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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

Original poster

Help! 16yo bought beer on school tour.

26 replies

NoNoNoNo · 22/04/2009 19:28

So my 16yo boy wonder goes to Germany on his school tour, and despite teachers' specifically asking the group not to go to a pub, he goes to a pub, buys beer and brings it back to the hotel for himself and his friends. teacher finds out, predictably and reasonably unimpressed. Phones headmaster at home who is now "considering the matter".

WTF do I do with the child when he comes home? This isn't the first time he has shown spectacularly bad judgement and disrespect for authority.

Possible sanctions from school include being sent home (at our expense) as well as the usual things that I guess include detentions, suspensions, etc. He's never been suspended or anything like that before, but he has been a bit stupid with his friends around halloween and thingslike that. A year ago he was getting into bother at school for talking in class, acting the clown, but nothing this bad.

So, what do I do? Ground him til he's 27? Talk to him (again!)? take away some things like his nintendo DS etc? Sell him on ebay?

the trouble is, he geuinely doesn't seem to be able to exercise good judgement when it's competing with the chance to show off to his friends. Advise me please ....

OP posts:
cornsilk · 22/04/2009 19:31

Hmmm, we used to just bring vodka in our bags at that age, far less chance of getting caught.

ravenAK · 22/04/2009 19:33

I think you should support the school in whatever sanction they deem appropriate & be very, very openly disappointed in him, but there's not much else you can do.

Tbh I've taken several school trips abroad. Not one 'first night' have I not spent pouring booze down hotel sinks...school will have seen it all before.

littlelamb · 22/04/2009 19:33

Honestly? If that's all he's getting up to at 16 you have nothing to worry about I think the laws are slightly different in Germany as well. I remember going to the pub on our exchange when I must have been about 15 or 16. Now's probably not the best time to tell you about the cigarette machines on every corner either....

shonaspurtle · 22/04/2009 19:34

We all bought beer when we went on a school trip at 16. It's the legal age in many European countries.

Mind you, we made sure we avoided the bar the teachers went to.

Habbibu · 22/04/2009 19:37

We all bought beer on Archdiocesan Youth Service Trips to Lourdes at 16...

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 22/04/2009 19:40

When I went on a school trip to Paris at 16 the teacher took us on a pub crawl.

Original poster
NoNoNoNo · 22/04/2009 19:41

Thanks women! You do make it feel a bit more normal. And yes, afaik it's legal in Germany which is prob why they did it, but FFS, he was told not to, just beforehand, by the teacher.

Hmm, now that I have written that down, I can see how it might not have hit home with him.

But what will make him think twice? How do I stop him turning into some sort of delinquent wideboy who makes life miserable for all around him? Do you really think that just open disappointment and supporting the school is enough?

I suppose I'm really afraid I'm giving the kid too much freedom or something - generally raising him wrong

OP posts:
stillenacht · 22/04/2009 19:42

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD - we are taking 80 kids to germany in the summer for a music tour (from 2 diff erent schools) DH and myself are sort of in charge. Am DREADING all of this - no sleep for 4 nights

MegBusset · 22/04/2009 19:53

Isn't this de rigueur on German school trips? When I was 13 I went on one and got twatted on vodka and gin... by 15 on the Berlin exchange we were all getting hammered (including the teachers), in fact the dad of my host family took me to an Irish pub for Guinness when I was particularly hung over one Sunday morning!

Really, it makes him a normal teenager, not a delinquent. I would support the school in their punishment as he broke their rules, but otherwise I would just use it to start hammering home the message of responsible drinking.

stillenacht · 22/04/2009 19:59

btw DH and I met on youth band tour to Germany 20 years ago! (we were 16 and pissed most of the time)......

janeite · 22/04/2009 20:01

I agree with Meg. He's not at the start of the slippery slope, he's just being a normal lad. I would be very surprised if the school sent him home but other than that I think you support the school's unishment, tell him you're disappointed he went against direct instructions, maybe stop his pocket money for a week but then move on.

sherby · 22/04/2009 20:03

I shouldn't think he was the only one doing it by a long shot, just the one who got caught

minxofmancunia · 22/04/2009 20:05

I don't think this is the path to delinquency TBH, isn't it normal in this situation?

Every European trip I made with school from 15 onwards we got pissed a least 1 night got served in bars, so did the teachers!

The part of the teenage brain that goversn impulse control and thinking things through is biologicaly underdeveloped compared to adults, I imagine it's hard to resist the lure of this kind of thing, certainly was for me anyway

Original poster
NoNoNoNo · 22/04/2009 20:08

Again - thank you!!

OP posts:
trixymalixy · 22/04/2009 20:15

I agree, totally normal on German school trips. We went on an exchange trip when I was at school and the host town provided beer vouchers for all the kids over 16. The teacher took them away and distributed them around the adults on the trip, but they found their way back into our hands via the bus driver.

The teachers face was a picture when the bus arrived home and we all unloaded crates of beer!!!

It really didnt do me any harm.

cory · 22/04/2009 20:21

my dad used to take 17yos to Rome (brave man! 30 odd Scandinavian blondes trailing after him between the Colosseum and the Palatine, with fully that number of Italian youths in hot pursuit!)

he did not forbid them to buy alcohol, but talked about drinking and "When is drinking too much?" (answer "when it shows!")

