aibu to be angry at 16 year old dd's school for not noticing her and 3 friends were very tipsy at school?

[trousersinit]

My best friend is a teacher at dd's school and rang me today to tell me how she'd discovered that in dd's waterbottle it was actually vodka, she got suspicious after she saw a group of them giggling and sniffing it and smelt it herself. It later emerged that dd and her 3 other female friends for the last month have taken turns to smuggle in vodka in water bottles every Friday where they get tipsy. Dd has always been a model student and I had no idea she was into alcohol, apparently a newsagents sells alcoholbto minors without an ID so she had been using her dinner money to buy from there. I'm shocked that the school didn't pick up on 4 tipsy teen girls in lessons? Of course I'm furious with dd and we have spoken to her and it is being dealt with, but I'm angry at the school for not noticing sooner, is it unreasonable to expect teachers to notice that 4 teens are obviously drunk?

[Quoteunquote]

I hope you explained to her she could have destroyed someone livelyhood by pretending to be 18 in order to buy alcohol.

This is entirely her responsibility, until she can explain all the consequences to you, she should work out for herself she needs to go and apologies to the shop where she bought the alcohol,

Make sure she has no access to screens, or phones, or any free time, until she has managed to fix all wrongs, and won your trust back.(don't give that again so easily.)

Malibu in milk was our choice under the radar drink. No one suspects a child drinking milk.

[HairyGrotter]

YABU to expect the teachers to notice. I did the same, along with smoking cigarettes and weed. I spent the best part of 1995 wasted during school hours and after...I'm not a respectable adult though, thank fuck

[maggiemight]

I would chase up the underage kids buying booze - shops lose their licenses for that – I suspect it’s coming from someone’s home.

Kids do stupid things to look cool, or rebellious, hopefully it won’t happen again.

[CeliaFate]

Also - you're angry the school didn't pick up on it, but it was a teacher who DID pick up on it and rang you to tell you about it. I get it that you're shocked and perhaps looking for something to pin it on, but come on! If you'd come to ask for help with a dd who was drinking at 10 am you'd have had loads of support, but trying to blame the school isn't on.

[ravenAK]

why the chuff is your best mate, who happens to be a teacher at your dd's school, ringing to tip you off?

I'm a secondary teacher. If I find a kid intoxicated on school premises I have procedures to follow, & they don't include ringing their mum, my mate, to give her a head's up.

You'd find out from the HT or at the very least Head of Year, when they rang you & the other girls' parents requesting that you collected them from school.

[YouTheCat]

Yes, teenagers rebel, that is true. However if they think mummy will then blame anyone but the child or themselves and get angry with someone else how is she ever going to learn about consequences? She decided to drink in school. She got drunk. She gets in school exclusion and threat of permanent exclusion.

I'd be getting angry at your dd. I'd be banning after school clubs and telling school that you do not give permission for her to be off school premises for the foreseeable future. And I'd be telling her not to be a sheep and bow to peer pressure so easily (unless of course it was her idea). Then after the anger I'd be getting to the bottom of why she feels she needs to drink.

[MoominIsGoingToBeAMumWaitWHAT]

I thought most people did stuff like this? We used to take cider in for after-school beach parties in the run-up to GCSEs as we were getting stressed about them, every Friday we'd buy bottles of cider and wine and hide them in the trees in the schoolyard this was only four years ago too!

But YABU to blame the teachers.

[trousersinit]

Really raven? I wasn't aware of that, I just presumed that the school thought it was be better if I.heard it from someone who I knew well and could explain the situation to me with me going into.massive shock and.having a breakdown

[Pagwatch]

I think you are shocked which is understandable.
But you are also looking around for someone else to be at fault.

The person responsible is your DD and you parent her. So you should be focusing on that. Not looking for 3rd parties to be mad t so that you can dilute how bad you feel.

You are not a bad parent because your DD has been behaving badly.
You are being a bad parent if you start offloading responsibility onto others. It's a bad example.

[ajandjjmum]

OP
Please make your DD and her friends understand that the type of vodka sold in the type of corner shop that serves underage kids, is likely to be the sort that is mixed with antifreeze etc. and has been known to kill. I know it's been quite a bit problem in some university towns.

[WeAreDetective]

I agree with RavenAK. It is odd to find out from a mate at the school rather than the correct channels.

