To think her parents are totally unreasonable..

[BeigeDarling]

(16 year old girl so you know)

Recently i went to a small social gathering at a friends house, there were only 10 of us and everyone is 16/17.

There was alcohol but nobody was drunk, just very relaxed and watching films/talking ect. We can all be sensible when we want to be.

The girl who's house is was had a bit of a break down (another story) and started crying hysterically, threatening to kill herself and walk out and never come back. She does have mental health issues and isn't incredibly emotionally stable but her brother was there and we were all looking out for her.

This was around 11pm when my best friend was supposed to be getting picked up. She rang her dad and asked for an extra half hour because she wanted to be there for the girl, making sure she calmed down and explained the situation.

The dad proceeded to shout at her telling her that she is forbidden to see any of us ever again, can't go out and see us and must avoid us at school- her main focus is her A Levels and that's all the matters, us friends are not important. She does already have problems with her parents and told them that he cannot chose her friends for her- to which he responded with "Your friends are all sluts, drug addicts, alcoholics and mentally fucked up, and you are not allowed to see them anymore"

This really hurt all of us, baring in mind we hadn't done anything wrong and his words were a massive over-exaggeration.

She's my best friend and neither of us know what to do. I don't want her to get into any more trouble, because her parents already treat her badly and cause her to be upset all the time. I don't really know what to suggest but i don't want to lose her just because of the way her parent's are being.

Are they just looking out for her, or are they being totally unreasonable? Need advice on what she and i can do to make this better!!

You do sound like a good friend, beige. I could understand the dad's reaction (a bit) if you were all 12/13 but at 16, in 6th form years you sound like a nice sensible bunch. I am concerned for your friend with mh problems having heard that kind of abusive and insulting language. It is really important for her to have some friends and family who care and who can be there for her.

Respect breeds respect!

Folk piling in to tell this lass to respect her elders, stop drinking and get in with her school work are being very unreasonable.

Also writing this off as just a teenage drama I think is very disrespectful to the op.

People of 16/17 are just that, people! Their worries and concerns are just as valid as anyone else's

Op, you need to reassure both these friends that you are there for them.
You sound very concerned and I can see why.
Unless your friend is in any physical danger from her parents then I think best advice you can give her is to limp along as she is until she can bail for uni. If she can't do this she needs to call childline and get some advice, there are other options.

at people making excuses for the dad and saying he only 'overreacted a bit'

This sentence alone "Your friends are all sluts, drug addicts, alcoholics and mentally fucked up, and you are not allowed to see them anymore is completely disgusting and unacceptable.

OP you sound like a lovely girl and a good friend. He is unreasonable, but there's fuck all you can do about it which is the really sad and frustrating thing. Just be there for her. Contact her in whatever way you can, make sure you touch base with her whenever you can because seriously that's the sort of thing that can keep people with MH issues going.

She's old enough to go to the GP on her own and this may also be something advisable.

did the OP actually hear that though or was it relayed through the friend

I can't see how saying her dad might be terrified or annoyed by irresponsible behaviour (because it is just that) is letting him off the hook.

if his daughter is self harming then she may not be able to cope with the issues the other friend had and the drinking would only exqcerbate that!

he had every right to tell her off, not to say those horrible things (which we dont know if he did)

bottom line is that the other girl had other friends and family there for support if she needed it and maybe an emotionally fragile young girl (16 is still a child! however you may want to deny it) may not be best placed to deal with it objectively.

There was a post about 'he might have wanted to have a drink, might have had plans', those are the ones I'm on about.

And to be perfectly honest I don't think he was right telling her off either. For wanting to stay an extra half hour? What happened to a simple 'no, you're coming home when I said you were'. Instead of flying off the handle and acting like a complete and utter nobhead.

And if the OP said he said that, then that's all we can go off unfortunately. Would it be quested if these were older women? No, so it's hardly fair to start implying lies are being told here.

Calling young girls 'sluts' for one, is vile.
Using mental health issues as a slur is also vile.

I do understand completely where everyone is coming from, however the girls brother is only 16 too so it's not like he's much older to look after her, and is the boyfriend of the said Best Friend.

Her dad said these things whilst we were all there- this was when he came to pick her up and we were all standing by the car saying goodbye, and he purposely wanted us to hear it (or that's how it came across at least)

I understand that asking for an extra half hour would be annoying for her dad, but we were only a road down from her house, and she had offered to walk before hand, but he refused to let her at that time and said he'd pick her up- it's not like she refused to walk.

Anyway, I'm hoping things sort themselves and she's able to cope with it all; I think it's just a waiting game until Uni to be honest.

I think he sounds totally over the top! But it may also just be because he is worried about her.

I am the mother of a 16 year old girl who has a close-knit group of friends - male and female.

The one thing that drives me mad, more than anything, is her making arrangements to be picked up at a certain time , only for me to be told half an hour before that she wants an extra half an hour. (I am the only driver in our family, so it is always me who has to come and collect)

Then I get a bit snippy, because I don't want to be out and about at 10.30/11.00 at night...I am entitled to be able to sit down and relax in an evening, maybe have a glass of wine. I can't do that if she keeps changing her plans.

And what is the point of an extra half an hour when she's been out for at least 4 or 5 hours as it is!! But having said that, I like all her friends ,they are a good bunch and would never describe them the way your friend's dad did. Mostly it winds me up because I perceive it as not thinking about me and taking me for granted. I also hate that 16 year olds are (sometimes) drinking together (although she has never been "drunk") and the parents of her friends ALLOW it. But I am told that I am totally being unreasonable and that all her friends' parents' allow it. So I try to live with it .I don't agree with it.

And at the end of the day, I would rather collect her than have her walk home at night. I usually calm down by the time I've gone to get her!!

Well, I do hope that if one of my children is ever in such need of her friends around her (as the one whose house is is) that her friends will be as supportive as you and the others there, beige. I also hope that you all turn into the sort of parents who would offer some additional help and support to be a calm and friendly adult presence instead of going off the deep end. Perhaps if he were more of a reliable character, his daughter would have asked for his help in a way in which he would be more comfortable with (allowing him more influence and participation) rather than keeping him at a distance. Times have changed since my generation were teenagers, there is no going back and there is no putting the genie into the bottle. Many parents really need to stop acting on fears and imagined poor outcomes of teenage 'freedom' and adapt to the realities of being parents in today's world.

I wish your generation would write a good handbook on parenting teenagers!

OP there is some background to this isn't there? This isn't the first incident with her friends is it?

Devils haha I think a handbook is a good idea but then a lot of teenagers would probably been really unreasonable in it!

I think things will be fine an hopefully calm down, her mum doesn't know about this because she's worse than her dad, so at least her dad did her a favour in not telling her!

SeaSickSal This is first actually, I don't think it's fair to accuse us of that. I think the difference is, a girl the same age as us is a family friend of her who cares about her studies more than anything, never goes out ect and her dad has said 'I wish you were more like x'

Think that's partly why we seem to be at fault, he blames me and her other friends for her being different to x.