Parent approved partying
 

Interesting article:

Global News | Parent-approved partying: who is responsible when things go wrong?

Growing up, my best-friend's house was always the house we were allowed to drink (underage) and do drugs with her parents home. They were under the mentality that "you're going to do it anyways so it might as well be here".

As young as 13-14 we would get drunk and smoke pot every weekend with both her parents in approval...they even went as far as buying the alcohol for us and her dad giving us a little bit of weed.

As far as I knew, none of the other parents whose kids were there, were aware of the situation...including mine. If my parents had found out, I would have been in so much shit and they never would have approved of the situation. All they knew was that I was sleeping over at so-and-so's house.

Her parents were not white-trash or anything, just normal middle-class people with a nice house, etc.

Looking back at it now, if I had a kid and he/she was doing that with their friend's parents approval, I would be livid!! And, I would not want the responsibility of being "those" type of parents.

interesting! If i had kids, I would've never let them party at my place. It's huge responsibility if things go wrong =( especially if they are underage.

I do understand that it's wrong to support their habit at such a young age, but at the same time with news like kids overdosing on E and drinking and driving I think that it is some what safer for them to have fun at home under parent's supervision.

Given that "that" parent can't make the responsible decision to stay relatively sober at his daughter's wedding, I can say no, I wouldn't trust his decision making on behalf of my children.

I heard of those types of parents when I was growing up. I don't think its 'cool' at all. Since when are we a society that just gives up?

Shit..the kids are gonna fuck anyway, better put 'em on birth control and tell them not to use it. Gonna drink? Better do it here so I know its safe, but hey kids, don't abuse it and get used to it at an early age.

Horrible, horrible idea.

Dude, seriously?! way to keep this shit generic and anonymous. I'd fail you if I didn't have to end up listening to you whine about it...

Sounds stupid to let kids party like that. If it was my kid, as he was having a big party, I'd better not tell him to do this...(2:18 in the video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...Ihenr0w#t=138s

You can't decide what's best for other peoples kids. Parents who allow this happen in their home are totally irresponsible and in cases like the ones in the video they should have to pay out the ass in terms of getting there asses sued off.

So... basically, it's like a safe injection site. :lol

Is it really that hard to just beat your damn kids?

Is it such a terrible idea? In many places in Europe the legal drinking age is lower, as low as 16. Seems to have been working fine for them if they're still at it, now why isn't it working fine for us?

I see what you are saying...half of my family is British and it wasn't that rare for my father to say it was okay to have a bit of wine or cider at Christmas dinner with the fam, etc....(meanwhile my mother is freaking out).

But as young as 13? I think that is a little much. Also, it is not just have 1/2 a glass at dinner with YOUR parents, it is binge drinking in your friend's basement unsupervised.

It is the lack of responsibility and/or knowledge of all the parents of these kids. Like I said, my parents had NO CLUE that at 14 I was getting completely shit-faced in my friend's basement...with her parents providing the alcohol and allowing it to happen. That was, in retrospect, very wrong imo.

well, no ones getting raped in the basement, and i bet there wasnt any fights or huge numbers of uninvited guests showing up to cause trouble

this is a better situation than having no adults involved atall IMO

During high school, one of my friends parents would let us have big (as a relative term) parties where we could drink and smoke up. They weren't rednecks, just average middle aged, middle income people. Their neighbour was also a cop. :lol However, those of us who could drive at the time were required to leave our car keys with the parents and they'd lock 'em up until the following day. If we needed to leave for whatever reason, we had to either call a cab or one of the parents would drive us.

While I would hesitate to host drinking parties for my underage kids, I understand why they did it. They knew we were going to drink regardless of where we ended up, and at least this way they were able to control to a relatively strong degree any attempts at drinking and driving. As for drugs, it was never anything stronger than weed, which my friends parents smoked anyway. Better to have a bunch of stoned teens sitting in the backyard on the trampoline staring at the stars than drunkards fighting one another all night.

I know of parents who let their kids smoke green or drink but not parties. If i had to make a choice for my future kids, I'd let them do it depending on how comfortable I am with their friends.

same, i remember in highschool, one of my friends parents allowed us to have a fairly big party, except they sat by the door the WHOLE night and collected EVERYONES car keys who entered the door, or else they werent allowed in.
They also volunteered to drive the kids home after as well which i found quite nice.

IMO, if the party is well controlled under parental supervision like this, it could certainly prevent large amount of poor discretions the undeveloped teenage brains could make.. aka pitt meadows rave party etc etc.

its just many parents lack in such commitment and fall asleep or give up halfway through only to convince themselves to think that everythings under control

I don't dispute the logic, but I have a question. Did everyone else's parents know what was happening? I suspect not.

I would have your head if you were making those decisions for my child. Dino's parents said about as much 10 years later now that the cat is out of the bag. I continually advocate not imposing ones beliefs on another, and this is a clear example. Here we have some kids that are raised in a stricter household, that other parents obviously disagree with, so lets cut them out of the picture and provide a safe environment for you. Great ideals, but damned ugly in the details.

