'Pre-parties' and a 'tactical vomit' again! Can parents really provide a 'safe space' for young people to drink?

It's hard to believe that it was four years ago that I first wrote about the 'tactical vomit' phenomenon! If you were around at that time you may remember that I was asked by a Year 10 girl what I thought about the 'benefits' of a 'tactical vomit' ... now, as I said in that blog entry, maybe I had missed something when  I was a teenager but I had never heard of this. It took a little time and quite a few conversations with friends, colleagues and some young people to really get what she was talking about ... As I said then, there were certainly some people who had a vague idea of what she was referring to but almost everybody was surprised about the age of the girl who asked me about the practice.

For the uninitiated, here is a part of an email I received from another Year 10 girl who I asked to describe a 'tactical vomit' and how it was used by young people of her age:

"Before we go out to a party for the night we usually meet at someone else's house and have a few drinks beforehand. Sometimes someone drinks too much and it gets to a point that we know she won't be able to get into the party we're going to because she looks too drunk and the parents or security guards wouldn't let her in ... That's when we would have a tactical vomit - she would go into the toilet and stick her fingers down her throat or drink a glass of salty water to throw up and sober herself up. After a bit of time she'll feel a little better and we can go to the party and get in."

What we are essentially talking about here is 'self-stomach pumping'! As I said at the time, this is not an entirely new phenomenon. In fact, there are a range of definitions describing the practice available on the web, with some websites actually providing advice on how to make yourself vomit. Now, if you're in your late teens or early 20s and surrounded by friends who may have a bit of life experience and you think that this might be a good idea for you, go for it! What continues to concern me is how young some of these teens are and, more importantly, where are the parents who are meant to be supervising them at these 'pre-party' events?

In the past couple of weeks I've been asked about a tactical vomit at least three times, all in the context of drinking too much at a 'pre-party' and then having to try to sober up to ensure that they could get into the 'real party' of the night. So what is it with these so-called 'pre's' and where are the parents who should be monitoring what these very young teens are doing?

I've discussed the 'pre's' phenomenon many times over the years. These began with the 'pre-formal' drinks that some parents host before school events (something I just can't understand - providing alcohol to young people, no matter how small an amount, and then sending them off to a school function where teachers have to supervise - it's so unfair to the staff and potentially, so dangerous!). Unfortunately, these aren't new and have been around for many years. What is new, however, is the whole idea of the 'pre-party'. Some of these are hosted by parents, where those attending are either provided, or bring their own alcohol and drink it before attending a potentially 'dry' party later on that evening. To the best of my knowledge, the parties where parents provide alcohol, or tolerate or 'turn a blind eye' to drinking, usually don't start until around 15-years-old. That said, there are certainly 'pre's' that 14-year-olds attend where alcohol is consumed. That's no surprise when you hear what some parents are doing at even younger ages ... I was recently told by a parent that her 11-year-old daughter was invited to a 'pre-sleepover', where the girls attending were provided with a mocktail at the door as they entered! Why would anyone host an event like this and why would you be giving a mocktail to an 11-year-old?

From what I've heard from young people about the 'pre's' they attend, some of the main features of these events are as follows:

• they are usually quite small, comprising of just their close friendship group
• the main purpose of many (but certainly not all) of these is to preload with alcohol before the main event of the night, particularly if it is a 'dry' event, i.e., security will be present and alcohol is not permitted
• they are much more popular with girls than with young men, often because females often use them to get dressed and 'made-up' (sometimes changing into clothing that their parents would not necessarily deem appropriate)
• some parents do allow alcohol to be consumed but that is certainly not always the case
• although parents can sometimes be there, often a home will be chosen specifically because they won't be there. These events are held early and are short (a couple of hours at most), enabling teens to arrive, do what they need to do and leave - all in the time it can take for parents to see a movie or go out for dinner!
• as they're held earlier in the evening (or in some cases, the late afternoon), teens are much more likely to be able to convince their parents to let them get to the house by themselves, thus avoiding any issues with meeting other parents and the like

I was talking to a Year 11 girl this week and when I asked her about 'pre's' and whether she went to them she said the following:

"I don't drink alcohol so there's no point to me going to them. Lots of my friends go and get drunk before the party but I don't bother anymore. When we were younger in Year 7 and 8, 'pre's' were all about getting dressed up, putting on make-up and getting ready, but now they're all about drinking."

When I asked one of her friends she was with about parent supervision at these events, she said she rarely saw parents when she attended:

"If someone is home, you don't really see them. They kind of leave us alone to do our thing. I've never been to a 'pre' where the parents have given alcohol to us but I don't think we've had to hide our drinking from them since we were in Year 9. They just know that it's safer for us to drink in their house than in the park." 

And there it is again ... that old chestnut, it's safer to let them drink in the home because "at least they're not drinking in a park!" Maybe I could agree with that statement if there was any sign at all of parental monitoring of the drinking that takes place at these events, but there clearly isn't any ... When 14- and 15-year-olds are getting so drunk at 'pre's' that they actually have to put their fingers down their throats and vomit in an effort to enable them to go to where they're planning to go next, you have to wonder if there any monitoring happening at all!

Now I am sure that there are some parents who truly believe that providing a 'safe space' for their teen to drink is entirely appropriate. If that is what you believe is right for your child and your family, all power to you! I have no problem with that at all, what you do with your child is your business. It's when a home is opened up for other parents' children that I have an issue, particularly for 15-year-olds. If you're going to hold a 'pre' at your home and you're going to allow other children to drink there, make sure everyone of their parents know about it. Monitoring your own child's drinking in a 'safe space' may not be that hard, trying to do the same for a group of teens may prove much more difficult!

I am now starting to believe that the 'pre's' are now becoming more dangerous events than the parties they precede. Anecdotally, parents certainly appear to be putting much more effort to ensuring the parties they put on in the home are as safe as possible. It takes a brave parent to host a teenage party and when time and energy are put into planning these events, most go off reasonably successfully. You don't see the same effort applied to the 'pre' and this is why we are increasingly seeing very young teens turning up at the door of a party incredibly intoxicated (i.e., 14-year-old girls too drunk to walk and boys of the same age throwing up on the front garden of a party as they fall out of a taxi). Where are the parents of these young people who are so at-risk? Did they bother to find out anything about the 'pre' that their child was going to? And what about the parents hosting the 'pre's' - did they see these teens before they left their house to make sure they were safe and well?

I'm certainly not saying that you shouldn't let your teen go to these events - please don't use what I say as a 'big stick' and say "Paul Dillon said ...". If your child wants to attend, you should try your best to let them - saying 'no' to them all the time is not going to make it easy for anyone. But do your due diligence and find out more about the events your son or daughter wants to attend on a Saturday night, not just the party but the 'pre-party' as well. Will there be parents actively supervising? Will alcohol be permitted or tolerated? How will they be getting from the 'pre' to the actual party? Based on the information you collect, you can then make a decision on whether they can go or not and what 'caveats' you need to place on their attendance to ensure their safety.

As I've said many times before, if a teen wants to drink, there is very little that any parent can do to stop that from happening. Were your parents able to stop you? That said, parents should make every effort to make it as difficult as humanly possible for them to access alcohol for as long they can. Hosting events for young teens to drink alcohol and then sending them off to someone else's home for the rest of the evening makes little sense and, is in fact, incredibly dangerous (and unbelievably unfair to the host parents of the next party). The concept of tactical vomiting is a great example of potentially dangerous behaviour associated with this idea of providing a 'safe space' for young people to drink.