<p>One tip … do a sweep of the room before the party as liquor can be hidden ahead of time. They know you’ll be checking at the front door, so they plant it outside in bushes or other places before the party.</p>
<p>I do hope kids show and a good time is had by all.</p>
<p>I also hope it goes well. I had a post-prom party for D1, total of 12 people invited and 12 people came. We are VERY strict about drugs and drinking and the parents knew we would be vigilant. Plus we knew all but one of these kids quite well. Because it WAS at our house was the major reason that these kids could come. They had the family room, kitchen, back deck and hot tub available to them. I sat in the living room and went in and out with food. I did let the neighbors know we would have a small group over.</p>
<p>They had a blast, eating, dancing, video games, movies. No alcohol; I told them all if any showed up I would call their parents to come get them and I didn’t care what time it was. They did all go home at 2am, though…</p>
<p>S1 had a New Year’s party once for about 15 kids; at 11 pm all but one left for another party where the alcohol was flowing. I felt very sorry for him, but he had a good attitude about it. Said he knew who his real friends were after that. He and the one who stayed are still great friends 10 years later.</p>
<p>I also hope that all goes well for you and your daughter and that everyone has a good time tonight. It’s a bit late now but for the benefit of any other parents considering hosting parties for their high school students, I’m adding a link to an article in the current issue of Bethesda Magazine. This is a local situation for me and the stories are pretty disturbing. I’d suggest everyone pay special attention to the story told by E.J. Dionne, who is a columnist for the Washington Post, and who made what he thought was every possible effort to keep things legal and under control. <a href=“Crossing the Party Line | MoCo360”>http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/May-June-2014/Underage-Drinking/</a></p>
<p>We threw two big kid parties, one in our home. Both times, all were under 21, so we made it clear, from the get-go, that if we even suspected drugs or alcohol, those kids’ parents would be called to pick them up. Also that neighborhood noise needed to be controlled. And that we would walk through the party occasionally- and without warning (not to be cops, but in the context that this is our home, our social responsibility.) D1 managed it very well. I discovered a couple groping each other in our kitchen. She sent them packing. </p>
<p>D1 was mentally prepared for her responsibility. Later, we learned she felt she could manage this, because we had her back. Best wishes.</p>
<p>Some of the parents in that linked article are nuts.</p>
<p>OP you are a brave soul!</p>
<p>^^LOL, I particularly liked the woman who liked that all the “popular” kids would come to her daughter’s parties (actually that’s just more pathetic than anything else). Sadly, I think there are lots of parents who are actively working against the police, schools and other parents who want to keep their underage kids away from alcohol and drugs (even if that means they can’t be friends with the popular kids).</p>
<p>I have a group of good friends who bonded during our boys’ junior years when we started to put together stories that each of us was being told but, when added together, didn’t add up. Two boys got busted after that first mom happy hour when their moms learned they weren’t really where they said they would be. One mom knew her ds was at a hotel drinking and didn’t care. The one common denominator is that other parents don’t get to make these decisions for others. I’d be furious if my kid had gone to a party where an adult served alcohol and didn’t tell me.</p>
<p>Friends hosted a large birthday party. Here were their rules.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Only those invited were allowed in. No guests.</p></li>
<li><p>If anyone left the party for any reason, they could NOT return. No exceptions.</p></li>
<li><p>Everyone had to leave by 1 a.m. Or they had to spend the night. At about 12:45, they went around and collected car keys in a basket. If you had a car but refused to give up the keys, you were asked to leave at 1.</p></li>
<li><p>This party was on a Saturday night. The family served breakfast to all who stayed…but made it very clear that they were leaving for church at 8:45…breakfast was before that…and when they family left, so did everyone else.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>For a prom, you might need to adjust the times.</p>
<p>Both of my kids were invited to after prom parties that were camp outs in a family’s backyard. We politely told our kids they couldn’t go. At first they were disappointed, but both ended up going to SMALL house parties (4 couples) instead. The camp outs turned into a free for all…not able to be monitored at all. </p>
<p>If my kid sent invitations to an event like this without fully clearing all the details, I would cancel the event altogether. I’m sorry, but this type of event takes cautious planning. I would not want more than a few couples at my house. I would not want to be responsible for the safety of a huge crowd, many of whom I might not know well. Sorry…but I would cancel it if my kid sent invites without a plan in place with us!</p>
<p>I was horrified by some of the stories in that article! Wow!</p>
<p>Here: so far so good 
It turned into a last-minute pre-prom party as well…Lovely group of kids downstairs
having pizza and laughing. Some will come back post-prom. So far it’s a success!</p>