I don't think he ever had much trouble with them

roisin · 22/04/2009 20:37

16 is such a tricky age for this, isn't it? I take students to Europe every year, but only 11-14s. But if any of them were caught with alcohol we would certainly phone parents and definitely get them to come and pick up child at their expense. Definitely. No question about it.

Original poster
NoNoNoNo · 23/04/2009 08:23

Thanks everyone. They have decided not to send him home early, possibly for his own safety! I daresay there will be some consequences in school when he gets back.

I've had lots of contrite, grammarless texts, some with excuses like "ders ppl in mor truble den me" He's lucky, really, to be so far away from me just now!

OP posts:
muffle · 23/04/2009 08:28

16? I'm amazed they even batted an eyelid, it's so not a big deal IMO. This would have been considered very minor in my youth. I remember buying cider at 13, by 16 I was openly going to the pub for a pint and I was considered a goody two shoes as most people I knew were drinking a lot more / smoking dope! What he did is entirely to be expected in the circumstances really. Yes encourage him with the responsible drinking is probably the best response.

robino · 23/04/2009 08:45

Am really glad they didn't send him home. For what it's worth I am a languages teacher by trade and have taken lots of trips (but usually with younger ones where alcohol hasn't been an issue). I have used the line "if your behaviour is deemed unacceptable enough you will be sent home at parents' expense" line with parents and kids on all trips just to make people aware that it might happen. Wouldn't use it for a 16 yr old buying beer though.

I think it's because the threat of litigation does really loom large over teachers' heads if things go wrong. And there have been recentish cases of teachers being imprisoned over dreadful accidents on school trips so most teachers just try to ensure that they are taking as much responsibility as possible to ensure that nothing dreadful happens and, dare I say it, that if anything does happen then they have done everything in their power to prevent something happening.

Blimey, what a ramble. Sorry. As an aside, our governers wouldn't sign off my risk assessment for taking Y8 and Y9 to France until I said I was going to hand round antiseptic handwipes to every child and make sure that they used them after a trip to an animal sanctuary... couldn't even touch touch the animals because they were big'uns like tigers

Hassled · 23/04/2009 08:59

When DS1 was 15 he bought 4 cans of Stella from the train buffet at 7.30am on a history trip to London. And then lied about it when challenged by a teacher.

6 years later and I still get livid when I dwell on it for too long. God I was cross.

There's little you can do except back the school up, force him to write grovelling letters of apology to the teachers involved and hope that's the worse thing he'll get up to.

Hermit · 23/04/2009 12:16

Agree with all that's gone before BUT as someone who has taken teenagers on residential trips in the past, I cannot take the incident as lightly as some of those here. In my experience, the danger is not so much for those who have been used to drinking beer at home, but for those who have not. My worst experience was when a Muslim teenager aged 16 was given Vodka by a 'friend' in a youth hostel, and ended up in a coma having his stomach pumped. 'But he didn't have much ,Miss' didn't help at all when talking to his parents!

notsoclever · 23/04/2009 19:31

No,NO..

You sound reassured that he is not necessarily headed for delinquency, but if you are anything like me, you will still be worrying about what you can do next that might stand some chance of being effective in demonstrating your huge annoyance, and encouraging him to think more effectively in the future.

I think if custardo was on this thread, she would recommend some tough approaches - removing all "benefits" from his room - computer, tv etc, and returning them when his good behaviour has demonstrated that he can be trusted.

From my own experience with a dd (when she had a party in our house while we were away) we had a range of penalties that lasted several months: First month she was totally grounded and had no phone and could only go online to do school work. During this time we did lots of family things (a rock concert, dinner out etc), so she was still getting some positive rewards.

Over the next few months we gradually gave things back, and relaxed permissions, although each "freedom" was accompanied by a reminder of why this was happening and what we were still expecting of her.

One thing that seemed particularly effective was to be explicit about the financial consequences of her actions. During the party some of our doors got damaged. Luckily a friend repaired them, but we got an estimate for a professional repair - £350, and I wrote on flipchart paper the choices we would have had to make if we had had to pay the full cost.

  • 7 months with NO allowance
  • 14 months on half allowance
  • lists of things we could not buy as a family
  • part of a holiday missing etc. etc.

We asked her how we should all (together) make the decisions about how we would have recovered the money. I have never seen her so shamefaced.

PS. Don't lose your sense of humour - you will need it over the next couple of years to retain your sanity.

brimfull · 23/04/2009 19:34

lol at the text you got

my dd spent most of her french exchange drinking cider sitting outside a bar

needless to say she had a whale of a time!

lazymumofteenagesons · 24/04/2009 10:49

I don't remember a single school trip where someone was not comotose or disappeared off with the local youth! I also can't think of any my sons have been on where this hasn't happened, unless in the middle of dartmoor and then I think they just bought it with them. They are usually given just punishment on return and threatened with suspension if it happens again. But it certainly isn't the slippery slope to delinquency. I heard of a group of 15/16 year old boys who ordered a prostitute to their hotel room in Russia.