AIBU to think you don't leave 6 teenagers alone for a week?!

[OtherParentsAreNuts]

Name changed to avoid trouble. This is a long saga, sorry!

A while ago DD1 (15 then, 16 now) came to me and asked if she could go on holiday with her friend, X. Apparently the deal was that X was allowed to take DD1, another girl, X's boyfriend and 2 other boys. They're all 15/16 years old. X's parents have a house in Devon, and had offered to take them all.

I was unsure, so DH and I probed a little. We were told that the house had 3 bedrooms - one for the girls, one for the boys and one for the parents. They would be allowed some freedom to go to the beach alone, and to go into the town. X's parents would drive the girls down, with the boys meeting them there. All of the kids would get the train back as X and family would go on to the South of France.

I spoke to X's mum and asked further about sleeping arrangements, views on alcohol, etc. I asked if they were crazy, taking 6 teens on holiday! She reassured me that they'd done it before, and X's older brother had often had friends round.

In the end, DH and I decided it was ok. We resigned ourselves that there might be some illicit drinking and kissing going on, but the parents would be nearby and on hand if there was an emergency.

Fast forward to July and DD1 went off. I gave her two bottles of expensive nice wine as a present for X's parents, and some cash so she could offer to pay for a dinner out or something. She came back on the train in one piece, having had a whale of a time.

Anyway, this morning I saw X's father in town. We got talking, I thanked him once again for having DD1 and said how much fun she'd had. I then jokingly asked whether he'd recovered from the sleepless nights with teenagers bouncing off the walls, keeping him up. He looked confused and said that he and X's mum had been in the South of France!!!

Turns out they dropped the kids off, packed the fridge and then left them whilst they went off straight to France. X's brother picked her up at the end of the week and drove her down to meet them.

SO MY DD1 AND 5 OTHER TEENAGERS, INCLUDING BOYS, WERE ALONE, MILES FROM HOME IN A HOUSE NEAR CLIFFS AND THE SEA! WITH AT LEAST 2 BOTTLES OF WINE!

I must have looked stunned because he quickly ran off. I went home and dragged DD1 out of bed, where she burst into floods. She claims that she didn't know that they would be left until it had happened. She claims she thought X's parents were staying. She claims that she didn't tell me as I'd have made her come home (too right!). She claims they were sensible and just hung out at the beach. I am not at all sure I believe a word of it.

She's currently grounded until at least 35. I want to go round and KILL both parents. They could have been hurt, killed, assaulted...they could have got drunk, smoked, taken drugs, had sex. I'm SO angry with DD1. It's not like her to be deceptive, but she has been. But worse, I'm so angry with the parents. You expect ADULTS to be honest and not deceive you.

I'm going over and over all the conversations with X's mum in case I wasn't clear with my questions and she might have said she was going away but I missed it. Unless I've gone insane, I know she didn't.

AIBU to go and kill them? AIBU to ground DD1 forever? AIBU to ask DD1 for a blow-by-blow account of exactly what she did? AIBU to think that you don't leave kids alone at 15/16!!

I would be a bit wary if it was my daughter as as stated she was only 15 at the time. I wouldn't be to concerned though unless she admitted to you she had been drinking (other than the bottles of wine)as drunk teenagers will almost never be thinking straight and with a mix of boys and girls I can see how it would be easy to get carried away and caught up In the moment and things she would never normally do! I would of lived this opportunity when I was 15 though haha. I would let it go and just stop imagining all the possibilities of what she could be getting upto as it cannot be changed now and I wouldn't bother causing anymore upset as she is probably feeling guilty anyway by the sound of it..

"I expect it was one of the best weeks of her life"

Indeed I expect it was!

If you make it clear that it wouldn't have been allowed unsupervised under and circumstances, then I imagine the biggest lesson she's learnt is that to have the kind of freedom and fun she wants she's going to have to keep it from you.

IMO you need to have a conversation with her where you apologise for going off the deep end, praise her for coming home in one piece and say you're proud of her for acting responsibly while there.

Say you recognise that she's growing up and needs more freedom. Explain that it's hard for you as her mum but you understand it needs to happen.

Explain that the biggest problem is actually the lying, and that you want her to be able to tell you anything, particularly if she's in a situation which might be dodgy.

Offer that in return for her promising not to lie to you again, that you will give her more freedom, and keep to your word.

Ask her if she thinks you're too strict about freedoms and listen to her.

*under any circumstances

The parents were in the wrong. It is not the fault of your daughter unless she deliberately misled you. She should, however, have let you know the situation
so that you could make an informed decision.

Just to parrot other posters, I think the issue here is with the parents, not your DD. Thinking back to when I was 15/16, I'd have rather died than ran the risk of my parents demanding I come back home from a holiday with my friends because the plans had changed. As an outsider looking in, it seems to me like your daughter really didn't know what was going to happen, and this tallies with the mother saying they done it before etc.

FWIW, when I was that age I was pretty sensible, albeit probably a bit "spirited" and 50% of my close friends were males. Believe me, I'd have rather stuck pins in my eyeballs than slept with any of them as they were my friends and I didn't fancy them or want to jeopardise the friendship.

My DD is only 12 but I can imagine feeling angry as well if this happened with her. It's easy for me to say, but go steady. She's not been totally honest, but if you rip into her now she will just put up walls and be more likely to sneak around behind your back. She's probably grown up a fair bit due to the responsibility of being away with friends and she'll remember the fun they had for years to come :)

Hope you manage to get it sorted OP.

i assume the OP meant that if she had sent her off with 2 bottles of wine the other parents may have done the same!

