<p>This morning when we got up my wife discovered an empty vodka bottle and beer bottle in the trash. The night before our 19 year-old daughter had had several friends over. Confronted, she admitted the drinking and claimed that she thought we had signaled it was “okay”. We said that that was absolutely not the case, make it clear that our house is zero-tolerance, and that such behavior would not be permitted in the future. She promised not to do this again and seemed quite upset, saying she really cares what we think and would never have done this if she had not thought it was okay. We have to deal still with all this with her, but we also have this dilemma: Do we notify the other kids’ parents? The other kids are all 18 or 19, either in college or about to enter college. Our daughter says they were very careful, had only a few drinks, did not get drunk, had a designated driver, etc. The other kids’ parents are completely unknown to us. What is the right thing to do? If the kids were 15 or 16, you bet we’d call the parents. But this feels on the edge. Is it enough to make our position clear to our daughter and tell her to tell her friends (and if they show up here again, tell them ourselves), or do we have a duty to notify no matter what?
Naturally my wife and I, both conflicted, are leaning in different directions, she toward notification, me not. Any advice?</p>
<p>I’d call. And I’d ground my kid for being so dumb that she’d believe that having friends in the house who found my liquor would suddenly mean that it was OK for her to share it with them. Of course she’s upset. She got caught, and now she feels guilty.</p>
<p>Your house, your liquor, your risk if anything would happen to the kids with the so-called designated driver, your rules.</p>
<p>I would notify. As someone who does consulting work for schools, I would want the parents to know that I was sorry this had occurred in my home. I could be charged for underage students drinking in my home and so I would want to make it clear that I was unaware and would make sure it never happened again. I would also emphasize that the kids were more than welcome in my home, just not imbibing.</p>
<p>I had a similar situation but not quite the same. Several years ago our neighbors were out of town and their high school senior son had a party. They were clearly respectful, not too many cars, almost no noise. If they hadn’t gone outside to smoke in the driveway, I’d never have known. I was really torn about whether I blow the kid in and tell his parents. I asked my sister-in-law who had kids of similar ages (mine were little at the time) if I should tell the parents and her response was a firm “YES. If it were my children, I’d want to know.” That stuck with me and as difficult to do as it was, I called the parents Monday morning and told them. They were absolutely shocked (they had hired a 20 something to babysit but she had gone out for the night). They also went through the trash and found empty liquor bottles. When the son got home he was presented with all the alcohol (how stupid to throw it out in his own garbage can?) They were really happy I told them and they did proceed to notify all the parents of children who were at the party. In this day and age, there are so many things that can go wrong. As workngprogress2 said, I’d want the other parents to know that it wasn’t tolerated at your house and will never happen again. The parents deserve to know so they can have the opportunity to discuss this with their children. It’s a teaching lesson for everyone if nothing else. Yes, it’s awkward and uncomfortable but I keep coming back to what my sister-in-law said: If it was my child, I would want to know.</p>
<p>I would absolutely contact the parents to make them aware of what happened and that you did not knowingly allow this to happen or condone the behavior in your home. You might want to prepare yourself that they could react by thanking you or just the opposite. I think it would not only give the parents the opportunity to deal with their own child’s behavior if they wish, but may also save your daughter from getting into trouble later for underage drinking and providing alcohol to minors. Who knows what the other parents know or don’t know about their child’s actions. If you don’t let them know they may blame you later.</p>
<p>Absolutely let the other parents know. Call the police, no. Other parents, yes.</p>
<p>18 and 19 yr olds out of high school are adults. I would not notify.</p>
<p>I would have my daughter give me a three page written report on furnishing underage people alcohol and the consequences of underage drinking . I would want her to find and report on charges against parents who allow underage drinking in there home. I would want a report on charges and prison time for people who furnish underage drinkers who get hurt or maimed driving drunk.</p>
<p>Let her read it. She can not argue with facts. She will be better equipt for college with this knowledge. I am sure she will then instruct her friends .</p>
<p>Then I would tell any frinds she brings to the house your house rules.</p>
<p>I did laugh when I read she thought you signaled it was okay…</p>
<p>Just this week, I had two sets of parents tell me that they allow their kids and friends (16 and 17 yr. olds) to drink in their homes. I was livid and made the comment that they have a lot of money and would be easy to sue, should something happen. Unfortunately, my son is friends with these kids.</p>
<p>Toledo. My kids used to have all their friends over to the house all the time. Around age16 we saw a great drop off in the amount of kids hanging out at our house.</p>
<p>Found out a few years later they were then hanging at kids houses whose parents let them drink. No one under age was ever offered a drink at our home not even in their 3rd year of college. Funny thing is it was a big deal to the guys to come to our house for a drink when they did turn 21.</p>
<p>I’m with sax. 18 and 19 year olds I would not notify the parents. Deal with your kid only.</p>
<p>I would notify because I don’t want people breaking the law in my house. To countenance the behavior indicated puts me potentially in legal jeopardy. As to whether or not 18 year olds are truly “adults,” well there is certainly room for debate.</p>
