Teen Parties

Here's the e-mail that started the extended discussion on my show this afternoon about teen parties:
Dear Paul,
I have a story to tell you that you or other parents may not be aware of. It has now been 1 week since we have uncovered what has been going on with our daughter and her friends. We all are aware that there are parents out there in this world who let their kids drink and let their kids have parties at their home and allow the drinking to take place. But what you may not be aware of is these same parents who allow their kids to drink are also allowing the kids to sleep over for the night so they don't drive home drunk and they are letting the boys and girls sleep together.

The good parents who check up on their kids and try and make sure they know what their kid is doing have no idea this is going on until something bad happens which is what happened last weekend. A girl got raped. A police report has been made and an investigation is underway and this house is being watched closely. DNA and Toxicology reports are pending.

We have always been involved with our children. I stayed home when the kids were little to take care of them. We went to the soccer, and softball games. We called the parents to make sure they were home. We did all the stuff parents are suppose to do to make sure we knew what was going on. I cannot mention names but it was not my daughter who got raped but the friend she was with.

Looking back I see the 3 mistakes I made. First since my daughter always made the right choices in the past and we never had a problem in the past I trusted her. My second mistake was I trusted the other parents. They lived in a clean big house, well manicured, grass cut, normal looking parents, we spoke with them to check them out, nothing weird or bad stood out. My third mistake was I didn't go to the house late in the evening to pop up and check things out to make sure the stories checked out.

The other parent involved was shocked as well as me to learn how parents could allow this. We assumed the other parents had the same values we did since they had a teenage daughter too and were friends with our daughters. The other parent made a statement which sums up the whole mistake we both made. And that is we had an "unspoken trust" with the other parents that there was to be NO teenage drinking and NO boys sleeping over.

My daughter said the reason the kids went over to this house was because they knew the parents would allow drinking. She said at school if the kids said the name of the girl and to meet at her house the kids knew they would be getting drunk that night.

I just want you make every parent aware of what is going on out there. The parents that allow their kids and their friends to drink at parties in their home are also letting all the boys and girls to sleep over together and have sex if they want to. We just thought our daughter was having a sleep over with a few girlfriends. That's what she told us.

Just a last note that we noticed after looking back at this. One of the warning signs was "An attraction to this house". The kids always wanted to go there. When we asked her what do you do there. She said Oh, we just hang out. The other warning sign is the grades at school dropped. And when we picked them up the next day to bring them home, they would sleep all day.

So that's the story. I hope you tell parents what they need to know. It's not enough to call and ask if the parents are home. You have to more than that. Also, those bad parents will lie to you so you have to go in person at around 10 or 11:00 at night and check out the situation. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.