If your 14 yr old went for a sleepover, puked a few times, then came home and took to their bed for the next day what would you think?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

Call me suspicious but my first statement was 'Have you been drinking?'

She denys it.

DH thinks I am unreasonable and DD is far too sweet, little and innocent to do such a thing.

Does noone else think it is a worry that there is/was so much underage drinking going on??

of course we worry spatchcock!

of course we worry spatchcock!

Your DD is clearly preggers.

Elli - it was more of a rhetorical question really (sort of). I just get a little worried about how quickly kids 'these dyas' are growing up. Yes, I know we all got up to stuff, but it seems a lot more innocent. But then maybe I should just 'get with the times' and accept these things will happen? Dont know. Do you think the premature growing up/sexualisation of children is responsible for the crime rates etc etc? Gah! I dont know. There is no solution that I can think of really!1

Sorry. am going off on a tangent here, sorry to hijack EG!!

So back to the OP, Does your DD seem like the type to go off and drink behind your back? Has she shown any other signs of doing stuff she shouldnt?

I would also make it clear that getting drunk makes her vulnerable, as it does her friends. My teen and his friends drink but following having had the fear of something dreadful put into them (after cycling in the dark without lights whilst inebriated then grounded for weeks and other parents informed)now appear () to follow my rules. That is they now always ensure they are somewhere safe (i.e. an adult around and/or someone's house), that someone is sober and identified as such, that the sober person has my mobile number in their telephone! This has been used on two occasions so I hope that indicates they are being a bit sensible.

I take the stance that it will happen and try to give them a safety net but never miss a chance to point out that their livers' are not mature and that alcohol is a poison in excess.

Er...can I just say something to follow in from menopausedmad? Basically I did a first aid course recently (for DS sport) and the guy running it went off on a bit of a tangent and said the following which I thought was pretty good advice (just whilst on the topic of underage drinking / possible overindulgence):

If someone has either passed out or crashed out having been drinking then make sure they are at least lying on their side in case of vomiting and prop them in that position if possible- i.e. to ensure no inhalation of vomit which at least can burn lining of lungs and at worse suffocate.

Mentioned to SIL with 3 teenage boys and she seemed to think good advice to pass on. If you can't stop them drinking you can at least try and make sure they look out for one another. Lots of other things they can do to keep safe but this seemed a good basic thing to tell them if they are drinking in secret/staying at someone elses house or whatever.

Spatch - I am sooo worried, few years off for my 2 but not stepdd/ds so some experience, if limited.

I wouldn't necessarily automatically think she had been drinking. If she is a good girl, and generally doesn't lie/try and pull the wool over your eyes I would give her the benefit of the doubt. She may have scoffed pizza, 2 bags of haribos and a tub of ice cream and had no sleep, which could have caused the sickness.

IME if you have drunk enough to be sick, you will reek of alcohol.

I don't assume all teenagers are pissheads. My dd had a glass of champagne and some cider at New Year (she was with me) - she didn't really like the taste or the effect (give her time).

I often used to get a dodgy tummy during sleepovers at other people's houses around that age. No idea why! probably due to different foods/drinks/excitement. Not booze! Surely if you asked her again, and emphasised that you aren't going to flip, you just need to know, she'll tell you? Or is that hopelessly naive (it still works on mine, but he is 4!)

As Saskia said, she could be pregnant , I doubt it though. I would blame it on the crap they ate.

Could be drink, could be food, could be virus/bug.

Seems a tad unfair to dismiss illness out of hand and blame sickness of drink, without any real evidence as such.

pregnant argh. no. no. no. no. no!

first thought would be drink

Look, you'll never really know (unless you do some proper sleuthing I guess).

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. If you get treated like a liar even when you are telling the truth, there's no incentive to tell the truth.

Being suspicious and making false accusations could damage your relationship with her. My mother used to do this to me and it was around that time I started to seriously dislike the woman. And now I'm older and a mother, far from the "you'll understand one day when you are a mother", in fact, no, I judge her the shortcomings she should have overcome in the name of good parenting.

Next thing you know you are snooping around and reading her diary (I'm not saying you will but its the next step!!!)...

If you have serious concerns that she might have been keeping bad company last night, I'd focus my attention there, in a subtle way. Its fair to have asked her - but I would ask, and then give the benefit of the doubt, knowing that there is a chance that they are lying (as there is with everything) but that hopefully my parenting is up to scratch enough that there's no real need to lie.

And if there is, work on that.

I would just hold the bucket and mutter sympathetic noises until a confession came, then I would proffer the Alka Seltzer and try not to smile. If no confession was forthcoming, I would either give them the benefit of the doubt or assume they had learned their lesson the hard way.

I am always amazed how often my lot confess misdemeanours. I never did that, but then my mum did get quite cross over little things so it was dangerous territory.

I was violently sick at a sleepover when I was 14 or 15. It was the first time I had been to the girl hosting it's house. It was completely and utterly a tummy bug and it was so miserable suffering from it in a strange house.

I would have been totally mortified if my parents had thought it was down to drink and I wasn't even the sort of teenager who would have been described as sensible.

Yes, I too was violently ill for 24 hours, after eating a whole packet of fig rolls at a sleepover - nobody else liked them! I was so bad, my mum even slept in the same room as me the following night, holding the sick bowl

I came home early once age 15 really ill, white, shaking and being violently sick, my parents would not believe I hadn't taken something.
My Dad was really angry and was shouting at me to tell him what I'd had and threatening to kick me out, I was really upset.
Then the phone rang, my sister was being sent home from a sleepover with exactly the same symptoms.
It turned out we had salmonella food poisoning. I have never forgiven him.

Have only read the first page of this thread. It doesn't sound as she's been drinking or smoking cannabis. My money is on either an innocent stomach bug or an extasy pill or the morning after pill.

She might actually be genuinly sick. That happened to DD2 last year

Am amazed at some of the comments on here along the lines of 'all teenagers lie, I did all the time' and 'yeah all 14 year olds drink' and 'they can't be trusted'.

The last time I drank in my life was when I was 14, and I had always done so with my parents' knowledge. I made the decision myself that it wasn't something I wanted to do and so far that decision hasn't changed. Same with smoking [never ever saw the point to that] and drugs. I never lied about where I was going or who I was meeting.

I did, however, have a mother whose speech very often bypassed her logic circuits, and at sixteen [when I had almost no male friends and barely ever went out, so would have no time to meet any anyway] when I got a stomach bug and was puking into the toilet, her first words were not, "Are you okay?" but, "Did you want to tell me something?" When I said, "What?" in between vomiting, she clarified with, "Morning sickness?" I simply ordered her out of the bathroom at that point.

If you don't give your teenagers the chance to prove they can be trusted [and can occasionally make mistakes and not be absolutely annihilated over them] then damn straight they won't be trustworthy, cause they will just learn you don't trust them anyway so why bother trying to make you?