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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to not allow my 14 year-old DD to go camping?

86 replies

lesley2460 · 09/07/2010 09:14

My DD was 14 last week. About a month ago a load of her friends (mixed) spent a night camping in a field not far from home - we live on the edge of a largish town. I put my foot down and said no, she came home after the barbeque about 10.30 pm and all was well.

Now she's asking me again for the same thing tonight - four 14 year-old girls and a few Year 8 (!!!!) boys camping in a field with no adult supervision whatsoever. I don't think I'd have a minute's sleep if I let her go so have said no again. Of course I am now the uncoolest mum on the planet - although in actual fact my feeling is that the other mums are taking a very lax view on this arrangement.

What does everyone think?

OP posts:

GetOrfMoiLand · 09/07/2010 13:32

ILT - there is a great difference between a group of sensible kids going on a meticulously planned expedition (where they have to be at certain check points at specific times) to a bunch of kids camping in a field like this.

I was happy to send dd on a DofE expedition last month without a backward glance. I would not let her camp in a field like this.

saffy202 · 09/07/2010 13:35

My ds is 16.5 and him and a group of friends got in the habit of camping in a field near our house. I wasn't happy about it but he said that no-one could see them and they were fine.
After doing it loads of times (no alcohol)the phone rang after midnight and ds was screaming down the phone that a man was after them with a knife!

Dh went running down, and found ds and his friends running towards him.

There had been two men sitting drinking in the bushes nearby and ds had thrown a twig at what he thought was an old shoe. It was one of the men and he jumped up and said he had a knife. The boys all fled and left their stuff. When ds went back with dh his ipod had gone and his coat had been thrown into the camp fire.

Unless they are on a proper campsite they will never go again.

EccentricaGallumbits · 09/07/2010 13:38

DD1 is 14 and has done this a few times in various friend's fields. She has a lovely group of friends, boys and girls and I know most of them. They've had a fabulous time and will carry on doing so over the summer. I trust her. She tells me what happens (nothing untoward) we're both happy.

Remotew · 09/07/2010 13:42

DofE is different. DD did bronze & silver. Though she did say for the silver the teachers went to the pub across the road. Not the same as they would have known the teachers could come back at anytime and they would fail the expedition if they got up to no good.

30andMerkin · 09/07/2010 13:49

No money or mobiles allowed for bronze DofE??

Is it just me that thinks that is madness, and actually teaching irresponsiblity. I wouldn't go camping with my HUSBAND without a mobile and money, just in case. By all means put them in a sealed bag, only to be used in an emergency, but surely you have to be able to plan ahead for all eventualities?

PeedOffWithNits · 09/07/2010 14:00

ILTiffany - the kids on the D of E will be very carefully supervised though - several check points throughout the day, and the adult assessors on site all night in case of emergency. they will also be properly equiped and trained in first aid - what to do if one of your groups is taken ill up a mountain etc.

as i teacher i took kids on these expeditions - they knew that any alcohol was strictly forbidden and would be a sending home offence - so their team would fail.
these sort of kids are not the same sort who want to camp in a field with their mates so they can do things they cannot get away with at home! D of E expedition is not just a "jolly"

GypsyMoth · 09/07/2010 14:03

well on the other hand my other dd camps out with her mates,she's just turned 16 and did so last summer too,apart from a few bites,she was ok!

no,no money at all on d of e,they are failed if they buy anything.

GypsyMoth · 09/07/2010 14:06

one group mobile for emergencies held by one in the group.

not read whole thread,but what field is this? who owns it??

PeedOffWithNits · 09/07/2010 14:07

30andmerkin - thats right about no money or mobile- the differnce is if YOU wnet out campimg, you would not have

a) 6 other groups hiking from camp A to camp B along a similar route to you
b) six other assessors from the camp meeting their groups at points that cross your path all day long
c) a contingency plan of what to do IF XYor Z happened to one of your mates
d) whistles for emergency use only

and their maps mark public houses/phone boxes so they are not without access to a phone for a real emergency, these calls being free

GypsyMoth · 09/07/2010 14:14

mind you she came back in a right state from the pracice expedition

any tips for blister prevention,her boots are hired form the local outdoor centre???

