AIBU naive about what a year 9 party looks like?

[Pandadunks]

DD has a friendship grp where we are also good friends with the parents. Kids are all Year 9 so age 13/14.
One kid has been invited to a house party at a school friends place, and has been told they can bring a few guests.
Our DD can’t go anyway, but the other parents were discussing this and a couple have said yes - their child can go even though they don’t know the parents of the boy throwing the party, and don’t know anyone else invited.
2 Parents have said no way because they don’t know the family etc and that the party will just be a load of teens smoking, vaping, taking drugs and drinking.

I said - there’s no way they’d be taking drugs at a party at that age and everyone laughed! Apparently because we live in a city OF COURSE the kids will be smoking weed, taking ketamine and god knows what else at a party!

Am I just horribly out of touch? DD is on the young side and hasn’t been to any parties at all that aren’t pizza restaurant or cinema for a birthday type thing.

YANBU - they’re too young, at 13/14 they’ll barely have alcohol there

YABU - you’re naive! It’ll be full on drugs, and everything else

I was a young carer though, so that probably had something to do with it. And I had a group of lovely but equally swotty mates so we hung out. My poor mother despaired … she was boy mad at the same age apparently and didn’t get why I wanted to stay home and not date!

It’s the age that I’m surprised at! 15/16/17 sure but 13???

I think there's a big difference between a 13yo at the beginning year 8 whose friends are mostly 12, and 13yo at the end of year 9 whose friends are mostly 14 or even older.

I do think it varies a lot. My DD’s on the periphery of a geeky group that at that age was very definitely not partaking in anything at that age - great excitement when a boy and a girl held hands! They would play board games & run around outside. That group is only now beginning drinking type parties in Y11. But also aware of a group that by Y10 was taking cocaine. Same school, just different groups!

@Prisonbreak so glad you're dsis is ok. Someone in dd1's class ended up in hospital due to ketamin at at yr9 party. It was towards the end of yr9 so most of them were 14. There are a broad range of yr9s and for my dc it was certainly the year when they tended to go one direction or the other.

So there will be at a minimum some kind of alcohol. My ds who goes out once in a blue moon went to a 13/14 year old party. Mother of the birthday person was there, we had the address etc however it was made clear in advance that things like wkd / shandy would be on offer unless parents explicitly said their child could not. Picked ds up around 10pm he came out with a tube of Pringles didn’t see any drunk teenagers but who knows as some where sleeping over. Didn’t smell any weed on him and the mum had seemed nice enough.

So if the parents there I’d say alcoholpops and maybe a vape. If there is no adults I’d say it’s anything goes basically. We where certainly drinking, smoking and having sex at 14, didn’t even need a house party though an empty field sufficed often enough.

There are kids in primary school who vape these days. What do you think they’ll be doing by year 9?

I think that the average kids isn’t doing alcohol, drugs and sex but they will know kids who do.

I went to a party in year 9 where two people lost their virginity (not to each other), one ended up in hospital after taking an ecstasy tablet and the police turned up.

I work in child protection and also have teenagers. Yes this does go on at this age in A FEW groups of teenagers. You would hopefully know if your children were hanging out in these groups, and to be honest they are mostly lovely kids who have been let down by society and parenting is pretty crap (also let down by cuts and often have not been patented well). Loads of DCs friends are pretty geeky/sober/totally anti drugs. Most teenagers are far more risk averse than I ever was. Up to you really, but just be really clear about what you are worried about and why. When I look back at what I got up to and the risks I took, DC and her friends really are not in the ballpark.

This !!

My daughter had a 16th at home (we were upstairs). Lots of dancing but no sign of any drinking, drugs or sex. And they cleared up at the end. But we live in the countryside and parents collected at 11.

Definitely is.

