16th birthday party. Should I worry?

[GianinaC]

My daughter turns 16 next month and has asked for a party at the house.

Initially I said no, just all the potential problems, but speaking to a friend this evening, she feels I should. I have always done birthday events out of the house.

My daughter is quite sensible, although has her crazy overly excited moments.
So I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about it getting out of hand.

My friend suggested I make it clear the end time, max 20 guests and I go out. Yes they will drink alcohol, that's what happens at 16😬

Has anyone else done this? As her birthday is in November, most of her friends will still be 15.

I really want to do it, plus it will be cheaper, but I'm nervous.

Don't even consider leaving the house; that's insane.
In fact when I had one of my teens parties at home, I brought reinforcements- my friends all came around (including some big burly men) and we sat out the front to protect against gatecrashers and were there for emergencies when needed.

Yes

Have it, but do not leave the house and assume they will bring booze.

Do not leave them unattended, you could be upstairs but they should know you are in the house. Alcohol is tricky at that age but you can say no if you want to - probably less chance of random gatecrashers. My DC had a party (smaller than you are proposing) at 14. I said no alcohol and assured a couple of parents who contacted me that we knew about the party and it was booze free. Several kids turned up smashed!

My 16 yo dd doesn’t want a party at our house in case things get damaged. The parties she goes to have alcohol provided by the parents. Some parents go to the pub for a while, others not. Nothing terrible has happened apart from the odd small groups of gate crashers. One when the parents were there and it was local kids the same age and they were quickly sent packing as they were in the garden. The second was a party and the parents were away, the older brother upstairs, who threw everyone out when people started climbing over the fence to get in and broke it.

As others have said, hide sharp things. Personally I wouldn’t go out.

We had one at 16 but it was during the pandemic at the point where you could meet out but not have people to the house or similar, so we had it in the garden (summer) and put food and soft drinks. Garden has gate to street so they only needed to come in for the toilet.

Having not been at school much due to closures, and not been into boys up until that point, dd only invited girl friends and it was all very tame.

A year later we had another party - let them use our back room which opened on to the garden. This time more boys than girls (many she didn't know) plus vodka and drugs. No one ate the food and some tried to sneak into bedrooms. We kicked them out eventually and fended off every suggestion of an 18th birthday party!

She's 19 now with a bf and has no interest in parties.

our 16 yr old had a party at home. I went out for the night with his siblings to stay at my parents house, but his dad was home and supervised.

Ours had parties at home but we limited to 15, provided limited alcohol and said nobody was to bring their own. We went out for the first hour then stayed upstairs. No problems.

However we knew their friends and their parents so knew what we were dealing with.

Some of their friends did Nandos instead. Booked a table for maybe a dozen, paid for the meals and kids just had to pay for drinks. This was a lot of fun because it gave them somewhere in town to go in an evening together.

You go out?!? No no no! Make it clear you will be IN, but out of the way.
Parties, in this day of social media, can get out of control quick and it's too much to expect you 16 year old do deal with gate crashers or drunken behaviour.
Also be sure to give your neighbours fair warning!

My daughter has been to a few of these recently and the police were called to a couple as they got out of hand as lots of uninvited kids turned up.

Sick everywhere too!

And do not go out!!!!

The other parents would expect someone there to supervise and keep them safe!

We had one two weeks ago for my daughters bday. Told her it won't be happening again and we didn't even go out. There was four boys and nine girls and it was fucking chaos.

I've done parties here since they turned 16/year 11. It's pretty normal for most kids to start having parties at that age. You'll probably find she gets invited to loads over the next few months. And yes, there absolutely will be alcohol. My rules have always been no more than 10, we are always here, parties are always outside (we have a large summerhouse). I provide a few fruity ciders or alcopops but if kids want to drink then they have to bring their own provided by their own parents. And state a finish time no later than 11 and make sure everyone has a way to get home safely.

DS had one in the summer for his 16th. My rules were:
Outside as much as possible - this was largely ignored 🙈

No more than 30 kids - this was too many on reflection.
DS was really good with this though and it was definitely invite only. I said if people turned up who were invited and wouldn't leave - I would call the police immediately.

No one upstairs at all- we have a downstairs loo. I relented on this but only for girls. Blatantly refused to have any boys using upstairs bathroom. Downstairs toilet was minging half way through

No smoking inside

Everyone out by 11pm.

I stayed upstairs mostly but made occasional appearances, probably about 5 times in the evening.
Party ended at 10:30 with everyone out by 11pm. Me and DH went downstairs at 10:30pm, turned all the lights on and music off then started cleaning up. They were all out by 11:04!

There was one puking, one near argument and two lots of tears. My appearances downstairs were to deal with said incidents. I also managed to mop the toilet half way through the night!

It probably helps that both me and DH are secondary school teachers with 20 years experience. We expected worse 🤣

So if you are going to do it, have very clear rules and make it clear to DD that you will be checking in.

I have said he's not having another though - too much hassle and DH really didn't like it.

