DD has vodka stashed in her room - advice please!

[Namechangeteentroubles]

Back story; DD in Y10 has recently started at a new school after years of hating her own school, anxiety, friendship issues etc. We had a very very rough time with her these last couple of years, lots of therapy etc. She was miserable. She has adapted very well to the new school and has a great group of friends and is behaving much more like a regular teen girl. It has been a huge relief.

She has been invited to her first party at a friends house tomorrow and has been really looking forward to it for a couple of weeks. She has been quite open saying that some kids in her school have drunk alcohol and it is possible they might try to sneak some in etc. She said I can trust her etc. I’ve never had reason not to before. She has always been very well behaved. However, younger DD2 just told me that DD1 has told her that she has vodka (bought with a friend from someone at school) and a vape hidden in her room to bring to the party tomorrow. She is apparently not planning to drink it herself, she is bringing it for a friend and the vape is for someone else. I am livid but haven’t done or said anything yet. I will look for the vodka when she is asleep but once found I’m not sure how to approach this…. I guess she shouldn’t be allowed to go to the party but I actually also feel bad her for her because she finally has a social life after years of misery and she was so looking forward to this…. Any advice appreciated……

There’s a difference between going hard over anything and everything all the time and going hard on significant matters. It depends where you want to draw the line on what you as parents find acceptable and what you’re willing to let slide. The vast majority of commenters have said that “teens will be teens” and will experiment. Though I personally don’t agree with that sentiment I understand that people can have different opinions in that regard. However the lying and blatant disrespect that followed afterwards is unacceptable. Having had a bad time at the previous school/MH issues is not a free pass to do whatever. I’d reiterate that there’s a massive loss of trust. And there’s consequences for that type of behaviour. So do what you need to do in terms of consequences. Take stuff/activities away, ground her, whatever. But defo don’t let it slide with just a conversation because as you’ve said you already had a convo with her, explaining everything in detail, and this still happened. So stronger consequences are defo needed. Whenever myself/siblings did something that wasn’t right, we got grounded and my parents basically gave us an assignment so we’d have to do research and do a presentation or we’d get signed up for some sort of community project relating to the topic or watch a documentary/video’s regarding the topic etc. Anything to show us the shocking real life consequences of whatever bad thing we tried at the time.

@thelobsterquadrille:To me the natural consequence for lying also would have been that she shoudn't have ben allowed to go to the party but because of all she has been through I couldn't bring myself to take it away from her. She has been so excited about her 'first party'. But the lying needs consequences or it will happen all the more. DH has no idea what the consequence should be either.

I have a 16yo DD. I wouldn’t have let her go to the party. The consequence for demonstrating you can’t be trusted is that you aren’t trusted for a period of time. That means no parties or sleepovers and being dropped off/picked up at the door by a parent if you go anywhere.

My DD sets great store by fitting in, which I despair over because she was the opposite when she was younger. Just be aware that she might be quite convinced that she is only now popular/accepted because of a carefully crafted persona that she is portraying. And that if she ‘slips up’ and behaves like her real self nobody will like her. She might have offered to get these drinks/vapes for her friends and worry that they’ll drop her if she fails. It’s also possible people are taking advantage of her, pretending to be friends so she gets these things for them. Because of her previous problems she is quite vulnerable to being exploited. And of course she could manipulate you too by referring to her past MH struggles to try to get you to be more lenient. The teenage brain is hard to crack sometimes!

I'm not sure that keeping her from the party would have addressed the root cause of all this which is a complete lack of self esteem and a deep inner fear that she is damaged and unlikable.

A teenage girl with self esteem and confidence in herself wouldn't be so desperate for friends and so ready to buy popularity that she would smuggle liquor into a party for everyone and drink it with them despite her medications. It wasn't 'for a friend'. She was going to drink it.

This isn't just about drinking though. Your child is in danger of taking other risks too in order to gain or keep friends - sex and drugs, getting into cars with friends who have been drinking, etc.

Your daughter needs to be put into as many exhausting extra curricular activities as you can find. She needs to find activities that will build her sense of self esteem and erase any sense she has that she is flawed, unlikable, and can't just be an ordinary, boring girl.

And YYY to the suggestion that she is very vulnerable to exploitation by more savvy peers.

Agreed about the self esteem. We need to work more on it (there has already been a LOT of work). Not sure how crafty or exploitative her current friends are. I've seen her around them and as @Remaker put it DD1 has carefully crafted a persona that she is portraying very convincingly. There was one manipulative girl but DD1 has distanced herself from her thankfully.

So my 14yr old is at a Halloween party with all her friends. Parents are at the house. It is clear no booze is allowed. DS is on her Snapchat and no evidence of booze/caping etc

Her friend in another friend group was in hospital last Saturday night due to alcohol poisoning

Packed dd off tonight to her first party. She's 16 in March. We chatted about alcohol and she admitted it would be available. I've sent her with 3 bottles of cider. I've ver

Posted too soon.
I've never seen her drink more than half a bottle so think we're OK.
Her friends mum is picking them up in half an hour and we've just messaged to check on her and she's making total sense.
I know she's going to drink but I'd still like to have some sort of control over it. This way she has alcohol, fits in with her mates, but it's not vodka or jaegerbombs.

Is she home yet op?

I don't believe she's holding thus stuff for others, she's getting it herself to fit in. I'd be asking her to consider if the people she's hanging round with are drinking and vaping at 14, isn't she better than that?

The only time my DS (now nearly 17) drank with his mates was at the after-prom party. I dont/wouldn't allow social drinking with mates routinely. He goes to parties. I absolutely would not allow him to take alcohol (let alone steal it).