<p>Thank you for your responses. I see there is much the same conflict out there as I feel! What makes me lean toward not notifying is their age and situation (like sax), the fact that my daughter knows in no uncertain terms both that it must never happen again and all the possible consequences (we made her understand that we could have been sued if something had happened, that insurance would refuse to cover auto or other accidents, that even in one recent case parents lost their home), which scared the heck out of her. She has promised to make all her friends understand the rules. But the incident is past, no one was in fact injured, and frankly I worry that some excitable parent may blame us, report us, or engage in some other retribution. I really, really don’t want to find myself defending myself with that lame-sounding, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.” Maybe that’s cowardice, but there it is.</p>
<p>I would not let it happen again, and sadly that is why I won’t be taking more than one night away from the house at a time until jr turns 21. I know that things happen, kids come over, someone decides to bring it and everyone lets it happen. It is sad that I don’t trust my kids to enforce the rules, but I’m going with better safe than sorry.</p>
<p>These are mainly college age kids. Are their parents that naive to think they don’t drink once in a while? I don’t see the point in telling them if you aren’t going to let it happen again. Punishing yours should be plenty. My dad would probably have been in the report writing camp…But remember, these kids have learned the dangers of alcohol since probably 4th grade…There are DARE (drug and alcohol resistance education) in many schools. They teach it in high school too.</p>
<p>I would be concerned about the decisions of my child and the risks to her, my home, her visitors to MY home, etc, but I don’t think we are obligated to be the alcohol police and notify the parents of 18-19 year old.</p>
<p>GRinNE, I see you wrote the other thing i was thinking…that somehow it will be YOUR fault that their darling was exposed to the evils of drinking and you will be reported even though nothing happened. I doubt it would happen, but some people get weird when you tell their kid did something bad…like you are saying they are bad parents, then they are offended and want to show YOU who is the bad parent (which you aren’t, or you wouldn’t be concerned at all)</p>
<p>I would probably tell if they were younger as it is worse to start drinking at 14-15…still be afraid of the offended parents though, so maybe I’d just talk to the kids and ground mine for a long long time. (at that age)</p>
<p>sax, my son didn’t even want a grad party if I wouldn’t let them drink. Needless to say there was not a lot of hanging out here either! S1 is 22, so he does have friends over who are legal age. I often wondered if it would be better to be the one who allowed it (over 18) and monitored it, so I could know what was going on, but the risk is too great.</p>
<p>Do all of these 18/19 year olds even live at home with their parents? At 18 I was out of the house on my own in another state so if I was the one drinking it’d be pointless to try to contact my parents.</p>
<p>Since they’re legal adults in all ways except for lawfully drinking alcohol I don’t think it’d be appropriate for you to contact their parents. These people aren’t ‘minors’ although they are underage for drinking. I don’t know how that translates into culpability under the law for you but it seems that if they’re over 18 then ‘they’ should be responsible for themselves following the law - not you chaperoning them (which is different than you willingly providing the alcohol to them).</p>
<p>You should at a minimum never allow it to happen again in your home and let your D know in no uncertain terms that it’s not permitted and that if she has any question at all to discuss it with you rather than assume you implied somehow that breaking the law was okay in your mind but it sounds as if you’ve already covered this with her.</p>
<p>If it were my home and any of them stayed overnight again I’d have no problem telling them there’s no underage drinking permitted in your home as a friendly reminder to be clear in case they thought you implied that it wouldn’t be a problem.</p>
<p>Thank you all so, so much. I have never before in my life posted to a forum, so your advice has been especially welcome. It’s helping me to figure out the response that feels right for me and our family.</p>
<p>I’m going to get off the computer and go read a book and get my mind off this till tomorrow! I’ll look back then and respond if it seems appropriate. You are all clearly good, caring, thoughtful parents, and I really respect that and your openness in helping out a stranger!</p>
<p>Take care everyone, sleep well, be happy.</p>
<p>I think that if you came home and caught them in the act, you would need to notify their parents to make sure they got home safely and were aware of the situation. But since the event has passed, I think at this point you need to just make sure your expectations are clear for the future. You may well just run into belligerence from the parents and denial from the kids if you try to notify them.</p>
<p>There was a situation here in CT 2 years ago where there was a house party with under age drinking… one of the kids passed out on the couch… unresponsive they put him in a car and dropped him at one of the walk in clinics… the kids and the parents(of an affluent area) dumped the poor kid out of the car and drove off/didn’t stay with him to ensure he would be ok… he died. He was just 3 days shy of his 19th birthday. Enough said.</p>
<p>GRinNE</p>
<p>I think you should ask yourself two things. Would you have wanted to know if the situation were reversed? What would you have told the parents if something HAD happened as a result of their drinking at your home even though your daughter and not you allowed it to be consumed?</p>
<p>No. They were adults.</p>
<p>D1 had a 19th birthday dinner at our house. We served wine with dinner and her guests were sleeping over. I told D1 that her friends were responsible in letting their parents know and to decide for themselve if they wanted wine. As they were adults, I didn’t feel it was my job to notify their parents.</p>
<p>If they were under 18, I would have called their parents and apologized. My kid would have been very grounded.</p>
<p>^^They may have been legal adults, but not legal to consume alcohol. What you did was to illegally provide alcohol to someone else’s children without their knowledge. Cool maybe, but not legal or wise. I’d argue it wasn’t your “job” to decide to serve those who are underage without asking their parents since providing alcohol to minors is illegal.</p>