[Blu]

Plenty of well respected and respectable MN-ers will have got up to similar at school, so don't beat yourself up too badly.

But I wouldn't try and implicate and blame the school either.

Would you really complain and potentially land your best friend in some form of disciplinary enquiry? From which she would hopefully be exonerated, leaving nothing but your former friendship in it's wake? because even if your friend wasn't teaching her after her vodka lunch, some poor teacher just like your friend would have done.

And as others have said, perhaps you should have noticed. Or smelt it on her - it lasts a while. And if you didn't notice, have some sympathy for a teacher not noticing them amongst a load of other larking teens.

Calm down and focus on dealing with your dd. Trying to blame the school is a distraction.

[cory]

trousersinit Fri 07-Feb-14 18:17:07
"Thanks coconutty, just as if I wasn't struggling enough with having my.previously model daughter on the.brink.of.exclusion and acting like an alcoholic, you've made me feel even more guilty than I already did"

But can't you understand that you would not have been getting this response if you had not been trying to whip up anger against a third, innocent party? You have been very, very unfair to your dd's school and people are trying to point this out.

It's what Pagwatch says: the bad parenting is not taking the eye off the ball or having a child who occasionally forgets what she's been taught. Bad parenting is teaching your dd that it's ok to blame other people. This is where you've got an important job to do.

[candycoatedwaterdrops]

Pagwatch said it more eloquently than I could....

"You are not a bad parent because your DD has been behaving badly. You are being a bad parent if you start offloading responsibility onto others. It's a bad example."

[trousersinit]

I think you may have gotten the wrong impression
dd getting drunk is absolutely her fault and not.the schools fault whatsoever. She is being.punished. I'm just concerned about how many dangerous things they could get away with doing at school. Although now I realise the teachers have to deal with many pupils. I haven't mentioned by concerns about the school to.dd at all and as far as she knows it is.entirely her fault and she is to.blame- which she is.

[lljkk]

so you're "angry" that the school failed in safeguarding..
But they did notice.
Before YOU did.
So should the school be angry at you for your failure in safeguarding?

[trousersinit]

If she had been home with me when this had happened I almost certainly would have noticed, but she wasn't, and by the time she got home she was entirely sober.

[Loopytiles]

Seeming disapproving of drunkenness/parties and not showing interest in alcohol are classic teen tactics!

Being academic and seeming well behaved is also an advantage when hoodwinking parents!

[cory]

trousersinit Fri 07-Feb-14 18:33:37
"I think you may have gotten the wrong impression
dd getting drunk is absolutely her fault and not.the schools fault whatsoever. She is being.punished. I'm just concerned about how many dangerous things they could get away with doing at school."

But she is nearly grown up. Surely, unless she has a severe learning disability, the assumption is that she will be moving around in society without constant supervision by adults during her spare time and that it is up to her whether she behaves dangerously or not?

Does she not go out at weekends? Does she not have a job- lots of 16yos do? Does she not go out with her friends? Does an adult follow her around everywhere and watch so she doesn't do anything dangerous? She is not a baby! if she doesn't keep herself safe, she will have to face the consequences.

[YouTheCat]

If she's doing this at school, you can bet it wasn't her first try with drinking.

[FudgefaceMcZ]

I think you've one person to be angry with here, and it's your daughter rather than her poor teachers.

[ravenAK]

Really raven? I wasn't aware of that, I just presumed that the school thought it was be better if I.heard it from someone who I knew well and could explain the situation to me with me going into.massive shock and.having a breakdown

Presumably the other three parents managed to refrain from this...

[CeliaFate]

Has she shown any signs of alcohol dependence? Bruises from falling over/stumbling into things, memory loss/blackouts, headaches, nausea?

[OrangeMochaFrappucino]

Children can be very good liars. Teenagers can behave in a very excitable and hysterical way sometimes. If they are determined to do something dangerous, they will probably find a way. Your daughter's school did realise what was happening and have now dealt with it. It does seem very odd to focus your anger (as per your thread title) on the teachers who see her for an hour at a time and it seems are unsurprised by her behaving disruptively during lessons.

[JohnnyUtah]

Look, this thread is pretty much unanimous. It is not the school at fault here, it is your daughter. She needs the responsibility for her stupid behaviour placing firmly on her own shoulders. Stop blaming the school.