Halloween Party for 16 year old-to let parents know re alcohol situation?

[Mumtum79]

My son wants to have a Halloween party for about 25 kids. My husband and I will be upstairs. He is inviting different groups of friends. His main group do drink casually and in previous get togethers (not at ours) they usually just bring whatever it is they want to drink. I was thinking of not serving alcohol but turning a blind eye to anything that’s brought in. He has already told his friends that I wouldn’t be happy re anyone being off their heads (not sure how much that matters to them😂). He has also invited other friends outside of this group though. Should I let parents know there’ll be drinking? I don’t know half the parents so not sure how I’d even go about getting phone numbers! They’re in year 12 so 16/17yr olds as opposed to 15/16yr olds. Any advice much appreciated (also any advise re food/deco much appreciated: I’ve been told to curb my tendency to organise party games 🙈).

No you don't need to tell parents there will be alcohol, at that age that's the parents job to have the discussion with their own kids. I do hope you were kidding about party games? Why don't you give your DC a budget for decorations and let him do it himself? Food wise don't go overboard, some trays of oven chips, pizzas, bags of crisps and bowls of sweets will be plenty.

My DD15 year 11 started going to parties lat year, none of the parents have ever said whether or not they’d be serving alcohol.
We’ve found that at most of them she has a couple of the pre made drinks (which I supply) and then most parties don’t have any further alcohol in them.
Round here the kids seem to be able to manage each other and their expectations around alcohol and other substances at the moment.

You are stark raving mad. 25 is way, way too many.

I wouldn’t bother worrying about it in year 12, though I wouldn’t supply it other than for my own DC. As a pp said, at this age parents will know some kids will take alcohol. This is why they have house parties as they can drink without getting ID’d.

Second the fact that you are nuts. You could end up with 50+ kids there if multiple friendship groups involved, and heaven help you if it goes viral.

I think I would want 15 kids and no you play dumb to there being alcohol otherwise you are taking ownership of that issue

No way. 25 kids and different friend groups!

What is your house insurance like?

Please keep us updated on how it goes in the night

It was expected that there would be alcohol for Yr 12 parties with our DC and we always sent them with some (something premixed 5% rather than a bottle of vodka). Some parties were exclusively BYO, some parents provided prosecco or beer or similar, some parties there was an explicit message cascaded from the host parent for no spirits. 25ppl is reasonable and normal imo. I’m sure they’ll have a great time and it’ll be fine - but you’re there in case it isn’t, that’s the whole point

agree with pp - no need to inform parents. We hosted a lot when kids were that age and I absolutely never provided alcohol for other people’s kids - I think that’s an important point. At this age it’s very much up to parents to have the discussion and agree stuff with their own child. Similarly if our kids were going to a party we’d give them a couple of drinks for themselves and then Pringles or other snacks to take to share - we never gave them extra alcohol to share

We did always provide plenty of cans of soft drinks - and tbh it was always fine. It was quite common for some kids to not drink at all (and there doesn’t seem to be any teasing or peer pressure about that these days which is great.

We also agreed in advance with our kids that if things ever seemed to be getting out of hand they could text us (we were always in the house) and we’d come and help and absolutely wouldn’t be cross!

As a parent I’d be unhappy with that. They are children, at your house and under your responsibility. I know within my DD’s friendship groups some of them do drink and a lot of them don’t, quite a few are Muslim so would never drink at all. It’s the norm with us to decide ourselves whether alcohol will be allowed at the party, we will also provide it ourselves and keep an eye on who’s drinking what. We’d normally supply maybe x amount of kopperberg or various alcopops for those allowed to drink. What I would not be doing is sitting upstairs and ‘turning a blind eye’ to underage children potentially sneaking bottles of vodkas and shots and getting paralytic in my house with no supervision. That’s just begging for children to be throwing up all over your house, someone overdoing it and an ambulance having to be called, and confrontations by angry parents because out of 25 there WILL be at least a couple of parents who have packed their kids off to a party where there’s meant to be parents present, and haven’t been even suspected that their children will be coming home pissed

I don’t think parents of DC in year 12 would be under the illusion that there wouldn’t be drinking at a house party
I certainly wouldn’t be hovering around a party supervising at that age either, in year 11 we would pop down to “get something” but DC would always message if there was something we needed to know

If you’re not providing or necessarily permitting it then, no, I think parents can assume some sneaking in of booze will happen. I say this as a teetotaller who thinks it’s disgusting that children drink but you don’t need to inform people that some might bring alcohol even though you haven’t said they can.

I would nip down every hour or so though…

No, don't bother contacting parents.
Re food I'd get a lot of it to help prevent kids getting sick if they do drink to much. Pizzas, bread rolls and cold cuts, cheese, crackers, sausage rolls. Veggies & dips.

We had a teen house party (we stayed in the house) when my youngest was 17. A lot of boys turned up - most of which dd didn't know - and everyone seemed to bring bottles of vodka. We provided crisps and snacks but very little of it was eaten. We confined it to one room which opened on to the garden and spent our time stopping kids from going upstairs. It was tricky because we didn't know a lot of them and they didn't know us. It was ok in that nothing awful happened though dd got pretty drunk and we decided never to have a teen party at home again. We had had a party for her at 16 but that was wholly different as we knew all the attendees and they were respectful. (Dd had moved to college in year 12 so it was a somewhat different cohort)

Nope. Book a function room and make it someone else’s problem.

By the way, make sure there are no bedrooms/ cupboards any couples can sneak off to… It’ll be the first thing some of the boys will look for.

You do realise OP would still be responsible don't you? It would still be very much her problem.

I would expect them to bring their own at that age. DD is in year 12 and I’ll normally get her a couple of premixed cans of cocktails.

I’d just be happy that they are someone’s house and not having a party by the river which seems popular here.

With my DC it’s standard they bring their own drinks. If someone doesn’t want to drink alcohol that’s fine, they bring soft drinks. Usually max 50 kids on the group on Snapchat. But I would be keeping an eye out for that. And have a clear time the party ends.

The most chilled parties seem to have music and a party tent in the garden from what I’ve seen.