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Original poster

Help here needed big time, feel a real old fuddy duddy and DD thinks I am being unreasonable - what do you think? Please be honest!

130 replies

pinkbubble · 14/04/2008 21:40

DD (almost 14) asked if she can have 3 friends to sleep over later this week. I say ok, DH is away for the night, not worried about that, in fact think its probably easier.

Then DD drops a bomb shell!!!!!!

"Can we have alcohol!" Says she

"No" says I

"Oh please!"

"No"

"Well when we were at ....... house we were allowed Archers and WKED!"

" " says I

Am I being old and Fuddy Duddy or am I being a responsible parent?

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Kewcumber · 15/04/2008 14:10

btw I'm not necessarily suggesting you should give in if you don;t want to just so she can look cool to her friends - was just pointing out that she probably isn;t worried about losing her friends just looking geeky.

AliciaJohns · 15/04/2008 14:20

YANBU. I was allowed a bit of watered down wine or shandy at this age at family gatherings or on holiday etc, but that's totally different from allowing a load of pre teens to drink alcopops in your house! IME girls this age get giggly and rowdy enough without alcohol - imagine the scene after a few WKDs!! Do you really want to have to deal with that (and the hangovers next morning!)?? No way!!

frogs · 15/04/2008 14:20

I'm not disagreeing with you, Kew -- I just think a 13yo should be able to make it look as if her parents are the geeky tragic ones, thus getting herself off the hook, rather than just throwing a hissy strop.

It does depend a bit on the child's POV though -- I know dd1 would be secretly relieved if I took a tough line on this, whereas it sounds as if the OP's dd genuinely thinks her mum is being unreasonable, which makes me a bit tbh.

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Original poster
pinkbubble · 15/04/2008 14:26

I am more than happy to look like the pain in the neck parent, she can blame it all on me - with my blessing. I am still going to stand my ground. She is very worried how she will look in front of friends. Teenage peer pressure is an awful thing when you are only 13!

OP posts:
mylovelymonster · 15/04/2008 14:28

She will look like a girl who's parents give a sh*t, and they will probably be secretly envious that you care about her so much.

AliciaJohns · 15/04/2008 14:30

You could always be sneaky and make some punch with Schloer and fruit juice, and tell them it's got alcohol in it . Seriously, you can make it fun for them without giving in over this. Let them drink something non alcoholic out of wine or cocktail glasses if that helps them to feel grown up. She will forgive you when they all have a great time anyway, which they will, because when you're that age ANY party is fun!

Original poster
pinkbubble · 15/04/2008 14:33

This isn't a party, just a sleepover!

OP posts:
AliciaJohns · 15/04/2008 14:34

Well, sleepover then... that's kind of a party isn't it??

Original poster
pinkbubble · 15/04/2008 14:35

I suppose, its just I keep reminding myself,

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dandycandyjellybean · 15/04/2008 15:47

Have already thought about this quite a bit (although my ds is only 2.5!!!lol, but we were late starters and lots of our contempories have teenage kids) and I would definitely prefer to encourage ds to be open and honest about the things he wants to do, even if he is worried I would be shocked. I would deffo check with the other parents, but would be okay with my ds having small quantity of alcohol with his friends in my house. Having had very strict parents myself, and basically being the model child in the house and living it up on the quiet, I would much rather encourage him to spend as much time as possible under my roof doing stuff like this, where I can monitor the situation, than he feel the need to do it away from home and behing my back. I agree with lots of the posters who suggest lower alcohol beer or wine or the punch idea was brill, you could literally put one shot of something in a huge bowl of punch and honestly tell them it's 'rum' punch or whatever, and then laugh your head off at 'em acting all trollied!!!

DirtySexyMummy · 15/04/2008 16:06

Very at all the posters who have said that they would rather a glass of wine than an alcopop - you do know that a 175ml glass of wine is going to be around 12% alcohol, whereas a 330ml alcopop will be around 4%?

Agree with harpsichord - I was always given very small, very weak glasses of archers or martini or bucks fizz etc when I was younger, and I have a very healthy relationship with alcohol. I was one of the very few of my friends who never got totally wasted. It wasn't forbidden, therefore not as exciting to me, and I never got into the 'drinking in the park' thing as much as my friends. And we were doing it at 14, by the way.

I think it is something you need to decide - do you allow a little taster, and give them an education on alcohol? Or do you forbid it and hope for the best?

