<p>Great article from my hometown newspaper yesterday:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mlive.com/features/aanews/index.ssf?/base/features-1/1143560699118120.xml&coll=2&thispage=1[/url]”>http://www.mlive.com/features/aanews/index.ssf?/base/features-1/1143560699118120.xml&coll=2&thispage=1</a></p>
<p>Scary, no? </p>
<p>To add to the risk, I’ve seen news reports recently talking about the rise in binge drinking among college women, but not men.</p>
<p>Sigh. As the parent of a daughter…</p>
<p>As a baby boomer parent I think our generation needs to take some responsibility for this. With all the best, often feminist intentions, we didn’t want our daughters to grow up feeling different from or inferior to guys. Most of what we told them was just fine, but we neglected to mention at least a part of what OUR mothers told US – that some guys are “only out for one thing” and that they need to be careful – much more careful than their brothers.</p>
<p>what makes me sad is that women are watching out for each other, and male friends aren’t watching for their female friends either</p>
<p>it is like there is no awareness of what your ‘friends’ are doing</p>
<p>a while ago, there was a program on where they (under strick controls for safety) took a group of college students, all over 21, who were drinkers- binge drinkers- had them drink, told them they could stop anytime, and asked them each time, were they sure they wanted another drink. they did not let them drink to any “dangerous” levels, but these were people who thought they could drive, and many in fact had been stopped for dui</p>
<p>all of it was video taped. when the people, after sobering up, saw how they acted, how they stood, how they were much more loose in the actions with the opposite and the same sex, they were suprised at their own behavior</p>
<p>many asked for their car keys, some got super flirty, some got mean</p>
<p>the women, who thought they were sexier when they had a few cocktails, ( and it never ended at just a couple) were appalled at how they looked and sounded-slurring, leaning to the side, makeup yucky</p>
<p>it was truely eye opening for these people</p>
<p>there is also this pressure girls put on girls to participate in the activities, which is sad</p>
<p>BTW, men also are raped --by other men – while under influence. Sexual predators also may slip things into men’s drinks. The same advice that can protect women (including not drinking from punch bowls and not accepting drinks from others) also can protect men.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.alcoholpolicymd.com/press_room/Press_releases/adults_give_youth_alcohol.htm[/url]”>http://www.alcoholpolicymd.com/press_room/Press_releases/adults_give_youth_alcohol.htm</a></p>
<p>*ADULTS MOST COMMON SOURCE OF ALCOHOL FOR TEENS, ACCORDING TO POLL OF TEENS 13-18</p>
<p>Polls show teenagers, especially girls, obtain alcohol easily from friends and family
The poll of teens, aged 13-18, found that nearly half reported having obtained alcohol at some point. In all age groups, girls nearly always ranked higher than boys in obtaining alcohol. In the adult poll, about one out of four U.S. parents with children, aged 12-20 (26%), agree that teens should be able to drink at home with their parents present.*</p>
<p>They didn’t all of a sudden aqquire this behavior when they got to college.</p>
<p>Normal drinking under parent supervision is not the problem–it’s the solution. Many parents of Euro decent like my mother see having some wine with dinner perfectly fine for children in their teens. It takes away much of the mystery.</p>
<p>Barrons, looks like things in Europe are changing for the worse. From the EU observor:
"Binge drinking trend hits European youth</p>
<p>20.02.2006 - 17:48 CET | By Teresa Küchler
Binge drinking - drinking for the sake of getting drunk - is reaching alarming levels among European teenagers, a major new study has revealed. </p>
<p>“The phenomenon of binge drinking among European youth is about to be established all over the continent,” one of the report’s authors, Peter Anderson, told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in Geneva. </p>
<p>“All signs show that the trend will continue,” he said. </p>
<p>The report, carried out by the London Institute of Alcohol Studies on behalf of the European Commission, is part of research that will underlie a commission communication on alcohol policy, due in the latter half of 2006.</p>
<p>The study looked at trends across the EU…</p>
<p>The report explains that, while total alcohol consumption per capita in Europe is decreasing, drinking patterns among teenagers show the opposite trend. </p>
<p>Teenagers, and in particular young girls, across the whole bloc drink large amounts of alcohol several times a month, and the average age for the first drink has fallen from 15 years for the parent generation to 11.8 years for the teenagers of today.</p>
<p>While southern Europeans traditionally have incorporated drinking with eating and found open drunkenness embarrassing, the current trend is that young people in the south are adopting a Northern European-type tradition of drinking with the simple intention of getting drunk…"<a href=“Binge drinking trend hits European youth”>http://euobserver.com/851/20944</a></p>
<p>I believe that France actually has a higher rate of alcoholism that does the U.S. So much for all those safe, drinking-with-family stories.</p>
<p>I’d blame that on the rigid French society.
