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Parties and curfews

How you handle going out: unsupervised parties, curfews, check-in rules, and what happens if they need a ride home.

What curfew and party rules should our teen have?

In short: Parents choose between 4 main approaches: No unsupervised parties, fixed curfew; Adults present, age-graded curfew; Check-ins and a no-questions ride home; No curfew. Evidence: evidence leans one way. Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational. Best settled: teen.

Evidence
Evidence leans one way
Best settled
Teen
Part of
Learning & the wider world

Parties and curfews: what are the options?

Parents usually land on one of these 4 approaches.

  1. 1. No unsupervised parties, fixed curfew

    The teen attends only supervised parties and must be home by a set time.

  2. 2. Adults present, age-graded curfew

    An adult must be present, and the curfew gets later with age.

  3. 3. Check-ins and a no-questions ride home

    The teen checks in, and can call for a ride home with no lecture.

  4. 4. No curfew

    The teen has no set time to be home.

Parties and curfews: what does the evidence say?

Evidence leans one way. Research or guidance points in a direction, but it's thin, small or correlational.

A 2025 meta-analysis of 571 studies and about two million participants found a small-to-moderate link between parental monitoring and control and less adolescent substance use (r = -0.16), strongest when parents' knowledge came from the teen telling them and weakest for parents' own questioning. The classic Swedish study of 703 14-year-olds likewise found that parents learn most from what teens choose to disclose, and that tracking and surveillance added little. That favors rules plus an open line of communication over checking up, though the associations run both ways. Specific rules for parties and curfews, and local liability for allowing underage drinking, were not researched here

Sources

What else is worth knowing?

A curfew is a time the teen must be home. Many families pair it with check-ins and an offer of a ride home without questions. The aim is safety without pushing the teen to hide things.

Questions to ask each other

  • What are our rules about parties and where our teen is?
  • Would we offer a ride with no questions asked?
  • What time is a fair curfew and why?

More in The teen years

First published 2026-10-03. Last updated 2026-10-05. General information, not medical advice.