DD18 didn't start social drinking until after her 18th birthday. She's never got drunk, drinks quite sensibly.

I think it’s quite reasonable to say to her tomorrow morning that you are very upset about her lying and stealing, that you won’t be able trust her again for a long time, and that you don’t know what the consequence of that is yet. Give yourself breathing space.

You can’t really stop her going to the next party; that ship has sailed.

DD is home. Has not drunk any alcohol. She actually called DH 45 mins before pick up time and asked to be picked up. Said she was glad she did not bring the alcohol. Only 2 girls drank at the party and one threw up 5 mins after arriving and the other made a fool of herself. That is all I know for now. I told her that she has in no way being left off the hook and we’ll be dealing with it in the morning. I think I will be taking the phone / screen time away for a while and allowance. There is no next party planned for now so no point saying she is not going to the next one.

You're going to have to address the fact that she's developed a social persona.

It takes a huge amount of energy to keep that sort of thing going, and the person inside can feel lonely and desperate, afraid of being exposed, and ashamed of who she really is.

You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time... It gets exhausting.

Your daughter needs to unearth who she is deep inside amd start honoring and accepting that person, and staying true to the person she really is.

I think you need to lay on thick the “disappointed” bit about the subsequent lying. I’d be more annoyed by that than the initial issue.

Agree with PPs about her self esteem though, does she have any obvious hobbies / sports that could help build it up as just herself rather than this person she’s created? Fixing this is what will protect her long term.

Ffs! Please don't take her phone away. This poor child has suffered badly with her mental health. My 15 year old has been there so I truly understand. Her phone is her social lifeline, sounds silly but it's true. If you take it away she's going to drive herself crazy with anxiety, not knowing what people are saying about her, not being able to discuss how she's feeling with her mates etc. this is a girl who is finally starting to recover, don't take that away from her. Please!!!!
Your opportunity to discipline has sailed, you let her go to the party. Just speak to her about how disappointed you are. Peer pressure is a horrible thing and she obviously felt she needed to deliver the goods. You have no idea how much pressure she was put under to deliver this.

I wouldn't take her phone off her or van screen time either. It's not related to her behaviour and you don't want to take away her only means of communicating with her friends if she's already struggled with her mental health.

Despite the lies, she stayed sober and did the right thing in the end.

@Namechangeteentroubles personally I think you have done enough & hopefully she's learnt enough. She's settling in, she's making friends, she's thankful she didn't take the alcohol- she's not kicking off that you made her be unpopular because she didn't take it.

Its a new day, a new start.

All good advice - thank you. That makes sense about the phone. Was not sure it was a good idea. Maybe I was a bit harsh saying she ‘created a persona’. it’s more like she has really wanted to be the person she is now for a long time perhaps because this is who she felt she really is but her social anxiety hindered her. Is that makes sense… (She has had a lot of help / therapy to work on this). But she does still need to continue to work on self esteem. I’m not sure if the pressure to bring the alcohol came from herself or the others. It sounds like it is from her. She said her friends were concerned for her getting into trouble when she told them she was caught, they weren’t bothered about the alcohol. I think it was a lesson for her to see the two drinkers (who are not her friends) make fools of themselves.

@mathanxiety you have just put the whole of my teen and young adult life into words in a way I’ve never been able to articulate… I think my partner had the same thing too, always trying to create a likeable persona rather than being yourself. It got both of us into a whole world of trouble of the most serious kinds. I’ll be on the alert for this with my own kids and start talking to them about it young.

Just been thinking about how cool my parents were. They always let me have party's for birthdays, xmas , Halloween and even Valentine's Day. I would ask for a party and they would say yes. It made me the cool kid with cool parents. When I discussed this with my parents as an adult they said they did it so they could make sure I was safe and not drinking or drinking the absolute bare minimum and so were my friends unable to get drunk because my 'cool' parents were around so we would just stay up most the night chatting, dancing and eating party food. I will do the same for my children. Maybe if your child agrees to be open and honest this is something you will consider so the party's happen under your roof and you have complete control

I would 'discover' the vodka when you decided to surprize dd1 by giving her room a really good tidy up for her. I would then sit her down and talk about the dangers of alcohol, it bring illegal, could make her seriously ill ext. I would also talk about not needing to fitin with the in crown. How hard it is at her age to just be herself. Try and discover if she really was taking it for someone else or not. I would be very concerned if she was as she has had friendship issues in the past and going down a people pleasing route can be disastrous at any age but especially for teens.
Depending how the talk goes I would probably tell her she can still go if she wants to ...but without the vodka. Give her an out with the friends. Tell her it is ok not to go to social events where you think you may be vulnerable to being persuaded into doing things she doesn't want to. If she decides not to go help her find reasons why she isn't going which don't make her the uncool one. She can tell th her mother found the stash if she likes. If she decides to go tell her that you will be picking her at midnight at the latest but that if she wants to come home early you will pick her up at any time she is ready to go home.
I wouldn't personally trust a 14 year old, especially one who has had friendship issues in the past and you are helping to make a new start to necessarily make the right decisions in this type of scenario. They need help. Best not to go in all guns blazing though. 💐

Why do you need to punish her any more? She went to the party. She didn't drink. She asked to be picked up 45 minutes before she needed to be picked up. It sounds like she saw things she didn't want to be part of. I'd say that was a win!

Just let it go now... keep the conversation open. They'll be more parties. I think she'll go with a better head in her shoulders next time.