<p>what would you do if you were out of the country and you left ur kids because you trust they are responsible and then find out that they threw a party?</p>
<p>Confiscate all their car keys immediately, and send them home first thing in the morning. Do not let them back in your home until your parents return.</p>
<p>Were they told they couldn’t throw a party?</p>
<p>Frankly, I’d question my own judgment since I’m the adult and they’re the kids.</p>
<p>Rx: Read riot act for half and hour 3 times a day. Continue every day for the next week. One month later, bring it up again and read riot act for 15 minutes.</p>
<p>When my older daughter was in high school, there was one kid in her group of friends that always had a party when his parents were out of town, and no one else ever did. I asked my daughter if this kid’s parents ever found out or got mad. My daughter said that they found out every once in a while, they got mad, but never mad enough that her friend wouldn’t have another party. </p>
<p>I would make my kid miserable enough that he/she would never do it again, and that would include hiring a babysitter to stay with him or ship him off to his least favorite relatives whenever you are out of town. Definitely no car and be grounded until he turns 30. I would also call up every kid’s parents to apologize for your kid’s action and for not been there to supervise the party, but really to embarrase your kid and let those parents know that their kids knowingly went to a party without parents at home. Some parents may care, some parents may not. But at least words will be out - not to go to Johnny’s party any more.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that I totally trust my daughter, I would not go out of the country and leave her alone, even at 18 and I CERTAINLY would not have done it while she lived at home. I know parents who did do that, and I was horrified. Not just for the party issue, but what if God forbid something happened or even if it wasn’t a “God forbid??” Going out of the country and leaving a kid alone is just plain wrong. No two ways about it.</p>
<p>I’m with Franglish.</p>
<p>I have done it a few times with our 17-18 year old watching her 13 year old sister. My parents live 10 minutes away. But frankly, I trust my older daughter more than my parents or anyone else when it comes to emergency or taking care of her sister. There was one time when I called home and I expected the younger one to be home because I knew the older one was tutoring, and no one picked up the phone for half an hour. I finally called the older one on her mobile. She told me that her sister was with her because she’s afraid of the dark (a new phase we were not aware of), so she has been taking her sister everywhere with her.</p>
<p>What franglish said! So, for me, there is no “what would you do?” because the situation never would have happened!</p>
<p>I also would not go out of the country and leave my kids. Of course my kids are still young (15 & 11), but I just can’t see myself doing that. </p>
<p>But, to answer your question, if I did go away and my teen threw a party without my knowledge, I suppose I would have to take away some privileges (how many and for how long would probably depend on what happened at the party). Also, it would pretty much destroy my trust in her, so that would be something that would never happen again (because she would never be left in that situation again).</p>
<p>I think at some point these young adults should be expected to take on some responsibilities and make some good judgement calls. There are kids of that age are married and supporting themselves. If I couldn’t leave my kids home by themselves by the time they are juniors or seniors in hs without getting in trouble or know what to do in case of emergency, I don’t think I would be comfortable in sending them away to colleges.</p>
<p>Trusting kids is one thing. The party issue can be a different thing in some social circles.</p>
<p>Among some groups of kids, if the other kids find out that a particular kid’s parents are out of town, the horde will descend on that house, and there is little that the “host” kid can do about it. </p>
<p>There was one family in our neighborhood, with generally responsible kids, where the father often traveled to interesting places on business and liked to take his wife with him. To avoid putting his kids in the awkward position of having to lie about being home alone and/or try to shut out the hordes of uninvited visitors, the parents would always ask the grandmother to come and stay when they were going to be away, even though she lived in another state and had to be picked up and driven home (several hours each way). It was worth it.</p>
<p>Why would your kids tell their friends that you are out of town? At 17 and 18 they should know when to keep quiet. This is part of trust.</p>
<p>Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. A simple slip of the tongue or a conversation with another trusted friend or with a parent’s friend who knows can let it out, and then it spreads like wildfire.</p>
