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.

we're quite a way off this kind of conversation too (dd is 2.6) but I wouldn't let my dd go. Never mind 16 year olds coming on here telling you "if you say no they'll resent you"... All 16 year olds resent their parents anyway.

I was still 15 when I finished my O levels, and I didn't have a massive post exam bender I saved that for my A levels because frankly I looked 12.

Depends on your DD.

I did a lot worse at 14 while my mother thought I was "at a friends " .

Calling the place I live vile because people all over the country send their teens here on a piss up is harsh, specially as it that which makes our town vile.

I have teenagers. They live and go to school on Newquay, they and the majority of their friends also get fed up with their town being a spew fest and full of anti social behaviour every July.

My first foreign holiday (not with the school or parents) alone wasn't until I was 19 and at University. I'm quite at those that went on holiday on their own at 16

..... just remembered what i did after my O levels. My mum was doing a lot of work in SE Asia at the time, so I flew out with my sister to meet her and we stayed with friends and spent most of the time on the beach and hiking in the jungle so not exactly bible study at the local nunnery

I'd probably let my dd go, but that's quite a way off for us. If my mum had refused me to go at that age, I'd have probably just gone anyway, esp if everyone else from my year was going.

YANBU. For Newquay's sake, as well as my DCs'

I don't agree with calling it vile because it's a lovely place, which is why it's popular. It's a tourist place, and your town benefits from tourism. Whether its pissed up teens or not. Least it's not all year round

she can go if you go. you stay close but out of sight and she stays in touch. if her 30 minute check in is missed, she is grounded for two years. not only that, but you will appear amongst her mates, shouting, 'where is dolly daydream? it's past her bedtime!'

I fail to see how the town benefits from the teens coming here to get as obliterated as possible, and it also makes families reluctant to holiday here. When they come here they are vile, puking, pissing, shitting and shagging in the street. I am also an A&E nurse so have seen the other side of the casualties being wheeled in during the post GCSE madness. So no, I don't think they are doing our tourism industry a favour.

Hell no!

Glad it is sorted out now Getorf.

I don't know much about Newquay nightlife, but it does sound a bit much for young teens.

However, my advice would have been to let her go somewhere, but a little tamer. That way DD gets to have independence yet it is lesslikely that she would encounter trouble.

I was given pretty much free rein as a teen - at 16 I spent a week on a boat iwth a boyf. Also a week in Scarbrough (!) with my mates. We were pretty well behaved actually. I dont' recall eating much food though ??

At 17 I went to Ibiza (this was in the mid 80s) for a fortnight with friends.I paid for myself. We had a wild time - lots of drinking/sex/riding mopeds with out helmets.. Scary stuff really. But all was well.

My DS is 14. He is more reserved than I was at that age, but if he wants to go away at 16, 17 whatever I hope that I can trust his ability to look after himself to some extent.

In fact I worry more for boys than girls. I can see that it would be easy for youngish lads to end up in fights - even indadvertently - and there are lots of stories in the news about people getting into fights and stabbed anddying. Hm..

In general I call 16 an adult. You can guide a 16 yo, but I don't think can control them.

Right -going to go and enforce dinner time on dS now, I had better make the most of the two further years of control!!!

A few of my friends have DC that are going for the post GCSE party this year. None of them seem that keen on letting them go but they all caved in in the end I noticed.

yr 11 going away on holiday with sensible friends - yes
yr 11 going to NewQuay post GCSEs - no way.

I was asked this 2 years ago and said no. I know my daughter is sensible. It's the other people I was concerned about. I didn't want her having to be responsible for her friends (which she would have been) or to be exposed to the shambles which is NewQuay during the season and which I know she would have found terribly stressful. I said I was quite happy for her to go anywhere else.

I wasn't the only parent who said no.

Post A level she's just set off to day for a week in Greece but she's 2 years older and an adult now.

Oh well, I grew up in a crappy seaside town, and got sick of people calling it vile because the seagulls shit on their chips, or it pissed down all week and there was nowt to do other than crazy golf, so I see your point and take back the vile Newquay comment.

I would wince a bit at a 16 year old going on a deliberate piss up holiday like to Magalluf or San Antonio - because those kinds of holidays are geared up to young dafties getting trollied and shagging on sunloungers. So I don't think it is just the freedom aspect really, just the binge boozing element.

shifting I think you are right in that Newquay has got a terrible rep for being a piss up place, there is no way I would ever think of going there on holiday, I just assume it would be full of knuckleheads.

YADBU for calling Newquay vile. It is anything but.

As for the piss up - YANBU. My answer would be no as well. COuld you not suggest she waits till after her A-levels (if she is doing them?) or her 18th to go abroad? (and I am not suggesting Ibiza or Falaraci there - just a villa abroad with a few select sensible friends I live on cloud coocoo land don't I? )

Shiftinglard. I'm not from Newquay, but I totally agree with what you're saying. I find it so sad that this thread got to nearly 200 messages, and apart from yourself, everyone has been so concerned with their offspring that no one has actually mentioned that it may not be the greatest thing to do to go and invade a town, show absolute disrespect to the people who live and work there. Has no one thought about the effect on local residents?
'Oh they'll get drunk, puke up in a gutter, it has to happen sometime' said one. Would you be so flippant if they were throwing up in your front garden?

Is she a surfer? If not there's nothing to do except get pissed/ stoned and snog or worse. Unless she likes pasties and nature walks. I have a 15 year old and the answer would be an emphatic no, even if she was 16. DH spent a weekend surfing in Newquay a month ago, planning on roughing it a bit. He had a look about and promptly checked into the nearest 5 star hotel as it was like a school trip in the seventh ring of hell. Fuck, what is it with all this prom, celebratory hols after GCSEs stuff....? I blame Harry Potter and Jack Wills. NO I say, bring back feeling UTTERLY UNIQUE AND EXTRAORDINARY with the assistance of small swig of terrible, terrible cider in a field:)

BTW, it's not Newquay that's horrible, it's the clientele. But it is encouraged as it's a fab money spinner. Torquay used to be beautiful once, so did Ilfracombe, even Plymouth has a real beauty to parts of it. But money is money innit? Other wise I imagine there would be far stricter policing there, bearing in mind we are talking about 16 year olds, not 18 year olds.

I find saying no to this sort of stuff really hard, as I got up to it all . I had very liberal parents and they would have said yes, given me the spending money and probably driven me down there as well.

But knowing what I go up to all those years ago makes me afraid...very afraid!

I wouldn't hesitate of second guess myself, my answer to Dd when she is 16 will be "Hell no!"
We'll do a party and all the other kids who were told no can come, I bet it'd be pretty packed.

of = or

16 years old.

• Can join the army and learn to kill people.
• Used to be able to buy cigs.
• Can have sex and get pregnant.
• Can work full time and pay income tax.

• Can't drink alcohol.

How many of us waiting until our 18th before we had a drink? I say judge how responsible/irresponsible she is, and if you think she's clever enough to get drunk but not dead then let her go.

Don't give her reason to rebel otherwise when she goes to uni she'll be as naughty as she can and in worse ways.

YANBU.

I remember reading about someone dying after over indulging in alcohol there.

lolol at 'I blame Harry Potter and Jack Wills'

So do I the pair of bastards.