My DD is a year older than yours and she fairly often has nights with her friends at our house. Not as many as 20 though, 6-8 tops! When it's not freezing I send them into the garden and put the fire on (we have a gazebo up in all weathers with garden furniture, lights etc. Fine when you're wrapped up!)
They are all quite sensible though and tend to pick a 'theme' for the night (film, Halloween, valentine, dress up as your favourite band member etc) They get dressed up and do a quiz etc. I don't buy booze for them but they do have a drink. As long as they don't get rowdy I'm OK with that.
I suppose it depends on what her friend group are like and what they like doing

DS had a 16th birthday party at home and he had been to a few prior to that. We went out about 11pm, but to a friends round the corner and all was fine. They had hoovered and cleaned up, but there a pile of sick in the garden that his friend came round and cleared up in the morning. We bought a few beers and others brought some. All the parents were aware of that. There was probably vodka that we didn’t know about. This was 6 years ago and it was perfectly normal amongst his friends. He, or his friends wouldn’t have allowed anyone to be disrespectful to our house and they spent hours before moving anything fragile or valuable upstairs and out of way just in case.

DD is 14 and not sure if she will be allowed, will have to see how her and her friends are at that age. My worry with her would be uninvited people turning up.

We have house parties, so if my children are sensible enough to be trusted then they can too.

We have had a 16th and 17th party at our house for our eldest dd. Her birthday is in early Sept. Rules were we would provide some alcohol (fruit cider and wkd), friends can bring a little too, no spirits and we will vet what comes into the house. Max 16 friends. I knew the names of all the friends and had met most of them before. Mixture of boys and girls. No one allowed upstairs. Curfew 11.30. We were at home along with her younger brothers, circulating and keeping an eye on things.
Provided lots of food. Pizza cooked on outside pizza oven.
For her 16th the weather was good so they were in the garden. 17th it poured with rain and DH was cooking pizza under an umbrella. Both parties were fun, there was singing, and dancing and remarkably no vomiting. I think we were lucky!

You're braver than me op! Definitely stay upstairs, don't go out! Also be around downstairs when people are arriving so no gate crashers get in.

My friend had a bad experience with this, dd's friends told friends and word got round about the party that was supposed to be small. Seems to be once it's called a party it's like a free for all to some teens. Lots of teens were then turning up who weren't invited. Some trying to get in through the side gate to the garden, it was locked but they were trying to persuade those on the other side to let them in. One guy tried to climb over it.

Friend's dh is a big burly loud guy who had to spend most of the evening seeing off the uninvited! They'd told the neighbours about the party in advance and the guy next door ended up coming out and helping the dh with security for the eve!

Also be warned with Snapchat if they're sharing pics and have their locations on, or word has just got out there's a party at yours, if their locations are on it'll lead any gate crashers to your house! This was another reason my friend ended up with lots of uninvited teens turning up. Nightmare!

At 16 we kept numbers limited to friends we knew, provided modest amounts of weak alcohol that parents knew about (cider / lager / bucks fizz I think) with food & remained in house in another room. DO NOT BUY FRUIT CIDERs though! When DD was 18 and we were away for a weekend, a group of pissed friends of hers were, apparently, running around the house with glasses of dark fruits cider. Minimal harm to them but not great for the house. I was daft enough to say 'no parties but I don't mind if you have 2-3 friends round that we know'. One managed to splatter red spots beautifully all over walls and gold carpet! 🫤 Neighbour thought it amusing that the rug doctor van had turned up at the house the next morning, before we were back. However, dark fruits cider on pale carpet seemed beyond his skill set 😞

We've had plenty of teen parties at our house, there's always a little bit of mess to clear out afterwards but not much more than one would expect after a lively party attended by adults. They all drink and possibly smoke (not in the house!), someone throws up and someone breaks a glass but I'd rather they did that at ours than in a park somewhere. DH and I either stay at home, or pop out somewhere nearby, we've never been needed to deal with anything, the kids sort everything out themselves, usually someone even mops the floors at some point! Invitation only (the most we've had is probably around 40), they bring their own alcohol and leave by an agreed time.

I’ve done it and it went well but there were 30 teens and five adults. Be realistic, they will bring alcohol so set your rules. I had plastic cups- the red ones were particularly fashionable, I’m not sure if they still are. I had pizzas and nibbles so they ate as well as drank and smoking was only allowed outside and ashtrays had to be used. I was pleasantly surprised at how respectful they were. The worst we had was someone vomiting in a plant pot, his mum was mortified and so apologetic. I made it clear that by 11.30 everyone had to be out and they were. It’s not always disastrous, just plan and put things in place.

there's always a little bit of mess to clear out afterwards but not much more than one would expect after a lively party attended by adults.

The only times we've ever had vomit everywhere except the toilet, spilled drinks, broken glasses and damage was when we've had adult parties 😆

No. You absolutely don't go out when your house is full of 16 year olds.

Don’t go out. My parents did for my 16th years ago. Way before SM but word got round and people I didn’t even know came in. My presents were stolen.

It'll be much better if it's a smaller group. Hope you can come up with something nice!

Remember that many teenagers secretly wish their parents would be more strict - it's a lot easier to blame mum and dad for being strict then to say straight out that you don't want to do X Y or Z.

Let her decide on theme or what she wants to do with a small group of friends.