I voted no way as I have an 11 yo. Then I remembered what I got up too at age 14/15! *drink drugs and sex and mild criminal activities. I'll wrap my daughter in a bubble.
I have turned into a respectable adult despite my youthful misadventures

I have a year 9 child. I'd expect (from the general party goers, not my child specifically): most will vape, some will smoke, most will at least try a bit of alcohol, some will get wasted. One or two might smoke weed.

Kids now are a bit wilder I think than when I was young. I would have thought, alcohol until people vomit, smoking (cigs and weed) and sexual activity are the things I might expect, but there may be older ones there so stuff like ketamine, E, mushrooms, even coke isn't out the question. (That's not to say it would be handed out to everyone openly). Surely though this is par for the course and you can do little to avoid these things as time goes on. Make sure your son knows he should never do something just because it's offered or others are doing it. If not this year then next year he will be going to parties like this potentially.

Mini Roadman ..love it😂

Definitely wouldn't happen at my DS party. He's 14, very straightlaced and loves rules. His friends are all similar.

Do people on this thread who claim that 13/14-year-olds have wild sex parties with drugs and alcohol actually have kids that age?

I actually have a Year 9 kid who just turned 14 and it literally couldn't be further from what her and her friends' parties are like.

The drinking didnt kick in until 16/17 in my crowd.

There were 13/14 year olds at parties with smoking, weed, speed, drinking, sex . They were the segmemt of the year group regarded as "rough" or "chavvy". The middle class/better off kids by and large were totally separate.

For context, I'm a secondary school teacher.

I think, as others have said 14+ is quite a spectrum- for some friend groups, they are drinking and having sex at this age, and unfortunately I am also aware of sexual assualts in this age group (usually involving drink). Lots vape, many from 11-12 onwards. But equally lots are still having sleepovers with film and a pizza. By 16, alcohol is much more ubiquitous.

Drugs are less likely at 14 around here at least- that's not to say they aren't used, but most Y9s don't really have access to them. However, by 16, a lot are smoking weed and have probably tried ketamine and so on. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that someone's older sibling would turn up with drugs.

As I say, many, many kids in this age group won't be having alcohol at parties, and will be going to the cinema, ice skating etc for birthdays still.

It's worth bearing in mind it doesn't take a 14yo many drinks to get drunk, and friends are very liable to panic at this age if someone e.g. passes out.

I do think it's a really tricky age to navigate and I wouldn't trust a party where parents were not going to be present.

When I was 14, all the parties involved drinking, smoking and people either shagging or giving blow jobs. We used to go to parties or just go to fields for the parties. I did not partake in the shagging or blowjob giving but I did in the drinking. I remember at one party, my friend (who was a tiny 14 year old at the time) drank a bottle of ‘shit mix’ - something like whiskey, wine and vodka all mixed together. She was so out of it I had to call her parents and she ended up in hospital. Her parents were astounded she’d even drunk anything at all- I think they were expecting cola and lemonade to be the drinks there

As far as I can tell, DS and his Y10 mates would fill the time by popping to the shop to buy their own weight in haribo and Dr Pepper and then coming back to play video games and mock each other.

But none of them are likely to frame anything as a ‘party’ so I suspect they aren’t really a relevant comparison.

I work in a school. Its prevalent.

I grew up on a very “rough” council estate (one of the biggest ones I the uk, people openly using drugs, street drinking, really extreme levels of poverty) and I attended parties 20 ish, years ago aged 13 where there would be drugs, sex and zero supervision. I remember a nine year old who smoked cigarettes and weed.

it probably hasn’t changed much sadly, due to the social issue's.

My own parents where much more “strict”, and for my 13th I had a sleepover in a tent in the garden, my mum got us a couple of WKDs each and we smoked fags behind the garden shed.

My DS is 11 and I can’t imagine him in the first scenario in a couple of years, at a push maybe the second (but replace fags with vapes).

It really depends on the friendship groups, IMO. Though in general kids have much more supervision and boundaries these days

Where the hell do you all live? God no I wouldn’t expect any of those things from 13 year olds.