Seriously, there may be other forces acting. Maybe there is no silver bullet cure. Most people drink a lot because they are not that happy. Teens may drink for completely different reasons.</p>
<p>Thank you Quiltguru for posting this. I am sending it to my D at a small LAC with 2,000 students, and 19 had trips to the hospital in the fall for alcohol poisoning. 4 more posted on the safety notes last week- I guess due to St Patties Day celebrations.
I applaud the Pres of this LAC for writing a letter to parents during break informing us of the 19 trips to the hospital and encouraging us to talk to our children about the dangers . This school also has a mandatory alcohol and drug course for Freshman. </p>
<p>I am not mentioning this school because this goes on EVERYWHERE, and I wonder if other parents have heard from their child’s school regarding trips to the hospitals ? </p>
<p>FYI-After reading about the SAM cards on another thread I ordered them and they arrived within 2 days from Colorado! They are credit card sized cards with the warnings of alcohol poisoning printed on them.</p>
<p>“I am not mentioning this school because this goes on EVERYWHERE, and I wonder if other parents have heard from their child’s school regarding trips to the hospitals ?”</p>
<p>Sorry, but it DOESN’T go on everywhere, and the differences among schools, even among schools with similar student bodies, can be huge. As long as we continue repeating this myth, the longer college administrations can feel smug about not seriously addressing problems at their own campus.</p>
<p>You do not do the school a service by not mentioning them. On the contrary, by mentioning them, prospective parents and students are more likely to query the school about their policies and their impacts, and provide impetus for change if needed. You actually do them a disservice.</p>
<p>Parents of daughters (and the daughters) need to be very wary of risky situations. There simply are more crazy predators out there then before (and no, it’s not that we just hear about them more now). Drug use, child abuse and other family disfunctions has created more and more monsters out there.</p>
<p>Mini, Ok I stand corrected this does not go on EVERYWHERE, so let’s say it is not uncommon?</p>
<p>Have any other parents received official notice from their D/S’s college regarding trips to hospitals? </p>
<p>The “caring” LAC my D attends is Muhlenberg and their honesty and sincere attempts to address this “common” dilemma is commendable.</p>
<p>An excellent and enlightening book on this exact topic is “Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood”, see:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143036475/sr=8-1/qid=1143749446/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1309982-4022236?_encoding=UTF8[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143036475/sr=8-1/qid=1143749446/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-1309982-4022236?_encoding=UTF8</a></p>
<p>well my D school did make Playboys 1987 party school list but then so did MIT and Brown
haven’t heard that much about substance abuse that is so out of control that kids need to be hospitalized- although that isn’t to say they don’t like a good party.
One of her best friends is a EMT- Paramedic so I feel she is in good hands.
( I don’t think they have any helmet sports- unless you count fencing?)</p>
<p>"Have any other parents received official notice from their D/S’s college regarding trips to hospitals?</p>
<p>The “caring” LAC my D attends is Muhlenberg and their honesty and sincere attempts to address this “common” dilemma is commendable."</p>
<p>I agree it is commendable, and addressing these problems is going to require everyone pulling together. (Wish they did the same at my alma mater.) There has only been one hospitalization at my d.'s school for alcohol in the past two years (which isn’t to say there necessarily shouldn’t have been more, just that there haven’t been.)</p>
<p>I would like to see parents notified of their kids’ alcohol infractions before they got to the point of requiring hospitalization. (As an employer, I’d also like to see it placed on their transcripts - it is at least as important for me to see as their grade in freshman English.)</p>
<p>“I would like to see parents notified of their kids’ alcohol infractions before they got to the point of requiring hospitalization.”</p>
<p>The problem is that this is a privacy issue. Such a policy could be implemented, however, if when enrolling, students were given the opportunity to sign a statement that it would be fine for the college to notify their parents about any alcohol or drug infractions.</p>
<p>Any parent who is paying the students’ bills and also is assertive and caring would require their student to sign that.</p>
<p>I think alcohol infractions (as opposed to medical conditions) are covered by the same privacy provisions as grades. The college could make it a policy to inform parents of grades and disciplinary infractions if it chose, making signing of a privacy waiver a condition of acceptance to the college. It isn’t a huge barrier.</p>
<p>I don’t think they should make it a condition of acceptance- unless you want to be a school that dictates morality like some of the religious schools that even ban dancing
If a parent and student want to make it a condition of the parents participating financially- that is their business, but for adult students to be signing over their privacy rights automatically I am not comfortable with</p>