lots of teens in house...........

11 replies

booksinbed · 30/03/2012 21:38

We have always welcomed dd and ds pals .Ds is quiet and self contained- she loves a quiet house.Our DS ,15, is very sociable - goes about in a pack of boys who mostly end up at our house which ive always been happy with until now as they have gone home quite early so dd and dh and I can have quiet-im starting to struggle with this as now they are teens they want to stay later and i love to go to bed early esp in hold to keep santity.

At the mo there are 4 teen boys having a whale of a time - have brought chinease food round and are having an x box fest and my dh is v tired and we all just want t o be quiet!!I have asked them to keep the noise down and they are lovely boys but their natural exuberance means the noise is creeping up.

The other parents some of who live out of the area and rely on buses dont seem to share the wish to have the boys round they are at work a lot and are off the schene really in general, and we cant say can i ring your mum to talk about sharing at this age can I ???? The other parents we do know are really nice but just let boys do own thing and they gravitate here - i think cos i feed em!!On one hand its so nice they are here and happy and not on the streets as some lads seem to be but it seems a bit one sided that they all virtually live her and a bit unfair on dd
.When spoke to ds he said but youve always encoraged me to have pals round and hes right !!but i sort of thought that it would be more balanced out that thi s.Saying this id rather know ds safe so maybe just accept...ramble ramble tired!!!!maybe a ten o clock cerfew??matbe not some nights??

OP posts:

gettingsorted · 30/03/2012 23:01

DS and 3 friends just arrived home as no where else to go! Same here - we welcomed them as we didn't want them on the streets, but its turned out that we are the only house they all like going to! I have put my foot down and said - no ordering pizza at 2am - but they do keep us awake until about 2-3am when they are here. We refused to allow them for a couple of weeks and - I missed them! I think we might have to put up with it, and be glad that we are seen as a safe haven. Just going to text them now to TURN THE TV DOWN!

Sligomum · 31/03/2012 00:13

I have 2 D's 17 and 18 and a dd 13 today! I don't mind the friends around but as you have al said it does end up a little one sided. And dh is'nt at all pleased with this,r
eckons it's like a youth club.

Original poster

booksinbed · 31/03/2012 10:13

THanks for replies - its good to know that it can be a litte one sided elsewere too.i too think its good to have safe space.costs us a bomb in food tho!!!!!.I feel guilt that dd does not get the peace she craves..

OP posts:

gettingsorted · 31/03/2012 12:52

It might be more of a problem for us when DD gets a bit older - only 11 now so fast asleep when they are all here. I think if your dd needs peace, then it would be fair to agree a deal or a schedule of nights when he can have them all back and nights when he can't. then he can either come home on his own, or plan in advance with his mates - they can work on their parents to share this load a bit more!

SecretSquirrels · 01/04/2012 13:33

I love it when we have a houseful but it's not that often. They do get very loud as well.
I wouldn't stay up though. The days when the children went to bed before me have long gone.

lilmamma · 01/04/2012 21:04

I always have a house full,and was told it was because im a cool mum and they feel comfortable here,so take it as a compliment.my kids didnt really do sleep overs as they dont like other parents,so they all end up here,even have tents in the garden in the summer,but i dont mind,there only young for a short while,and we have good memorys and photos :)

CoffeeInTheMorning · 02/04/2012 08:02

Enjoy it, and ask for limits on noise after a certain hour. We had this for a few years, kids using our garage as a place to hang out - sofas and xboxes in there. So long as the kids are respectful about your house and your requests for noise to tone down after a certain hour, it's actually quite nice. And being their safe place to hang out is a fabulous gift you're giving them, even if it deprives you of a bit of sleep now and again. As annoying as it was occasionally - and yes, they ate all the food in the fridge sometimes and cooked fried egg sandwiches at 2am - we have great memories of this. And I expect they'll have good memories of it when they're older too.

ajandjjmum · 02/04/2012 08:07

It is lovely that they all want to come to you, but it wouldn't be unreasonable now that they're getting older to limit it to a certain number of nights a week, as presumably they have school the next day, and there is the rest of your family to consider.

I'd also put a limit on it for school nights.

lazymum99 · 02/04/2012 22:26

DS2 seems to spend the early evening at other peoples houses and then returns home with friends who stay the night! I liked this at first because it meant he was not travelling home on his own. We do get woken up, but the worst is the mess in the morning. Do anyof you get up to a kitchen full of dirty pans and plates from fry ups etc that have been cooked after midnight. Still at least I know he is here. Once in the summer a neighbour conplained cos they were making a noise in the garden at 2am and our dogs who had decided to join them were barking .

CoffeeInTheMorning · 03/04/2012 07:59

Yes to the dirty pans and messy kitchen - cooking oil and ketchup about the place, plates, pans, chaos. You just keep telling them to tidy up after themselves and gradually they do it. It's more or less stopped now.

Noise after 11pm is not on but occasionally it happens, and it's not the end of the world. Occasionally our neighbours have parties where guests are leaving noisily at 2-3am. After 11pm I would tramp out to the garage in my dressing gown and tell them the noise has to go right down or they all had to leave right away, and also suggested a finishing-time of 12. They mostly kept to that.

longlashes · 03/04/2012 09:38

Me too, I always have a houseful. Ds 1 18 always has at least 2 friends sleeping on a friday and sat night. One lives too far away to get home if they go to town, the other doesn't get on with his mum, is currently staying in a b and b but stays here most weekends. ds2 17 is the same.
We live in a converted bungalow. We had 2 small bedrooms which the ds had when they were little and one big bedroom which was ours, and a shower and toilet put up there. Now we have converted one of our rooms downstairs to our bedroom, made the upstairs into 2 large rooms and they all live there. Dh doesn't set foot up there.
I don't really mind although the amount of milk I buy and bacon and eggs and so on is amazing. Still, am glad ds mates love it here, they bring my shopping in, look at my car and so on especially when dh is away working. They are a good bunch really.

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