I don't want my kids to drink underage. I accept that they may want to try, and I view it as my RESPONSIBILITY to prevent them. Yes, I would prefer it to occur in a safe environment as opposed to in the back seat of a car somewhere, but my main issue is I don't want it to occur in the first place.

I fully agree with the age 19 legal limit. If I've done my job well, by the time you hit 19 you should know whats safe, and whats not safe and how to make responsible decisions.

I really hate the "its too hard, let's just give up" philosophy regarding a lot of these things. Teen sex. There's a huge one. Yes, abstinence only education policies don't work. I get that. In school, I was taught a "abstinence with education" format.

Sample:

"Hey! abstinence is the best way to avoid disease and pregnancy. Condoms work like this."

No one advocated one over the other. And I had a teacher that was very real in her dialogue, and still never made that link to "if you are going to do it, do it this way"

If a child comes to me and says, "I'd like to go on the pill", let's get it done. I'm going to talk to you about safety and decisions and all the rest, but we'll get it done. They've made the decision, and they have thought about the consequences. I've already done my work at this point! They've come to me. Taking a child and saying, "you are 14, let's cover birth control" is a parental approved license to screw.

Taking your child, and other people's children and giving them a parental approved license to drink is playing with fire.

And I can't help think a lot of it is wanting to be the "cool" parents.

If I can't raise a child that is capable of at least for a second thinking about tomorrow as opposed to just today, and think of consequences of their decisions even if they aren't fully understanding the long-range ramifications then I guess I do have to give up and say, here, be safe about it.

But a parent, any good parent, should never give up on their kids.

Parents within reason can allow their own kids to do whatever. If they think there kids are going to drink and want to let them do it in there home instead of somewhere else it's there prerogative. The problem is when you allow other kids to do stuff in your home when the parents of that child would not want them doing it. It's overstepping boundaries, inconsiderate and irresponsible without a doubt.

my only question to that though is do parents know, even if lets say the kid wasn't going to party at someone else's house with parents there? i mean most kids can lie or say they're going somewhere and that they aren't doing anything bad and it's all good. But in reality is most of them prob will go to a random place or park or w/e and drink up. Wouldn't you rather have found out they went to a "safe" environment under parent supervision then to some random house were the parents aren't there? I do get your point , do not get me wrong, but i think that at least this way it gives the parents who hosted the party, some kind of an at-eased mind because they are watching over them and making sure nothing happens to their own kid or other kids

exactly how i went through it, minus the cop neighbour.

If child is lying to their parents to go to a party, the real issue would be the trust between the parent and child. A parent-supervised party is like a best case scenario.

My roommate and his friends are underage and drink at my place, and sometimes my own friends are. I've got my place under control, never really worry about it.

Yes.

But.

We're assuming a world where there are 2 options: drink elsewhere, or drink at "cool" parents house. If, on every Friday night, it is an absolute that little johnny gridlock is going to get hammered, then yes, lets get a safer place together.

But its not an absolute. These parents, by way of their child, is hosting an event. In the absence of that event, will there be others? Who knows? They have taken out other options by virtue of hosting their alcohol friendly party.

Maybe in the absence of that party, little johnny and his friends will go hang at the church to rap about Jesus.

And that becomes the issue. As a child, I could be faced with the issue of obtaining the alcohol, the location and the permission to be out with friends from my parents. That's 3 barriers.

Or, I could get permission to go to bobby's house. No barrier.

Which one am I going to choose? Obviously, drinking is cool! Let's get hammed!.

We aren't in a "here or there" situation, and they are eliminating choices in the quest to be the safe choice.

And, what happens when a kid is on some medication, or takes a drug unknown to the parental hosts and gets alcohol poisoning? There are so many negative variables, that I can't even begin on how bad this idea is.

Actually, everything working fine there regarding alcohol is a myth.

For my kids I would never host one of these drink/getting high parties... It's so stupid.

That being said, I would point out to my children that if they're going to drink/get high that is fine. Just as long as I know about it. And they can be sure I WILL NOT get angry if they are too drunk/too high to get home to just call me and I'll pick them up.

At least this way my kids won't be afraid to call me to pick them up in whatever condition they're in (hopefully). Kids drink and smoke weed. That's what they do. I won't give them any alcohol or weed, but I know they can get it sometimes. And when they do, I want to make sure they know that I won't get mad at them.

Insert king of the hill reference...

your examples sound like you were never in highschool.. or at least didnt party there..

dumb ass high school kids aint gonna just not drink cause they dont have a place to do it, back in highschool if we didnt have a place to go we'd go grab a 30 case and a beer bong and go chill at a fire in the bush, is that safer than a house?

its all relative but kids who want to drink will drink

Both my parents have always been very open to me with everything. My dad said if I wanted to go out to drink when I was under age I could call him anytime if I needed a ride home. That being said they never gave me booze or weed but I could drink at my place if need be.

Kid's are going to go out and do these things no matter what because that's part of growing up and you honestly need the experience in ways to learn more about your self and the coming of age and my parents new that and mainly wanted to teach me the responsibility of my actions while going out and "having fun" which I feel is the most important overall lesson.