Beach trip with teen friends

[Anonymous]

DS and his friends (16-18, DS is 16) want to go to the Eastern shore for a couple of days in June. No adult chaperones, just a group of friends. They are juniors in HS (well, rising seniors by then). Thought I'd ask the DCUM collective mind about this. Doesn't seem like a very good idea to me, but I lean conservative on these things.

Would you let your 16-17 old go to the beach with just their friends for a few days?

[Anonymous]

No adults at all? No way.

[Anonymous]

No way. I wouldn't let any high school kid do this. There is too much of a risk of drinking and accidents and unprotected sex and God knows what else. The prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed yet. My daughter knew from early elementary school that her teacher parents would never allow this. The stories the teacher hear at school would curl your hair.

[Anonymous]

No. You'll have a hard enough road ahead for Senior Year

[Anonymous]

Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

Yes, that's true. And then he'll also be 18 and I won't know what he's doing anyway. He can do his own thing then.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely not. And the idea that "he'll be 18 in a year or so..." doesn't hold water. Being 16 and still in high school is different from being in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely not. And the idea that "he'll be 18 in a year or so..." doesn't hold water. Being 16 and still in high school is different from being in college.

This. They're not mature enough, no matter how much of a good kid you'll insist he is.

[Anonymous]

Hell no. They're going there to drink and who knows what else.

Whose house is it? If it is your property, you'll be on the hook for liability in the event that something goes wrong with the unsupervised minors. Your son is also probably on your car insurance, same deal. What if a kid gets tipsy and behind the wheel of a vehicle you own and/or insure? I can't imagine any judge being sympathetic to you in this case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

+1. With my specific kids and my parenting philosophy, this would be my approach. Unless I had a specific reason to distrust the group of friends based on past behavior, I'd be fine with this.

[Anonymous]

Funny story. I had a friend in high school whose parents let him and his buddies go to a beach house for the weekend.

Of course, they were all drunk and some were trying pot within a few hours. One of the guys thought it would be a good idea to order a pizza. He didn't have the phone number for a local pizzeria, so he thought he would dial 411 (yeah, I'm dating myself). Well, in his stupor, he accidentally dialed 911 on himself. He hung up quickly, but the cops still showed up and took a hard line on all of it. The boys were hauled into court, were sentenced to community service, the parents had to come out of pocket for lawyers, and the kids ended up with records.

Bottom line is that, while I believe that some parents can predict the behavior of their own responsible child, it is very hard to know what someone else's kid might do. It is also hard to imagine the little ways in which something might go wrong.

I think doing something like this is probably even worse than letting kids drink in your basement (and I wouldn't do that).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

+1. With my specific kids and my parenting philosophy, this would be my approach. Unless I had a specific reason to distrust the group of friends based on past behavior, I'd be fine with this.

Curious: How old are your children PP?

[Anonymous]

Nope. And my son went off to college two days before turning 17.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

+1. With my specific kids and my parenting philosophy, this would be my approach. Unless I had a specific reason to distrust the group of friends based on past behavior, I'd be fine with this.

Curious: How old are your children PP?

23, 21, and 14. I did let my older two go to a beach week sort of thing, and by the time she's a junior or senior I can definitely see letting my youngest go as well unless her behavior or friend group changes to the point that either is giving me red flags about her safety or whether I can trust her. My usual approach is to allow as much freedom as the individual child's track record of past responsibility or lack thereof suggests that they can handle, especially by the time they're in their late teens, and even my 14 year old has already taken a few day trips with her friends without me and handled it fine. I tend to be considered a rather permissive parent in a lot of ways, and I can definitely see why other families might decide differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, in about a year they will be in college.

+1. With my specific kids and my parenting philosophy, this would be my approach. Unless I had a specific reason to distrust the group of friends based on past behavior, I'd be fine with this.

Wow. What magical powers you must have to be so confident that you can predict the behavior of a group of unsupervised teens during their first weekend, ever, of total freedom.

You're probably also broke if you can't think of all the millions of ways that this could cost you, financially, should something go very wrong.

Sure, they'll be off to college in a year, but there's actually more supervision on a college campus than what the OP is describing. There are procedures in place at colleges for dealing with a crisis, there are MANY other kids around who could theoretically call for help or intervene, there are campus "police" departments to help handle emergencies, there is an administration to kick out kids who are really out of hand, and so on. Some of the reason that many colleges insist that their first and second year students live on campus is because the result of zero supervision is rarely good.