17 year old performer, not allowed to do what in the theater shocked 😮

[Willowk321]

So basically, my DS is 17. It is legal for him to have a job without parental concent, it is legal for him to drive (if he has passed his test which tbh he hasn’t 😜), he can legally move out- again without parental concent, and he can legally concent to his own medication.

He is also currently in a amateur production for a local company which he is really enjoying. However, I have been informed that I must accompany him to the stage door and sign to say I have dropped him off and Vice a versa at the end of the rehearsal.

I told my son I thought that this was ridiculous and refused to do it, however his director telephoned me the other night to told me thet it was a legal requirement and that any person under 18 is not allowed to vouch for themselves “Same way they don’t have any other responsibilities”. I then mentioned the above and they basically just said “yeah, well that’s different”. I mean WTF.

Anyway the thing that has annoyed me is what they said is complete 💩:

As soon I came off the phone, I went straight to Google to look up the law, as I would be amazed if you had to be picked up at an age where your considered mature enough to live on your own and even be married (yes, I do know that you need parental consent for that. Well, unless you run off to Scotland which; let’s be honest; is what most probably do 😉). Anyway I researched the law and click on the official document on gov uk and what a surprise... the age is 16. 😡🙄

I then checked my local authority to see if it was the same and it appeared to be. So I decided to ring up the Council and told them about the situation, and they told me:

“Although, the law is 16, it is not uncommon for theater groups/dance schools to raise the age (mostly to 18). 16 is the minimum age but theatre groups could raise the age to 30 if they wanted to and if you theater group wants you to pick up your 17 year old, then it’s their choice and life would be much easier if you just complied with it.”

So there you have it. It is clear that 17 year olds are legal to leave on their own, but my theater group just doesn’t want them to. I have discussed this with DS and although we both agree it is completely ridiculous; I have decided to comply as he desperately wants to do the show.

I suppose my question to all you lovely people is: should a 17 year old be allowed to leave a theater on there own? What age can members leave unaccompanied at your dance school/theater group?

I understand that some people feel that all people under 18s are children, but there is no denying that 0-17 is a broad age range, for example 17 year olds will naturally have more rights and responsibility’s then a 3 year old will.

I would like to say though, if you feel that 17 year olds should be escorted as they are still “children”, would you feel the same about a 17 year old McDonald worker being escorted. I personally cannot tell the difference, but... just a thought 🤔

Anyway I will leave it with you 😂

Seems a bit OTT to me

The whole point of having a 17 year old is that they're mostly self maintaining.

I do DofE & kids just turn up & go on the evenings. I know that scouts, cadets etc are the same.

When we go away for the weekend they turn up with all their gear - no idea if it's their parents dropping them off - we certainly don't get anyone to sign anything!!

We then take them into the middle of nowhere & leave them to wander round mostly on their own for 2-4 days before taking them back to be collected by someone or just make their own way home....

Sounds like the Am Dram lot may have a guilty conscience.....

I am quite surprised by this as the cadets my 13 yr old goes to just let's them out to get home however they want at 9.30pm the number of her friends I have given lifts to is quite shocking.

The whole point of things like cadets, scouts etc is to give the kids a chance at independence - it's certainly not the adults job to make sure their parents remember to pick them up.

The parents of these kids are obviously not bothered, why are you??

I used to get similarly frustrated when my DD was in 6th form aged 18 and I had to sign permission slips for her. It was completely pointless legally but she wanted to participate in the activities so I jumped through their hoops.

I work with young people aged 14 and upwards - sometimes they don’t want their parents to know they are using our service. If we feel they are ‘Gillick Competent’ (basically meaning they understand what they are agreeing to) we can work with them without advising their parents. It seems ridiculous that a 15 year old can make important decisions around their own physical and mental health but a seventeen year old can’t walk home on their own.

OTOH looking at it from the organisers POV, they are volunteers working with minors and have to be seen to be taking safeguarding seriously.

Yanbu. You should be able to sign one form to say you're happy for him to make his own way to and from the venue. The committment of being available for every pick up and drop of when i knew theybwere perfectly capable of making their own way would really annoy me too..

Sounds like the Am Dram lot may have a guilty conscience.....

That’s a dreadful thing to say. They are being slightly excessive about their signing in and out policy, but they are perfectly within their rights to do so. That’s right, they MUST be doing something dodgy or covering up for something else.

