the basis that she won't do anything too stupid, I hope

If she was like I was at 16, I'd let her go.

Maybe because of recent campaigns (Newquay Safe) it is now one of the hardest places in the country to drink when under age.

The campaign stepped up after 2 young people fell off cliffs and died.

Cops meet the kids off the train and search them for alcohol. If they find any they are sent home immediately.

Any under 18s found drunk are taken in by the police, their parents are called to collect them and ss is called in their home town.

The pubs and night clubs are under dire threat of losing their lisences if they are found to be serving alcohol to under 18s.

The vast majority of drunken vileness is now adults - stag parties etc. which the police are less able to prevent.

I would!

When I think of some of the fab stuff I was allowed to do and how fondly I look back on those times, I couldn't possibly deny my child the oppertunity! Especially not whilst my mother is around to remind them that she let me!

Newquay, Magaluf, anywhere similar, no way.

Somewhere else, yes.

I went to various festivals and on "unsupervised" holidays from 15 onwards, had a great time. however these trips were not to places where the sole aim was getting blind drunk and rubbing body parts against as many members of the opposite sex as possible.

my parents let me out clubbing (once a month) when I was 14.

I also went to the South of France with friends when I was 16.

Somehow, I learned that it is awful if everyone around you gets pissed and drugged up, it is cary, the boys were all sweaty and disgusting and pissed, and I just realised it was not for me, that sort of thing.

So clever parents.

Shall I go ask my mum how she rigged it that she gave me complete freedom, she trusted me, and I ended up sensible(ish)? I was almost Saffy-like!!!

As a resident of Newquay I say keep your vile teenagers away, as I am sick of seeing unsupervised drunk children left here by parents who completely absolve any responsibility for them.

Bit harsh ^

Harsh? I am afraid it is true. People who live here hate the post GCSE exodus of unaccompanied minors.

They're not all like that, and calling teenagers 'vile' for being teenagers is harsh.