Aibu about Teens new year party disaster

[NiftyWasp94]

Recently my son had a new year's party with all his friends (he's 16) they used the house whilst I was away visiting my parents, I trusted him with the house as he is a mature kid. However when I got home the next day I found that the house had been absolutely trashed, cups and dishes everywhere and the dog had been dyed yellow and pink! I've cleaned the house as much as I can but there are things like holes in the walls and the dining tables leg has been broken. I've since grounded my son taking all his devices away, and I won't be letting him have/go to any more parties especially not in my house. The damages to the wall and things are going to cost upwards of £2500 he is going to be getting a job and paying for all of it.
Is this a reasonable response?

Yup.

When I was a student, my younger flatmates held a party. Some randoms turned up at the door with cans of beer, expecting to be allowed in.

I was the oldest resident - in my 20s. I told them to go. When they tried to persuade me to step aside, my boyfriend loomed behind me. That did the trick.

Its reasonable if he had the party despite your instructions not to. However if you agreed to him having a party, or even failed to explicitly tell him not to and set boundaries for who and how many people could come round, I'm sorry, but its on you, as you failed in your duty. Unless your DS goes to a lot of empty house parties and knows how they end up, then it's up to you to have used your life experience to warn him of the way they spiral out of control. How people tell others, strangers turn up, and drunk teens are not careful with other people's property.

Your DS might be mature but I doubt he was mature enough to handle gate crashers (I am presuming that some people were made aware of the party probably on SM who weren’t invited) and that is why you should have been there to turf them out.

I doubt your DS enjoyed the party

I voted YABU because whilst your son may be mature and it might have been fine previously, while he and his friends were younger, no way on earth can he be expected to control his peers at 16, some of whom were clearly not as mature as him, and starting to experiment with more autonomous behaviour Etc.
You should certainly ground him for a while and remove devices for no more than a week, but claim for the damage on your insurance, and not force him to pay for it all: it’s partly your fault for expecting teens, parties and alcohol (inevitably slipped in by others even if not provided by your son) to result in no damage to your property…

You’re crazy to have gone out and left a load of 16 yo’s alone. Obviously they are brats who dont have any respect for other peoples property and maybe you were just naive thinking they were good kids but ultimately this is on you.

I am sorry but I chortled at the dog. Just because it had gone ok before doesn’t mean it will every time. Seems a reasonable compromise has been reached.

So the younger flatmates had adults to support them?

Completely different to the OP's son's situation. No 20 somethings plus boyfriend backing him up with rowdy behaviour.

You were insanely optimistic not to have expected some problems!

I think you need to accept some responsibility in this.

Exactly. This is the sort of parent to be. Not the one, who tells their child they can have a NYE party whilst they go away and return fuming with them because it went wrong. My dd is also 16. She won’t even have a party at our house (whilst we are there) she said kids ruin things.

When I was 14 and my brother 16, my parents went abroad and left us. My brother, the irresponsible one, had a party and it got out of control. A boy locked me in a room with him and I had to talk my way out… that was scary. There was not too much damage albeit my bedroom got the worst of it. Luckily a neighbour stepped in and threw everyone out. Neither of us had the skills to sort out the situation.

YABVU to expect your ds to pay when this is on you. Expect him to rectify what he is able to do is one thing. Anything else is punitive.

Yes. I was agreeing with earlier posts which stated that you need to have an adult there.

I think every person who attended should have a home visit with their parents present and shown what went on and all the damage that occurred especially dying the dog. Just because they didn't actually do the damage doesn't mean they didn't stand by and watch it happen or egg it on. Those parents need to know what happened in your house so they don't make the mistake of ever having an unsupervised party at theirs.

I do apologise @WearyAuldWumman !

I got confused over the post you were replying to.

£800 is still a lot to expect a child to pay.

He is not mature enough to have been put in that situation. You can't expect him to be able to handle other teens who are drunk and hell bent on getting up to mischief.

He has learnt his lesson and you've learnt yours. I wouldn't be too harsh.

Your update sounds sensible op. Hope everyone is OK. This thread makes me think of this film, can't get it out my head now!

I think YABU

Your son probably had no control over his "friends" behaviour.

I wouldn't ground him or make him pay. This is on you OP

I would like to know how they dyed the dog...

Nope, this is your fault. You left a 16 yr old to have a party unsupervised. What if someone had drank too much or overdosed.

I remember similar happening at neighbours. They left their teen for newyears to have a small gathering and loads univitd people turned up. She came running to our house for my parents and my mum and dad went and cleared all the kids out. Police turned up as another neighbour had complained about the noise.

Allowing a child of that age to have a party in the house while you are away is very unwise indeed and frankly rather naive. These sort of parties get gate-crashed and a child is not able to deal with that. I was in a similar situation with my brother many years ago and we were powerless to stop the drunken gatecrashers. We were just chidlren ourselves.

I think you must carry some of the blame. Clearly your son needs to take some responsibility for what happened, but I have no doubt he was impotent in this situation.

Take his phone away and only return it once he’s dyed his own hair yellow and pink.

Poor dog. Hope its skin wasn’t irritated. Quite disturbing that a bunch of teens would have found this funny.

This is on you, how did you expect your son to deal with gatecrashers or poor behaviour? You are lucky the damage was only to property, not people.

Of course he’s not telling you what happened.

You’ve already gone nuclear and punished him because you realise you shouldn’t have allowed this in the first place and are angry that you did, so it makes you feel better to react like this.

So why on Earth would he open up to you? You’ve proven you’re not approachable when shit hits the fan, so he’s pulled away from you, and this is going to negatively affect not only your relationship with him but how he reacts in future.

Can we see the picture of the dog?

Very stupid and irresponsible to let a 16yr old have a party at home with no adult, so you are to blame.

And good luck getting a 16yr a job! 😂