<p>Police cannot enter a house without permission, even for underage drinking. What I’d do before I left: Give the police written permission to enter my property while I was away, and alert them that a teen would be home alone. Then I’d tell my kid that I’ve done that. As well as lay down the law about “no parties”, and extend that to “no friends over.” (Amazing how inviting one kid over turns into a party, and your child can say, “But Mom, I didn’t throw a party, I just invited Amy over!”) Then I’d tell her that I expected her to call the police if people showed up anyway.</p>
<p>After the fact: grounded for at least one month - home, school, approved extracurriculars. Period. Take away computer except for homework, with me watching over shoulder. Take away cellphone. Random phone checks - since we don’t have call forwarding on our home phone, I’d know she was home. After that month, slowly begin to reintroduce freedoms - computer, cellphone, etc. She’d have to earn my trust again.</p>
<p>How big was the party? Were drugs done? Were there arrests? Did the neighbors complain? Was any damage done to the house? To the attendees? To the neighbors’ lawns?</p>
<p>I would not have left my kids alone in the house for more than 24 hours at any pre-college age. I don’t care how responsible they are, they simply don’t know enough. Stuff happens. During my daughter’s freshman college year, she and some friends stayed at our house while we were gone; there was a huge rainstorm and near floods.</p>
<p>[My post #2 makes no sense because OP’s post was apparently edited after i responded to it. Now to address the current question…]</p>
<p>If no one had been injured and nothing damaged, then I would do nothing to my kids. I would only punish myself for being stupid enough to leave them alone and trust them to not hold a party. And then I would never leave them at home alone again.</p>
<p>I left my son home alone for two weeks while DH and I traveled to the other end of the world.</p>
<p>We had neighbors alerted, GF’s family alerted. Son knew not to have a party. I explained to him that while I trusted him completely (and I did and still do), I was concerned about the football team (or whatever) showing up with a keg. That’s why the neighbors were on high alert. They knew they were to come over and throw everyone out.</p>
<p>My son was fantastic while we were gone. He and the neighbors took great care of the dog, the house, and everything else. Son kept up with his schoolwork, GF’s family had him over for dinner about 2/3 of the time, and all was quiet and neat upon our return.</p>
<p>I was probably nuts, wasn’t I.</p>
<p>The family across the street from us went on vacation WITH their high school kids, and yet other high school kids attempted to throw a party in their backyard. Another neighbor and I managed to thwart the party goers between the stocking the back yard with beer (which we confiscated) and people amasing. I figure we saved a few not particularly bright young people a police record.</p>
<p>Moral of the story, do tell your neighbors when you are going out of town. (We weren’t sure the older, legal, child wasn’t left home, so we were pretty hesitant…) Tell your kids NOT to tell their friends they are going out of town.</p>
<p>veryhappy - this was our experience, too. D1 had just finished her sophomore year at college, and D2 was entering her senior year of high school. It was over the summer, so perhaps we were just fortunate because they were working almost full-time every day, and not in the daily high school element of talking to their friends with every detail of what was going on at home (even as naive as, “Sorry, I can’t have anyone over. My parents are out of town.”)</p>
<p>And yes, while we were gone (as is tradition with us when we travel abroad, it seems) horrible storms came through, they lost power and the battery to the back-up sump pump was going off and they freaked. The first kid home that evening couldn’t get into the house because power was out and the electric garage door opener wouldn’t work (we now all carry house keys with us). Anyway, they got through it, and we knew they had neighbors to call if it got really bad.</p>
<p>I will say that when we returned, D1 said, “I have a new respect for you. Taking care of a house is a lot of work.” That alone was worth it! Also, neither one of my kids would hesitate for a second, if someone uninvited showed up to our house, to call the police.</p>
<p>To the OP, be prepared to spend months earning back trust and doing some self reflection on the relationship you want to have with your parents, and what you have to do to get back in their good graces again. Remember, parents can sniff out a fake, so you need to be genuine in your demonstrated ‘learning the hard knocks’ lesson. Perhaps don’t wait for them to issue consequences (if it’s not too late), come up with your own and be ready to negotiate with them. </p>
<p>UCDAlum - this scares me tremendously, which is why, now when we’re gone, we get a house-sitter/pet-sitter to stay at the house, especially given we have a pool in the backyard. Too much temptation.</p>