Advice needed please

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim58
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Hi,

I’ve come on here in sackcloth and ashes to take my punishment! First though a case for the defence…
We live in england. The law and attitude to alcohol is vastly more relaxed than in the US. The age limit is 18. You can drink at 16 as long as you are having a meal. Trying to find a 16 year old who hasn’t sampled alcohol let alone a 17 year old would be difficult. Girls are officialy drinking more than boys. Tony Blair is proposing 24 hour (we never close) licensing laws. I saw a school ball in a local hotel where you could buy alcohol as long as you only ordered one drink at a time!

England is vastly more liberal than the US. No capital punishment, corporal punishment and smoking pot is legal (though not the supply). Oh, and to cap it all, new laws are being introduced to legalise casinos in every town. By the way, every town already has numerous betting shops where you can pop in for a bet - sometimes even after Saturday evening mass. ( Saturday mass fulfills your day of obligation in case you are too busy watching football on a Sunday).

Don’t assume from the rare BBC reports you get that england is like the mid west!

Anyway, above all I was caught completely unprepared. No excuse I know. The party was only unsupervised for a short time and no one was sleeping over. I expected a short trip and quick drive back for dinner. I suppose I also worried about my daughter’s friendship with the girl.

Anyway, I told my wife who phoned the mum, who is a teacher and a friend of hers, this morning and we went round to her house. The mum said that she would only ground the girl for one month and all of half term week. Her daughter has some very important school work and basically she doesnt want to demolarise her. She wanted a short sharp shock.

My wife suggested 2,000 lines which both ladies agreed a 17 year old girl was capable of writing. However they settled on 1,000 because that’s what the mum had warned the girl would get. The ladies though played around with various words on a pad of paper until they had a constructed a highly relevant sentence that was two lines long.

The girl was called in and her mum spelt out her punishment. She put on a brave face until her mum mentioned the lines. She started to complain about the length of the sentence and the fact it was really 2,000 lines but her mum cut her off. She gave her a large pad of A4 paper and mentioned pretty forcibly that the lines better be written neatly. My wife couldn’t stop chuckling - the girl’s face was a picture as she stomped off to her room.

Phew!

BTW, I’ve only been to the States once but what a great country, even though I only saw a bit of it.

Tim
 
Hi Tim:

Kids are kids, parents are parents, and teaching them what’s right applies no matter where you live, IMO.

BTW, are there many Catholic Churches in the city you live in England? I know the Anglican Church is most prevelant there, which is the Church I’ve loved my whole life and used to be a part of. Once I actually found out the premise it started from, I cannot go back there. Silly to some, but nonetheless, my views.

God Bless Tim, I know you’re trying to do the right thing!!!
 
Hi Sparkle,

Population 120,000 people. 8 Catholic churches. Probably less younger people now.

Tim
 
don’t know the law where you come from but in Ohio where I raised my teens if you did not report it to mum and if you allowed her to keep it you would be liable if she drank it. You would also get a ticket if you were stopped and someone had a can of beer in your car. even if not open you would be in trouble, especially with underage kids. If you know about and do nothing, you are guilty as if you had provided it yourself. I believe your legal restrictions and penalties for drunk driving are even stricter than ours.

If I thought my kids were at a party without adult supervision for more than 37 seconds I would be over there so fast you couldn’t clock me. If anything happened during that time, those parents would be facing a heap of legal trouble too.
 
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Tim58:
Hi,

I’ve come on here in sackcloth and ashes to take my punishment! First though a case for the defence…
We live in england. The law and attitude to alcohol is vastly more relaxed than in the US. The age limit is 18. You can drink at 16 as long as you are having a meal. Trying to find a 16 year old who hasn’t sampled alcohol let alone a 17 year old would be difficult. Girls are officialy drinking more than boys. Tony Blair is proposing 24 hour (we never close) licensing laws. I saw a school ball in a local hotel where you could buy alcohol as long as you only ordered one drink at a time!
Hey Tim, I’m just across the water from you in Belfast! I know just what the drinking culture is like here in the UK - I’m only 18 myself! I think you helped send a good clear message to your daughter, well done.
 
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Sowndog:
I can understand what you did, Tim. Sometimes incidents like this can catch you off guard, and you only realise afterwards what you ‘should have done.’ The advice from every1 else here is good. Speaking as an 18-year-old, I must say there is a chance it may make you unpopular for a while! But you must do what is right.
A responsible adult would not have contineud to drive with alcohol in the car and one or two minors who MIGHT have been drinking (if she had beer with her, it is POSSIBLE that she might have had a drink or two as well) – if you were pulled over by the police, you would have had a serious mess on your hands.
 
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Tim58:
We live in england. The law and attitude to alcohol is vastly more relaxed than in the US. The age limit is 18. You can drink at 16 as long as you are having a meal. Trying to find a 16 year old who hasn’t sampled alcohol let alone a 17 year old would be difficult. Tim
We were in London for a few days over the holidays. My husband took our son, who had just turned 17, to a pub for a beer. They both had a good time. While we were in Italy, all 3 kids sampled various wines. Now that we’re back in the states, they know they can’t have more than a taste at home. —KCT
 
what the law says, and what reality is are two different things. we moved to a new town and held a birthday party for youngest, 8th grader, so she could socialize with her new friends. fortunately college daughter and several friends were over for jazz band practice, or I could never have kept a lid on the situation. evidently before the party in the afternoon these savvy jr hi kids came over and stashed 12 packs in coolers around the house and grounds. they assumed that I like most of their parents would let them have free reign in the basement rec room and ignore everything. We confiscated at least a dozen beer coolers, ended up calling all parents to come get their kids by 10 oclock. parents had to come the next day to claim coolers, I would not let any go home that night. also called neighbor who is a city cop and he escorted each teen to car to make sure no open cans and no underage drivers. the next day cleaning up (they trashed the place in less than 2 hours) found two mysterious plastic baggies, called cops again, they could not make any arrests because there was no way to know who brought it. Needless to say that was the last party my daughter went to with that crew. Asked around school to find out where kids got the beer–parents bought most of it and were quite put out with me for causing a commotion.
 
puzzleannie. said:
Hi Puzzleannie,

Thats the same in England. Most parents here would have let a 17 year old daughter off. In our friends case, because she’s got strong values and is a teacher, she decided her daughter needed punishing. A grounding and a substantial number of lines were in order as the girl found out to her cost.

Tim
 
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