A Dilemma. Am I paranoid or do I have a point?

[Embleplini]

Hello People,

I would be grateful for your opinion on the following simple scenario.
My daughter (12) has been invited to a local travelling fair on Friday evening by 5 friends. All of her friend's parents are relaxed about it but we cannot help but see the potential horror.
We have offered to go with - but this is not an option, daughter seeing it as part of her rite of passage to go out for an evening with her friends.
I don't want to go into specific details and chew over the various possibilities I simply would be grateful to anyone who wishes to respond whether they, on gut instinct alone - would refuse or permit such a request.
Yea or Nay.
Thanks very much to all who respond.

What concerns you OP?

KittyFoyle we had great fun winding DD up about not getting pregnant at the fair as the baby would be born with an earing already in, calling its mum 'darlin' and swinging outrageously off one handle of its buggy.

Seemed to do the trick

Depends on so many things, but for me, mostly the time. Can they go at 4ish and pick them up at about 7?

Suggestion above of being there, but not with her is a good one IMO.

Let her go, but electronically tag her and equip her with a taser.

Oh Hully, I might end up stalking you if you keep being so funny!

Good point, let her go but refuse to fund it. She'll get bored long before 9pm.

My gut instinct would be to let her go.

OP, why do you think the other parents are relaxed but you & your DH 'cannot help but see the potential horror'?

I hate fairs. Bad things happen at them.

It's not the fair people themselves, it's the little gobshites that live locally who like to seize the opportunity to mug other kids.

And I live in a naice town.

I would be apprenhensive.

Saying all that though, I went. Of course I did. And I think I'd have to let ds go at 12, too.

I do think you need to go into details, I'm afraid - I can't see the potential horror myself.

Darkness, large metal objects flying through the air, groups of 'yoofs' who may or may not have taken alcohol, crowds, .......

I am a very laidback parents but fairgrounds at night freak me out.

I lost my virginity at a fairground.

I hate fairs too. I think they are ugly, noisy and ludicrously expensive. But I don;t think anything very bad will happen to a group of friends who stick together.

Yes I lost my keys at a fair a few years ago! See that's another problem with fairs. Losing things

I suggest we all go and listen to Rusholme Ruffians and then decide.

Or maybe not

My parents let me go to our local fair with my older sister and cousins when I was about 14. My Dad went for a drink in one of the pubs in town [which was great, because after a drink he kept handing out the money as we needed it for more and more rides] and kept a rough eye on us.

It was different in 'our day' though. I'm not sure I'd let my kids go alone. We went for nostalgia again last year and it was way worse than when we were there. Kids about 12 were standing around drinking, puking everywhere and making out with their underage drunken mates. Not nice.

And my SiL got her phone stolen.

I wouldn't let my daughter go, not because I wouldn't trust her to behave, but because I don't want her to feel pressure to behave that way, or ostracised if she doesn't want to. Can you take her out somewhere and have her tell her friends she is busy rather than not allowed?

Obviously depends on the fair, as others have said, but if you are concerned I suspect your fair is more like ours.

Let her go to the fair, unless she is extremely immature for her age, and pick her up from there at a time you are both agreed on.

I went to the fair with my friends whenever it arrived every six months from around the same age. It was the only night-time event most of us were allowed to go to for the first couple of years and was really, properly, exciting. I snogged a boy once or twice. I brushed arms with raggle-taggle gypsies in crowds. I went on some rickety rides and was sick once. I saw other (in the minority) less clued up kids doing worse and made my own decisions regarding why I wouldn't copy them. I also survived.

Nope

Need to know more of the horrors in store, I'd let a 12yo go to a fair assuming there's no reason you haven't mentioned.

Does she have a phone, could you drop her off and pick her up at agreed time ?

If she went at after dinner say- 6:30-8:00pm then yes, but any later than that; no way.

Fairgrounds are fun and can be safe, but they DO attract groups of young people spoiling for a fight and drinking booze.

Let her go for a bit on trust this year.

If she is a "young" 12 year old, then I would say no outright.

Can only speak in relation to our own annual fair which is reasonably large (follows on from Nottingham Goose Fair) and is quite a complicated layout in a not exactly brilliant area of the city. It would be a no from me at 12 for both DS's if it was just with same-age friends.

It would depend on the 12yo.

i'd drop her off and pick her up

in fact i have done this.