just found out my 16 year old dd and her friends have been speaking in alcohol into school every Friday and have regular 'vodka fridays'

[trousersinit]

My best friend is a teacher at dad's school and rang me today to tell me how she'd discovered that in dd's waterbottle it was actually vodka, she got suspicious after she saw a group of them giggling and sniffing it and smelt it herself. It later emerged that dd and her 3 other female friends for the last month have taken turns to smuggle in vodka in water bottles every Friday where they get tipsy. Dd has always been a model student and I had no idea she was into alcohol, apparently a newsagents sells alcoholbto minors without an ID so she had been using her dinner money to buy from there. I'm shocked that the school didn't pick up on 4 tipsy teen girls in lessons? Of course I'm furious with dd and we have spoken to her and it is being dealt with, but I'm angry at the school for not noticing sooner.

[specialsubject]

teen girls that giggle and muck about won't exactly attract attention, so it isn't unreasonable that nobody noticed until the sniffing was spotted.

BTW as well as making your daughter's life hell for a while, I hope the newsagent is being reported to the police.

[EduCated]

Oh dear. I remember doing this on school trips, we sneaked it in orange squash. We were all model pupils too.

Don't be too harsh on the school, I mean they did notice after all. The last month means 3 or 4 times?

[Lottiedoubtie]

vodka Fridays? This is the kind of thing we used to do at school.

am now a teacher and pillar of the community yadayadayada

Don't panic OP.

Punish her obv, and tell her how disappointed you are, but don't panic.

[flow4]

Be careful about blaming the school. You may be right to be angry, but chances are (and I speak from experience) that DD will hear any grumble or complaint you make as something that relieves her of some of the responsibility. And it's really important for teens at this age to learn that they are responsible for their own actions, and mummy/daddy can't 'fix' everything if they mess up.

I think it's best to be quite matter-of-fact about it. She's been a fool. She's got caught. She's going to have to deal with the consequences and learn from the experience. End of story.

They are such fools at this age!

[cory]

OP, you have already had a long thread on this in AIBU and received a pretty unanimous response that blaming the school is not the right way to go; after all they were the ones that noticed.

This thread would have a much better chance of being productive for you if you focused on another aspect instead, namely how you can make your daughter realise that she is responsible for her actions.

The truth is that she is getting to an age where the adults won't and shouldn't be hovering over her all the time to make sure she is safe: either she does it herself or she isn't safe.

If you invest energy into blaming the school, she will pick up the vibes (even if you don't spell it out aloud) and get the impression that ultimately she is still a little girl who should be passively kept safe by others. But her safety and development over the next few years depend on her thinking of herself as an adult- that is the approach you want to encourage.

Much better to go with flow's approach: be calm and matter of fact and point out that if adults (which she almost is) behave foolishly they have to face the consequences and nobody feels sorry for them.

(for the record, I have a dd of a similar age, so am thinking of how I would react in this situation)

[SauvignonBlanche]

It was pointed out on your other thread that this was picked up at school but not noted at home.

[finallydelurking]

I've missed the other thread but I agree with SB above. Don't know if this was covered on the other thread but has the school officially dealt with this or did your 'friend' just tell you?

[perplexedpirate]

Wha...?
Wasn't this thread up yesterday? And EVERYONE told you you were being ridiculous?
Are you just checking we haven't all had a change of heart in the last 24 hours?

[Pagwatch]

Why are we doing this thread again?

Did you not get any advice yesterday Op?

[Pagwatch]

Here. Lots of replies on your thread here from yesterday

[lljkk]

maybe OP is the one with dementia...

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

The OP here was written 10 minutes before the OP on AIBU.

To be fair.

[lilyloo]

To be fair to the OP this was started 10 minutes before her other aibu thread yesterday.
She obv started another one in aibu to get more traffic.

[lilyloo]

oops x post Mary :)

[Pagwatch]

Oh thank you MaryMotherofCheeses. (love your name)

Many apologies OP. I'm sorry I was short with you on here.

[perplexedpirate]

Oh, I seeee!

[cory]

btw I think blaming yourself would be just as unproductive as blaming the school. There is one person to blame here and that is your daughter. Any looking for a scapegoat outside- whether your parenting or the school's safeguarding- is taking attention away from the fact that she chose to commit an illegal act (buying alcohol whilst underage) and she chose to break school rules.

It is not the end of the world, it's a learning experience. But the learning has to be done by her, not by you or the other grown-ups.

[ShoeWhore]

Hmm I did this with my friends too - I remember struggling to stay on my stool in double physics I am now all grown up and super respectable btw.

I would let your dd take the rap for this. Invaluable lesson for her about actions and consequences.

I'm surprised that you didn't notice tbh.

[cory]

just seen that this was the original thread- sorry about that

still stand by what I said: don't let either yourself or the teachers shoulder the blame for this one: that is infantilising your dd

[flow4]

I agree cory.
(And god how I hate AIBU!)

[lljkk]

ah... so OP was just impatient? Talk about getting bit in the bum.

[Takingbackmonday]

This made me giggle.

We did this too. I really wouldn't worry, OP.