Your daughter could of called you when she realised that the arrangements were different to how you perceived them, she didn't because it suited her,

She is 16 not five, she needs to have some sense, If the parents were happy to leave their children, maybe they were lead by your daughter to think that you were happy,

unless you supervise your child 24hr a day, they have plenty of opportunity to have sex, you have to just keep them well enough informed that they chose not to.

oh if they were the bunch of teens that were left unsupervised(it's a very common thing)just round the corner from start point, then I can tell you precisely what they got up to.

I just let my 16 year old (rather sensible) son travel with 4 friends on a coach to London for the day (from SW so back 6.00am) to a breakdance event. I was nervous but when I started the 'you will be careful and sensible' routine he informed me that, no, he would actually 'go looking for random gangs of knife wielding thugs and start a fight then go to a crack den after getting pissed on cheap cider' I stopped then. he got back exhausted but very happy having had a great time.

quoteunquote I know start point well

Your daughter could of called you when she realised that the arrangements were different to how you perceived them

What really? Could she? Given how nuts the OP went of the idea of boys, cliffs and alcohol? And because she's shown how little she trusts her daughter to be mature and sensible and the daughter is probably well aware of how hysterical and unreasonable her mother is and how she'll never be able to have a mature conversation over it or similar circumstances without being treated like a 5 year old who needs wrapping up in cotton wool.

I think you're over-reacting a bit OP, although I'm assuming that some of the histrionics in your post are for hyberbolic effect, rather than you genuinely believing that six teenagers and two bottles of wine is so shocking.

BUT I would be v cross if this had happened to my 15 year old dd2. I'd be more cross with the parents but I'd be v cross re the lying. I think it would take a v strong and sensible (and probably non-existent) teen to phone and say 'We're here but unsupervised so I suppose I'd best come home' so I wouldn't blame her for that but I would be cross for her pretending the parents were there.

Oh and people saying that you can't 'punish' a 16 year old are being silly. The reason some parents clearly don't try is why so many young people behave the way they do. If dd2 had lied to us like that, at least she'd lose phone and internet for a couple of days - and she'd accept it. She'd also know that she'd disappointed us - and that would probably be punishment enough, I like to think.

I can understand why ypu would be livid with your dd as she did lie to you throughout the week.

However having had two 15 yo dds, I know that peer pressure is a huge thing. If she had spilled the beans when she was on holiday, it would have ruined the week for all her friends, you would have gone down to collect her which would have been extremely embarrassing for her. She really was between a rock and a hard place.

I'd let it drop. It was a sin of omission - she failed to tell you that plans had changed once she'd arrived - and you are sending a very unpleasant message to your daughter about your opinion of her character. Under-age sex and drugs indeed!

If anyone is deeply at fault it's the other parents - I'd save your wrath for them. How appallingly irresponsible of them not to keep you informed of their plans when they are in loco parentis?

Can you remember the exact conversation though.I am betting you assumed the parents were going to be there, and the mum assumed you knew they wouldn't be and so each got different interpretions of the conversation.
Your DD is to blame .She deliberately lied/misled you.
And tio those of you that think this is ok , I assume you have no 15 year olds or you would know they are nowhere nearing being adults.

Some of us have children older than 15 and know that shrieking and flailing and blaming are not the most effective tools when building relationships with teenagers.
The fault is in the adults, and probably when the DD realised what was happening, she kept going and hoped for the best.

I think you are completely overreacting. It's not like they're all 13. Oh and teenagers will smoke, have sex, drink booze and take drugs if they want to if they're at home or on holiday with their friends unless you lock them away in their bedrooms.

I'm a bit confused as to what you expected her to do... if she knew your reaction would have been to come and take her straight home, why would she choose that option? I bet she'd been looking forward to this holiday for ages and was really excited about it, and it sounds like she assumed the parents would be there too.

If I was 15 and I knew the choice was between having the awesome, rare-as-hen's-teeth holiday I'd been looking forward to for ages, even though I knew I'd be in the shit when I got back, or missing the holiday (gutting, embarrassing, potentially ruining it for everyone else if you told their parents too) but having my parents happy with me, I'd definitely choose the first one, anybody would! Obviously, the ideal option would have been to call an adult who could have come and stayed for the duration of the holiday, but it sounds like that wasn't an option at all.

To have my parents storm down and collect me aged nearly 16 would have made me want to die of embarrassment -I can quite see why she didn't mention it. I really don't think she knew-she would have got everyone's story to tally if she did.

I was nervous but when I started the 'you will be careful and sensible' routine he informed me that, no, he would actually 'go looking for random gangs of knife wielding thugs and start a fight then go to a crack den after getting pissed on cheap cider' I stopped then.

Love it -that is the sort of reaction I get!

She was 16 when she went, my ds did a festival at 16, and two at seventeen.
You need to relax and let go Op.

I went to Benidorm on holiday when I had just turned 17

My nephew has just gone to Greece with friends-he is 17yrs-done A'levels and has an August birthday. It is perfectly normal. He had a good time-came back safe and is off to university in a matter of weeks-free to do as he likes!

I think it was a misunderstanding - I had to read your original post three times because at first I took;

" X's parents would drive the girls down, with the boys meeting them there. All of the kids would get the train back as X and family would go on to the South of France."

To mean what they did do - drop kids off, carry on to france, so kids would be getting train back.

There's a lot of rubbish on this thread.In the Uk a child can not legally leave home , get married, join the army without parental consent.
In fact the govt consider it neglectful to leave a child of 15 without a responsible adult overnight and a 16 yo for a week!

However it is sensible to do so-your DC can do all the above at 18-they are not going to be sensible unless given responsibility and experience. If you can't trust them by 16 years they are not going to get it overnight!