<p>Also, @thumper1… after my initial post she did amend her invite to make it VERY clear it was chem-free, and we’ve had some excellent conversations since then about all the aspects involved, most recently this afternoon :)</p>
<p>Regarding #3 in thumper’s post; we did that one year for a lock-in and wanted to put out the word that we would be collecting keys. Someone told me that practice was useless… kids know that parents like to collect keys at these kinds of parties, so they will bring two sets… one to turn in and one to keep in case they decided to leave.</p>
<p>Teri, I don’t think the parents at the party my kid went to slept much. And truthfully, not that many kids stayed past 1 a.m. </p>
<p>We (H and I) never slept when we had cast parties or lock-ins. It was a point made very clearly to other parents - one of us would be awake at all times, and on the main level; there is no door to the basement, so no hiding from us down there, either. When we had lock-ins, it usually meant me staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning (I’m more of a night person), and H would get up and take over so I could sleep for a couple of hours before it was time for everyone to get up and get some breakfast before leaving. By 2 or 3 in the morning, 98% of the kids would be crashed, so I would position myself at the top of the basement stairs so no going back and forth between males and females without getting past me. The design/layout of our house worked for this - I could keep an eye on all entrances to the house and each set of stairs from one location. I’m sure this isn’t the case for everyone’s house, though. </p>
<p>With cast parties, the one we usually hosted was the one after the night of the last production, and they had to strike set after that, so many times, they didn’t even begin until 11:30-midnight. Several times I’d video the play and the kids would sit around watching it when they got back to our house, so that might take at least another two hours. </p>
<p>We did have the cops show up once. Someone in the neighborhood saw all the cars parked along our cup-de-sac and called in an underage party. H and I were out in the backyard with some other parents and some of the kids were in the pool. The cops appeared from around the corner of the house, and boy were we surprised. We explained that it was a cast party of high school kids, and the cop shone his light around to see who some of the kids were, and said, “Hey, I was there tonight at their performance; I recognize so-and-so. They did a really great job.” I think he was surprised to find parents who actually were monitoring high school kids at a party. </p>
<p>Can one of the other moms come and help? Choose the meanest one you know :-). I have a friend from New York who curses like a sailor and speaks her mind to anyone! The kids are scared of her. If I was doing post-prom I’d beg her to stay with me :-).</p>
<p>Ah, well… there was no need for any worry. No one got drunk or crazy or tried to crash - in fact the party broke up at about 10:30. (You may recall this was mainly a “prom-alternative” party, despite the thread title, since my D and a couple of her friends had no desire to go to the actual prom but did want to get dressed up and celebrate…)</p>
<p>So we had about 14 kids or so at the busiest, pre-prom part. About half then left for “real” prom and the others stayed here and had a dance party. But D’s best friend (who was the other main person involved) had a bad cold, and everyone was weary from the full week of AP/IB exams, so they all went home pretty early. The kids who’d been planning to come after prom texted her saying they were wither going to another friends (also very chaperoned) bonfire, or headed home themselves. D seems totally OK with it. (I hope she’s not just putting on a good show for me!) I asked her point-blank if she thinks kids went to an alcohol party instead, and she doesn’t think that’s the case. She had a good time and says she was happy, herself, to go to bed early… so I guess it all worked out! Thanks for all your advice…</p>
<p>The only thing is that now we have a TON of junk food left over! D was wondering if we can save the whole, UNCUT bakery cake for her last day of bio class on Friday. Do you think it’ll be OK to freeze if I wrap it’s plastic bakery box tightly with plastic wrap? It’s a typical grocery-store bakery cake…</p>
<p>Glad all went well.
Absolutely, freeze the cake.</p>
<p>Whew, happy to hear you all survived the party trauma-free. Hope your kids give you a great mother’s day; you deserve it (where’s your cake ;)?).</p>
<p>If you freeze the cake, thaw it in the box. The condensation will theoretically cling to the box, not bedew the icing.</p>
<p>@Consolation Oooh, good tip, thank you! Yes, I just wrapped the whole plastic box in saran wrap and put it into my chest freezer. Do you have a guess when we should take it out? She wants to eat it around 1:00 Friday, and it is a one-layer quarter-sheet cake, about 8" x 12" or so.</p>
<p>So glad the party went well. </p>
<p>I am late to this discussion, but I offered a pre and post party prom option to my kid last year. I had the biggest house so it made sense. I wasn’t worried about drinking with this group, but did fully plan on staying up all night to be sure. I had hosted this group a few times before without issue.</p>
<p>The funny thing was that the girls all stayed the night, the boys went home between 1 and 2. Parents drove. </p>
<p>I will offer the same deal to my younger son. His friends are more problematic. In our community there are post prom parties where the parents offer drinking and some like mine where they don’t. </p>