Being let out of a theatre on your own at 11pm in the centre of a busy town on a Friday night is also totally different from being let out of a scout hut in a residential area at 9.30pm where presumably most people live within a short walk.

And comparisons to d of e are ridiculous. The whole point of that is to be unsupervised in the countryside, not alone in a town centre at 11pm.

I agree you should be able to sign one form to say it's fine for him to be making his own way home (or that arrangements have been made for him to make his own way home safely), it's mad for them to expect you to pick up a 17 year old.

I walked home from school alone from 7, I made my own way home from virtually all activities until I moved out just past my 18th birthday, as I had young siblings, and a dad who worked late, so mum couldn't have left the house to get me anyway.

One waiver should be enough, you shouldn't have to sign a 17 year old in and out of places!

CressidaEgg it was a turn of phrase. Nothing to ‘worry about’

Dd's theatre company is the same. On performance nights, anybody under 18 has to be dropped and collected by a parent. It's not something I get het up about tbh.

Argh. It will be because of chaperoning. Once he is in the building there will be a licensed chaperone on site, you have to have them even for amateur productions. 16/17 is a grey area but if he is performing and there are younger children, so they want one rule for all, or if they've had issues before I can see why they won't budge on the transport thing, because while they are en route to and from the theatre, the theatre need to make sure that they are safe. Legally you aren't allowed to work backstage in a theatre till you are 18, without a chaperone. People have all sorts of difficulty getting work experience and part time jobs because of this when it is extrapolated out to include technical roles. All in all the theatre is seen as a dangerous area to work in and for years, companies got away with understaffing their shows and not supervising the kids properly.

Yes, it's daft that they won't accept a letter saying he has permission to go on his own. I'm not sure where that stands legally.

16/17 is a huge grey area as you are deemed responsible in some areas but not entitled in others (benefits etc). I get that it is frustrating but you won't change the situation, there's more to it than 'it's just a club', it's to do with the fact it's theatrical! Also I'm aware that there are lots of people who don't follow the rules but that doesn't mean those who do should be slated. IMO.

Yaaawnnn 3 mins of my life I won't get back. What a long post for such a trivial matter. I get it this is Mumsnet but come on. 1st world problems are seriously this worrying?

YANBU. At 17 I was driving myself to my full time job.

Yaaawnnn 3 mins of my life I won't get back. What a long post for such a trivial matter. I get it this is Mumsnet but come on. 1st world problems are seriously this worrying?

When you grow up you might find that your time is precious & that you don't necessarily want to spend the one bit of time you get between work & sleep ferrying what is, to all intents and purposes, an adult around for no good reason.

Now give the laptop back to mum....

That would infuriate me too OP.

Being let out of a theatre on your own at 11pm in the centre of a busy town on a Friday night is also totally different from being let out of a scout hut in a residential area at 9.30pm

Until the day after your 18th birthday, when it magically becomes a place of fluffy unicorns and safety.....

The theatre people are probably shit scared that they would be at the centre of a Weinstein/Spacey furore if anything happened to your son or if anyone even made an inappropriate suggestion to him.

Unfortunately the acting fraternity has had such dreadful publicity for intimidating sexual harassment and abuse in the last couple of years they are probably tying themselves in knots to protect their own reputation however inconvenient to you or your son.

YANBU. Thay should offer you the option of signing a form to say you give permission for him to come and go on his own. They may well have their own safeguarding policy which requires them to chaperone him while he is on site, when they are in loco parentis, but they should not attempt to dictate to you about your transport arrangements and what happens when he is NOT under their care. To ensure it is absolutely clear whose responsibility he is at any given moment, it would be a good idea for them to have him sign himself in and out. Once signed out, he ceases to be their responsibility and must leave the premises promptly.

I've had it out with a number of kids' clubs, and a school, over their demands that children be delivered and collected by an adult. My main objection is that it isn't their place to decide how I should parent during the times when my child is not in their care.

