Grounded!

My oldest daughter, soon to be fifteen, is becoming a typical teenager I guess.

I hate peer pressure, and as much as we try and prepare our kids for it, it always rears it's ugly head from time to time.

I would like to think that both of my girls are well balanced, and I rate our parenting skills up there with the best. We are neither too conservative, nor do we just let them do whatever they want.

It was my weekend with them, but she asked if she could spend Saturday night with a friend, which I am cool with. I know the friend, and her dad, and she has spent a lot of time there over the last six months. We texted several times on Saturday, as we normally do if she is staying out.

I went to collect her yesterday afternoon. I chatted with the dad for a few minutes, and all seemed okay, until we were in the car. She burst into tears...

Seems the dad had invited a bunch of his friends over for a barbecue, and to watch the rugby. One of the guys has two sons, about the same age as my girls. The older boy, at one point, brought a beerglass with alcohol (sounds like it was brandy - neat) into the room where the kids were hanging out. Everyone had a sip of course, but the boy obviously had too much. He went to the bathroom, and when he came out, he had obviously fallen, and had a cut above his eye - which he never seemed to notice. He sat on the bed between my daughter and her friend, and then proceeded to puke on both of them...

I know how sensitive my daughter is to seeing someoene else puke. So she was off to the bathroom and was puking too. Yes, I think whatever she had had to drink contributed to her nausea.

So her dilemma in the car was firstly that her mom is going to find out about it, and because of the puking it was going to be assumed that she had been drinking heavily, and secondly that she actually had something to drink in the first place.

The offending boy's father apparently became aggressive and beat the boy.

So the anger was rising in me. Not at her. But at the father. Mainly because he never mentioned any of this to me when I came to collect her.

Now, I don't mind if she has a drink like a glass of wine, or a Spin, or something like that. As long as one of us parents are present. My limits are: No alcohol with boys. Period. No alcohol at someone else's house. Period. And absolutely no alcohol if there is a sleepover involved.

So she learnt some valuable lessons, and it scared her. The ex and I (and the friend's mother) had a long chat before I let her speak to our baby. So we agreed that she is banned from the friend's father's house indefinately, not because of what she did 'wrong', but because we don't trust him anymore to provide a safe environment for a sleepover.

But we have grounded her from unaccompanied hangouts at the mall for a month, simply because accepting the alcohol in the face of peer pressure must be shown to be wrong anyway.

OMG, parenting is HARD!!!!

Especially since compared to my own experiences at her age, she is positively angelic.