WWYD? House Party on Saturday

[FreshPrince]

My DD (17) was invited to a small house party (8 people) 4 weeks ago that is still going ahead this weekend. Obviously, within that time the coronavirus situation has changed massively, but DD still thinks she should be able to go as, in her words, they all catch the same bus to the same school and then go into the same classrooms as each other 10 inches apart and use then same germy computers .
I'm torn on whether to let her go or not, her friends are all seeing this as maybe the last get together they get before the restrictions get tighter, and they're all feeling quite sorry for themselves because of all their plans for post a levels have gone down the drain in the last few weeks. However, I don't want her taking unnecessary risks and exposing herself when there is so little known about this virus and long term effects.

WWYD?

The thing is, teenagers plus parties plus probably alcohol is not really a very sensible mix, is it, in these times? They will be MUCH more physically close, as people are at parties,, possibly all over each other, hugging, some snogging, possibly drinking from the same cup by accident, handling the same bottles and food etc (in school they get it put out for them or bring own packed lunch). Plus the average teenager’s feeling that they are invincible and wanting to risk stuff for the sake of fun (I can imagine some throwing caution to the wind and losing their virginity in an unplanned way because they joke that they don’t want to die a virgin )

All this would lead me to say a big fat “NO! There will be other parties!!”

Then you wound

Whoops don’t know where “then you wound” came from!

You can't stop her going. I hope she chooses not to but it is her choice unless we have lockdown before then.

My concern would be that inevitably someone else will turn up who isn’t from the school or is from a different year group who they haven’t previously mixed with. I have the same dilemma myself with a younger child and am reluctantly going to stop her going too.

No. It's not about whether the risk is much more than school or not (although it will be more) - that's not your judgement to make.

If you make that individual judgement, and your neighbour goes to the hairdresser because she's made the individual judgement that it's not much of a risk, and your colleague goes round to her mate's house for a curry because the mate's feeling a bit under the weather and needs cheering up, and the risk can't be that much because the neighbour hasn't even got a cough (yet!), and so on and so on - well you get the idea. Lots of virus spread unnecessarily, because instead of just following the instructions, people starting trying to make their own estimates of risk and go by those instead.

Keep the individual opinions about risk out of it - they're not relevant and can be dangerously wrong. We just need to stop unnecessary social contact - it's that simple. It really matters. How well we do all this isolating will have a direct effect on how many ventilators (that we don't have) we need, and on how many people die. Help your dd do the right thing by banning her going and make her feel good about herself afterwards for doing the right thing.

I feel for your dd and I think the idea of promising a party later in the year is a good one.

She definitely won’t go, for all her faults she’s a smart girl and knows how worried I’ve been about her and that I haven’t decided to say no lightly.The idea of them getting up to mischief is funny though, her friend groups idea of a party is recreating high school musical whilst drinking echo falls 😂

Just to clarify, she has had parties in the garden, but at the last one she was 11. She’s an April baby, and it gets too cold to stay out around 7 ish DH and I don’t love the idea of having a group of drunk teenagers knocking around our house, however sensible they generally are. Hopefully in August it’ll be warm enough for them to stay out for as long as possible.

No absolutely not. If people can’t stick to the advice then we have no chance.