Kewcumber · 15/04/2008 16:21

I think the issue isn't the alcohol level but the fact that alcopops don't taste like alcohiol and are very easy to drink several of them - very few 14 yr olds would have the palate to tolerate more than a glass of a weakish wine IME. And lets be honest how many of us at 14 thought - "ooh yummy wine", if I'd had alcopops at 14 would probably have been drinking much more much earlier than I was.

Original poster
pinkbubble · 15/04/2008 16:31

Well, DD has come home in a much better mood. I managed to embarrass her even more as I asked her friend what would her parents do. DD hissed at me, but luckily for me DDs friend said that her parents probably wouldn't allow alcohol either![phew]

DD then asked if I could buy some face masks instead! I said of course - no problem!

OP posts:
frogs · 15/04/2008 16:33

at face masks!

They are so funny at this age -- dd1 went for a sophisticated birthday sleepover with a group of her friends, they all went to a nail bar and had their nails done. They then spent most of the rest of the weekend in the park behind friends' parents' house, playing on the swings.

Original poster
pinkbubble · 15/04/2008 16:35

Think I will even chuck in some cucumber for good measure too, just to show them I'm not so bad after all!

OP posts:
robinpud · 15/04/2008 16:39

What about fruit shoots and a sausage roll from Greggs?

barnstaple · 15/04/2008 16:44

You could always mix up a punch for them and pretend there's alcohol in it; then you can sit back and see the placebo effect in action (and whether they get hangovers!)

AuntEm · 15/04/2008 16:52

Now have a disturbing mental picture of slapping a mixture of fruit shoot & sausage roll on my face.

I think I might allow a small glass of something fizzy for a birthday party at 14 or so - but only after consulting other parents. The trouble with sleepovers is that they happen every weekend for dd at the moment (more often in the holidays) and I'd be concerned that drinking becomes the norm, which is why I wouldn't go for conning them with strange conconctions

Anyway, what's wrong with being a fuddyduddy?

AbbeyA · 15/04/2008 17:09

Very often you find that the other parents wouldn't allow it either. My DSs always complain that we are strict but last year my middle DS wanted to do something that 'everybody else's parents' were agreeable to, and about 20 were going. After careful consideration, finding out the exact arrangements and knowing that the boy arranging was very sensible and doing it with the help of his mother, we agreed. In the end only 4 of them went!! When I asked why he was very reluctant to say that the others hadn't been allowed! He hasn't been able to view me quite so much as 'the wicked witch of the west'-I just remind him that the other parents were not as liberal as he was making out.

Heathcliffscathy · 15/04/2008 20:13

twig i went to parties at 12 where there were no parents/alcohol and snogging rooms! hell i HAD a party at 13 where my parents were upstairs and i was lying on a sofa doing goodness knows what with 'boyfriend' whilst mayhem erupted all around me. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

however, i think alcopops are the devils work, at least in our day it was woodpecker cider (barf).

if they don't usually drink at dinner, then no alcohol tbh, i would expect the kids to be smuggling it in (vodka in clearisil bottles anyone??? ) NOT to be asking for it from the parents!

SmugColditz · 15/04/2008 22:55

The thing is about alcopops, you can chug them like pop.

I got WASTED on Hooch when I was about 14/15. It was when it still cam in coke sized tins, and I chugged 6 in a short space of time, so yes only 4 or 5%, but they go down really smooth!

misdee · 15/04/2008 22:57

colditz, i di exactly the same thing. was 16, hooch had just been masisvely marketed, and loads of us teenagers were getting wreaked on the stuff.

do they still make hooch?

mumeeee · 15/04/2008 23:03

No you are not being unreasonable. I don't thienk 14 year olds should have alcohol and sleepovers.

SmugColditz · 15/04/2008 23:06

No, they got blasted out of the water by Smirnoff Ice I think.

We were the generation that went nuts on those things, becacause until then it was Mad dog 20/20 or sherry!

Original poster
pinkbubble · 16/04/2008 23:38

Aaaarrrggghhh!!!!

DD has just come downstairs from the sleepover. Apparently one of her friends has asked to go to the next to town!!!!!! DD asked "oh yer and how would we get there?"

"By train!" replies friend

DD apparently told her she could go if she wanted to but she wasn't going! (YES for DD!!!)
Apparently friend said it would be rude to go on her own!!!

I really don't think that her friends think!!! DD said to me that friend had asked if they could sneak out!!!

I am now too scared to go to bed!

Long night a head for me!

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