<p>You guys make me laugh.</p>
<p>I grew up in NJ, and it is a popular thing for kids in NJ and PA to go down the shore after the prom. I never did it back in the day.</p>
<p>In MA, some kids go to Cape Cod. My D and her friends went to IHOP after the junior prom. She did not go to her senior prom, but a few kids went to a parent’s house on the Cape. Some of the kids came to school on Monday and bragged that they couldn’t remember anything about Saturday.</p>
<p>We live close enough to NYC, that many kids head into the city after the prom for a alcohol-free dance party at a club on the party bus they took to/from the prom. The night of graduation there is an alcohol-free all-night party that is planned for many months - some years, it has been a Dave & Busters type-place with laser tag, etc. This past year it was a lame Y, so D1 was unhappy.</p>
<p>Good for you, bhmomma!</p>
<p>I grew up in NJ. I remember going to breakfast at one of my friends houses after prom (about 1-3am) and my mom insisted that I had to come home to sleep before I went down the shore. So I left about 7 am instead, with my group renting a room in a hotel just south of Seaside Heights. I don’t even think we stayed that night. But stuff can happen just as well during the day. Just sayin’. </p>
<p>Our HS does the overnight lock-in event after graduation, not after prom. Most of the after prom stuff here is a bunch of kids crashing at someone’s house with parents present. There is no variation of “the shore” to go to here.</p>
<p>It sounds like it would be a ton of fun and it was exactly what I did 35 years ago… which is why my kids were denied the joyous experience of mixing alcohol and large bodies of water.</p>
<p>We had the prom parties at our house. It was a ton of work on our part, but very fun, extremely entertaining and quite dramatic.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>??? I don’t understand?</p>
<p>So earnest and naive. You would think this site were mostly Mormon and Muslim.</p>
<p>Have heard those who rent out their summer homes to large teen groups are looking to renovate and the party “damage deposit” helps to cover the home’s renovation fees. Apparently its a win win for both parties. In our town, there is always a mass parental sigh of relief whenever the first brave parent says “No Way” and some alternative after Prom option materializes. As to Barrons comment: He/she is correct it will be a free for all when your student gets to college and you will have no idea as to what is going on.</p>
<p>Project Grad & Grad Night is a tradition in most HS in our state as well. The school buses the kids from HS to an “undisclosed location” where they all stick together & are fed & entertained & just hang out all night with their fellow grads. They are bused back to campus the next morning & have to be picked up by parents or some designated responsible party. It evolved after a few tragic deaths due to exhausted kids driving. I’m glad they do it & it is pretty widely accepted in our state.</p>
<p>The year S graduated, they went to a movie all together & then Dave & Busters. He came home tired but pretty happy.</p>
<p>
Yes and No to the above. Yes we will have no idea what is going on, but unless said young adult is renting an off campus apartment, there are RA’s, residence life staff, university rules, and consequences. The degree to which supervision is actually present and rules enforced does vary, but it does not equate evenly with a group of teens being given the keys to what is often a significant portion of someones net worth and essentially being told “have fun”. A home on the coast is easily worth a half a million dollars and up!! Even a “high” security deposit (??$750, ??$1000) would not cover the cost of a flat screen tv that has had a football “accidently” tossed into it. </p>
<p>I am sure there are many responsible teens out there. I think have a few myself. But these kids are strangers to whoever owns that house. And not too many people would let a group of 18 year olds strangers into their home alone. Would you?</p>
<p>Whatever anyone thinks of teen alcohol and drug use (and I am on the record as being totally against this), I think we can all agree that arrest at a party where there was underage drinking and/or drug use would be, as they say, “a bummer.”</p>
<p>A quite number of years ago, some kids in NJ were arrested at a house party (not at the shore) when the 18+ host served quite a bit of alcohol to kids ages 14 and up (to 19). All the kids, even the minors, were charged (although the minors as minors), over 40 of them - everyone at the house whether drinking or not, whether using or not (and there was marijuana at this affair from the news reports.)</p>
<p>While this can not happen if no alcohol or drugs are used, how can you be sure that this will not be the case? Parental supervision may assist in this, but unfortunately depending on the kids, they may “sneak” things in. What I do believe is that your own kids generally know who drinks or who will be smoking marijuana. If you own kid is substance free, they may (and this is an if) feel comfortable telling you what the others are doing, and you can then suggest a course of action.</p>
<p>The real problem is that if they are 18 and above, they may defy you, and then there could be problems in your house.</p>
<p>Good luck to all.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be nice if people from my generation weren’t trying too hard to be the ‘cool parents’?</p>
<p>My son is a senior this year and I ‘mostly’ trust him and have made him very aware that there are consequences to his actions and he is responsible for those. If he gets a speeding ticket it won’t be me that pays it, if he gets caught drinking, then he can pay the fines or sit in jail for a night. If he wasn’t concerned about facing consequences then what would stop him from such activities?</p>
<p>But I know that next year he will be on his own doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants. I can remember my days in college ‘a few’ years ago. An RA? I think I saw mine twice during my freshman year and she lived directly across the hall from me. I think she spent a lot of time with her boyfriend. She was just doing the job for the free room. Seriously, most RAs are just upperclassmen and aren’t going to intervene unless there is a pretty serious situation. At my ‘dry campus’ on move in weekend a local restaurant left 32 oz plastic cups in every dorm room with their delivery number as an advertisement, it was tradition to walk around with your cup and various rooms with older students would have a variety of drinks to fill up your cup. 100s of students were wandering around campus carrying their cups with their drink of choice. There weren’t university officials walking around. I’m sure the ‘campus cops’ watched for students who were unruly or in dangerous situations, but most students ‘got away with it’. The first time I ever had a beer was on the day I moved into my dorm freshman year when a girl down the hall offered, they had a case in their little fridge in their dorm room. The first time I was ever drunk was in a college dorm room. I’m positive not much has changed in the past 25? years and know that the best I can do is urge my son to be responsible and be aware that there can be consequences.</p>
<p>But as for prom, I’ve accepted the fact that my son is growing up and will soon be on his own, but he is currently dating a sophomore who is 15 years old. His school has an official post prom, but it’s not the cool thing to do, so they aren’t sure they want to go to it. I told him he should seriously consider it because they can say that they are going to a party at someone’s house or whatever, but if they aren’t at the official sponsored activity there’s no way to know for sure. I told him I don’t know about his GFs parents, but if I had a 15 year old girl there is no way I’d let her go out with a boy 2 years older than she was when I didn’t know where they were going to be. Perhaps that’s not being a ‘cool parent’, but that’s OK with me.</p>
<p>Wow…with all of these parents saying “not my kid” I wonder who all those kids belong to who run to the Jersey Shore prom weekend.</p>
<p>Perhaps those parents aren’t looking for information on raising young adults on CC. 
After all the internets is a pretty big place.
[Bad</a> parenting makes teenagers EIGHT times more likely to abuse alcohol, study finds | Mail Online](<a href=“Bad parenting makes teenagers EIGHT times more likely to abuse alcohol, study finds | Daily Mail Online”>Bad parenting makes teenagers EIGHT times more likely to abuse alcohol, study finds | Daily Mail Online)</p>