However, my other objection is that such rules serve to disproportionately exclude children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are less likely to have a parent/relative/childminder/au pair available to ferry them around. If this is a club requirement, the child is unable to join the club, even if it would be perfectly safe for them to travel unaccompanied in their particular circumstances. If such a requirement were imposed by all clubs, a young acquaintance of mine would have been unable to do anything whatsoever until she turned 18. She is the child of a single parent who has a chronic illness, and her parent is only able to get out of the house sometimes, not often enough to guarantee her child's regular attendance at rehearsals. Even on occasions when this parent is physically capable of accompanying her daughter, there is usually a backlog of other essential things which the parent needs to be doing instead - or she needs to rest rather than using her limited energy to drag herself out to accompany a competent teenager for the sake of someone else's ill-considered safeguarding rules.

I told the headteacher of my child's school that if he was convinced that it was unsafe for her to take herself home alone despite my insistence on her being allowed to do so, he cannot overrule me and would need to contact Social Services. The school is only in loco parentis while the child is there.

Kids' clubs were a more difficult matter, because at the end of the day they have the right to set whatever ridiculous rules they like. Unlike a school, they do not have to allow all children to attend. Still, nearly all clubs did alter their policies after I discussed it with them. My teen did have to miss out on athletics when the club would not budge on this. I was unwilling to push her disabled sibling for half a mile along a country road without a footpath just to pick her up, when the teen could easily have got herself home on her bike.

Until the day after your 18th birthday, when it magically becomes a place of fluffy unicorns and safety.....

Of course it doesn’t. But I genuinely do not understand as a parent and a teacher why you’d get cross about a rule designed to keep children as safe as possible. For whatever reason, this is their rule. If you don’t like it, find another group.

It’s the lying that would infuriate me. People saying “it’s the law” when it patently isn’t winds me up like nothing else.

Most of the drama/dance things my DD has been to are entirely capable of running a sign-out list for a mixed-age group with a list of all participants’ names, and symbols to indicate “has a note from parent to allow them to go home on their own”. It’s really not rocket science.

The sing Don't put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington is about a pushy mother not safeguarding.

I agree and disagree with the Op. I'm a chaperone and the legalities go up to end of year 11. However I can see fully why it may be good for them to continue using them until 18.
Part of it if all the minors are in the same situation then it it is easier. Because otherwise you get "but he's gone" or the more dodgy "oh yes the 17yo is taking the 16yo home". But also (having done it) remembering as a chaperone that A can leave by themselves but B who is their friend and looks older can be fraught with potential mistakes.

I think asking you to write a letter is sensible (it's always awkward as a chaperone when you have a child in front of you saying "my mum said she'll wait in the car park" " because children do try it on.

They are a voluntary group with a very stringent safeguarding policy.

These kind of community / voluntary organisations have a heavy load placed in them in terms of safeguarding / risk assessments etc. They will have U18s working with adults. Young people out late at night by definition of the activity (theatre).

They have chosen to not leave any chink through which they could be vulnerable. And as an amateur voluntary group, that is their choice to make.

This is an occasion in which I might say you need to calm down and get over yourself.

Is it not cause most of the cast will be heading straight to the pub? And your 17 year old with a bunch of adults will likely pass for 18+. Id imagine they are avoiding that issue by making it impossible.
Plenty of clubs and societies have weird rules (he’s not being made to buy and wear a uniform).

They may have had an incident which resulted in this rule. Their production, their rules.

And yes, at 17 I was at university in a different country to my DPs, so would have struggled a bit with this one. There are 17 year olds who have to give lifts to parents who can’t drive: they’d struggle somewhat too.

I volunteer a lot with youth and the whole safeguarding thing is a minefield. Especially at that age.Eg some youth will turn 18 during the year while their friends are still 17. If we are away on an overnight the 18 year olds must sleep separately and be police vetted. Even though they leave the club and go back and sleep at their 17 year old friends house. But we must obey the guidelines. So have some sympathy for the organisers who are only following rules to protect their own reputation in the event of an allegation. And of course so kids are safe. I wouldn't waste energy on it. As its amateur there will be a lot of volunteers and if l was one l would give up if l had a parent creating a stink over something l had no control over. Its mainly due to mixture of adults and kids involved together. If all kids it wouldn't be so strict.

“My main objection is that it isn't their place to decide how I should parent during the times when my child is not in their care.” Any credible safeguarding policy and practice will say a minor must not be discharged into a situation believed to be unsafe. It is the ‘Duty of Care’ that extends beyond the time they are on the premises.

I agree all policies should be straightforward, transparent and available for all parents to read. And no ‘it’s the law’ when it isn’t. Maybe read their policy and practices before signing up?