Teenage boys ruined my carpets - should I contact their parents?

[thecranberries]

My 16 yr old DC had a birthday party last night. About 40 teenagers attending. Fine. My DC is responsible as are her friends. I went out, obviously, and came back at 11.30pm.

I found a bunch of girls mopping my wooden floor and stone kitchen floor, two girls picking up clumps of mud, one girl vacuuming up mud (ruined my Dyson as mud was wet) and various other girls using towels to wipe down what they could.

My DC told me what boys had done: they'd gone into the garden beyond the decking, despite being told repeatedly not to do so. They went into my garden shed and took out garden spade, fork and rake and just dumped them into garden, leaving shed door open. They ruined my lawn. And they'd repeatedly gone in and out - they all wear those clumpy trainers - and just spread the mud. (It's been very wet recently).

After being told many times not to do so, she finally told all the boys to leave, and as they were doing so, some attempted to filch things from my home, so DC and a few other girls checked the boy's pockets before ejecting them.

All the girls responsible, well behaved, and considerate. All the boys - led by one especially - irresponsible, disrespectful, boarish, and the lead boy - simply kept laughing when asked to behave responsibly and not rile up the others.

So, AIBU to call the parents of the lead boy and tell them exactly what their DS is like? I have to pay for my carpets and rugs to be cleaned and spend my day deep cleaning my home from debris I had not factored in rather than just the normal tidy up.

I know my DC will be extremely embarrassed at my actions, ie calling the parents of lead boy - but at the same time, I am left with an unexpected bill and extra work at a particularly time-poor moment in my week.

Just for record, all boys come from 'nice' families, and go to very good state and private schools.

WWYD?

Nah. Take us a lesson: don’t let 40(!) teenagers into your home.

Works both ways. 16 years is an age when people can think through their actions.

Not unhinged at all. The kids need to understand responsibility. If I ever got such information from a parent naming my kids as causing damage you can be sure that I would be right on it. I’d ask my kids what happened, take them round to the house right away to apologise and clear up. Costs would come from anything to be bought for them as in not bought and money to pay for damage. Luckily my kids are well behaved and I am thankful because many teens just don’t care.

No, but I do have the right to object to my kids being called names by a random stranger who has never met them.

Actually the funniest bit is where OP says she didn't expect to spend the day deep cleaning her house after 40 teenagers had been in it the night before .

If you contact one you have to contact all 40. Don’t bother.

This reminds me of when I was Head of Year 11 a few years ago, and a mother of a student contacted me to complain that students in my year group had caused damage to her house at a party over the weekend.
She genuinely expected me to interview all of them, do follow up punishments and inform her of the outcome 🙄

At that kind of age (16 to 18) when I went to parties the parents usually decamped upstairs for the whole evening. No party people going up in the bedrooms; any downstairs valuables/breakables were moved to safety upstairs with them, the parents were on-site to keep an ear out in case of any trouble, but other than that they didn't interfere if the party was going well. They did stay upstairs. Seemed to work well.

I should add there were some parties that didn't have parents present (like if they had gone away for the weekend, and the DCs were 17 or older) but they were the impromptu ones of maximum 8 friends or under, and everyone was well behaved and respectful as it was a friendship group of similarly minded people to the DCs. There were lots of those kind of small gatherings. But an actual party-party, like a birthday party with larger numbers and organised in advance, the parents would stay upstairs.

Posters of a certain age will remember the classic Yellow Pages French polishers TV advert!

Forty unsupervised mid-teens?!!!

Forty.

Unsupervised.

Mid-teens.

You are incredibly lucky you only have mud and attempted theft to deal with - and not vomit, blood, drug overdose or sexual assault.

Yanbu to contact the parents........yabu to allow a teenage party without at least one adult hiding upstairs.

Lesson learned tho, as they say hindsight is there to bite us on the arse at times.

Yes, but there's a reason sixteen year olds can't drink in bars, drive, get married (without permission), join the army or do numerous other things.

You can't except 40 sixteen year olds to automatically behave sensibly when left with the run of someone's home and nobody around to enforce boundaries or to tell them when they're going too far.

Which is why they should have adult supervision in these situations.

Well quite!

I don't think I even knew 40 other teenagers when I was that age, let alone having 40 friends that I'd actually want to invite to a party. It just seems a bit insane.

Only if you keep the very immature behaviour of calling children unknown to you names to yourself, and likewise. In fact, I'd be delighted if you didn't engage with me further! Thank you so much!

Contact people's parents? Wtf no! You're just as likely to be blamed for leaving 40 kids unsupervised. Anything could have happened. No ended up in a&e, no one took an overdose or put a garden fork through their foot, or assaulted anyone else. Thank your lucky stars and move on.

It certainly shouldn't be!

I think leaving 40 teenagers to have an unsupervised party in your home was a bit foolish.

Call the boys parents if you want to embarrass your daughter. It’s going to make you look ridiculous and she’ll be mortified. You shouldn’t have left them and you should have got them to tidy it up before they left. Not now be considering calling their parents like they are 5 years old. AND you’ve made this into a boy/girl thing. You clearly don’t like boys. I actually feel really sorry for your daughter.

Sorry OP, but I what did you expect! if your DC was 16, I bet there were a number of under 16 friends there too. As a parent of teenage DC I always message the parent of the party holder and check there was a parent in the house before allowing DC to go - even age 17. You are very lucky nothing more serious happened.