GetOrfMoiLand · 09/07/2010 14:32

ILT - get some proper walking socks from Millets type shop and make her wear two pairs, so the socks rub against each other, and not her skin.

DD had terrible bliosters on her practice (they got wildly lost in the rain, ended up in Stroud (miles away from Gloucester) and the poor thing sufferered! Everything was fine with 2 pairs of socks.

Yes also think kids who bother doing DofE are not the type of kids to rebel and take vodka and fags on the expedition!

Opinionatedfreak · 09/07/2010 14:35

I would not allow a teenager to camp in a random field with a bunch of mates. Alcohol and sexual experimentation are almost inevitably consequences.

I would however, allow a teenager to participate in an organised expedition. Having said this I spent time on my DofE gold training expedition in the pub . I was 17 at the time and still have fond memories of that nice warm toasty pub on a terribly cold evening... my group made a conscious decision not to go to the pub when we did the real thing as we didn't want to get either disqualified or expelled.... both of which were realistic consequences (see, I was really quite sensible)!

This is why the no money rule will exist for the younger ones. I'm so bloody old that mobiles didn't even exist but we had to check in with our supervisors by payphone. I left my lovely compass in a phone box and missed it for years as couldn't ever find another one quite so good.

foureleven · 09/07/2010 14:38

I'd let her go...

(thinks back 20 years ago to what i would have got up to...)

Dont let her go!!!!

tortoiseonthehalfshell · 09/07/2010 14:44

I was 16 when I graduated high school and was given all sorts of freedoms, and I did things and made choices I wouldn't have done if i'd been a couple of years older.

At 14, definitely no.

Also, loopyloops, in my experience acid doesn't make you do things you have no awareness of doing, nor does it make you forget things. I took acid a few times as a teenager, and I clearly remember those experiences 15 years later.

hellymelly · 09/07/2010 14:45

actually at 14 I would have been very happy singing kumbaya round a candle and toasting marshmallows..I was a very yoing 14 and not sophisticated and I would have been definitely too young to be in this kind of situation.I found it all hard enough and scary at 17 nevr mind just turned 14.It is too young,you are right.

foureleven · 09/07/2010 14:47

(I have been informed) that acid doesnt make you forget what you have done and in fact gives you a sense of complete clarity... But I suppose its different for everyone.

ledodgy · 09/07/2010 14:51

Foureleven I can confirm that acid does not give you a sense of complete clarity at all. It gives you the sense of complete surreality.

foureleven · 09/07/2010 14:54

I think its different for everyone ledodgy, and depends what mood your in when you take it.. again, So I have been informed.

ledodgy · 09/07/2010 14:58

Well I used to take it on a regular basis in my youth in a variety of moods and it never gave me a sense of clarity. I may have thought I was speaking sense when I came up with amazing theories etc but I wasn't. Then the stronger stuff is completely hallucinogenic and again nothing like clarity at all. I know someone who took it once and thought she was flying a spaceship for ten hours. She was in fact sitting on a bed.

foureleven · 09/07/2010 15:07

You must have had a better dealer

loopyloops · 09/07/2010 15:07

My mother is still convinced that when she tool acid she flew around the world and went to heaven. She knows now that heaven exists. Pretty clear to her, but I'm not convinced!

ledodgy · 09/07/2010 15:08

Francagoestohollywood · 09/07/2010 15:10

It's a tough one. Now that I'm a parent (but dc are still very young), my first reaction would be to say no.

BUT: at 14 I was allowed to do this sort of things, and I used to go on holidays with friends, girls and boys.
We didn't get drunk
We didn't do drugs
We didn't have sex

ledodgy · 09/07/2010 15:10

My friend's auntie is a nun after my friend's brother and his friend spiked her tea with acid one night years ago. She had a 'revelation' and joined the nunnery. To this day no-one's told her.

Francagoestohollywood · 09/07/2010 15:12

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