<p>oldfort great post…I will remember it and use your strategies. </p>
<p>Triguena I think we would all agree that our lives would be less worrisome if none of our kids drank. None of us want our kids to do it.</p>
<p>The place where it gets sticky though is that more than we want our kids to remain sober, we want them to remain safe. If a kid knows they will be punished for drinking they can either a) not drink b) drink, call their parents and accept the consequences or c) drink and try to hide it. I spend most every waking hour with adolescents, my own and other peoples’ and I can tell you that the vast majority of students will not choose option b. Some of them choose a but the majority of kids who want to drink will choose c. </p>
<p>The problem with choice c is that that is the one that leads to drunk driving. So it’s not that parents are giving overt or even tacit approval of the drinking. It’s that we want our kids home safely and we do what we can to increase the odds of it happening.</p>
<p>Oh, and like MOTWC I am eternally grateful that my own drinking patterns in high school didn’t have permanent life altering effects. I was a cheerleader but it wasn’t vodka in our water bottles it was peppermint schnapps in our snack bar cups. No one knew or suspected. We were good kids who got good grades and were well liked by faculty and other parents not the “type” that adults would suspect. It’s how we got away with so much.</p>
<p>historymom, there’s one more alternative that we tried to use. </p>
<p>b’) drink, call parents (or call if driver is impaired) and suffer no consequences</p>
<p>While my d knew that there would be consequences if she drank, she also knew that her safety trumped all. We told her absolutely truthfully that if she called because either she or someone else couldn’t drive safely, we would pick her up anywhere, anytime, no questions asked and no consequences. It happened once and we kept our word. (And for this situation, the state of MA helped us out - drivers under 18 were not allowed to drive without a parent between midnight and 4 AM, and d didn’t turn 18 until she was already in college!)</p>
<p>Like oldfort, we also allowed d to drink at home if she wished. She’d have an occasional wine or a sip of a cosmopolitan, but didn’t really like it.</p>
<p>We also have the “call us and we’ll come get you, no questions asked and no consequences” rule. Neither child has used it yet. We told them the offer is good anytime they find themselves somewhere they don’t feel comfortable. I figure if the situation was bad enough that they felt the need to call us, they would have already learned whatever lesson I would have tried to teach them via a lecture. I did tell them this offer wasn’t good for an infinite number of uses!</p>
<p>If “better parental monitoring” is not a major factor, what is the difference between kids who choose to drink and kids who choose not to drink?</p>
<p>Chedva, I didn’t segue well sorry. Triguena had advocated punishing teen drinkers rather than tacitly or overtly condoning their behavior by making agreements with kids like you did. I was suggesting that when kids were put in that sort of a situation they had those three choices.</p>
<p>Your fourth choice is one I see offered by many parents, but not by those who strictly forbid and will punish a child who drinks. That’s why I didn’t include it.</p>
<p>dntw8up…who knows? My daughters at 17 are not drinkers so far. They are internally motivated to avoid alcohol because they don’t want to act like they have seen their peers act while under the influence and because they currently want to maintain their “good-girl” image and by the fact that they see partying as potentially getting in the way of their academic goals. I am sure there are probably by other reasons that I have no clue about. </p>
<p>My son at almost 13 is a different kettle of fish. He already is far more social, little mister personality and it scares me to death because I believe he will take advantage of more social opportunities than his sisters have. I don’t know if he will avoid drinking. I do know that the policy oldfort discussed above makes sense to me and I know that my son knows already at 12 how his dad I feel about the whole issue. I will likely have to monitor him more because he will more likely go out more and he is the kind of kid who is more likely to be in a situation where underage drinking is happening.</p>
<p>Some people just don’t like to drink. You might be lucky enough to give birth to one or more of them.</p>
<p>One of my kids had to take a medication incompatible with alcohol for many years. He didn’t get off the drug until he was 21 (ironically). At that point, he tried alcohol a few times and decided that he didn’t like the effects or the after-effects.</p>
<p>My other kid, who is 18 and at college, finds the whole idea of intoxication repulsive. She doesn’t like being fuzzy in the head. She has had surgery a couple of times, and she switched from the narcotic painkiller to Motrin as quickly as possible because she disliked the effect of the narcotic so much.</p>
<p>I have no idea where these kids came from. Personally, I don’t drink at all because I LOVE the effect. I love the effect of painkillers, too. I am a substance abuse problem waiting to happen, which is why I abstain from alcohol completely and make every effort to minimize the use of medications. But my kids don’t seem to have inherited my tendencies.</p>
<p>“If “better parental monitoring” is not a major factor, what is the difference between kids who choose to drink and kids who choose not to drink?”
I don’t think there is any one factor. Physiology and genetics may be contributing. Peer group is certainly important - and that peer group may change drastically between high school and college. It can be as simple as who you are paired with as a roommate and what dorm you were assigned to Kids will go to to great lengths to fit in.
I think parental attitudes and behavior may play some some role but parental influence is limited after the child goes to college. We were strict about alcohol - no crazy parties in our house and we always monitored when our s returned from a night out. We are light to moderate drinkers but there are alcohol abusers in our family.
I KNOW our son is drinking in college - he doesn’t hide it from us…doesn’t feel he needs to. We are not thrilled but we’re also not surprised. More than 80% of kids on most campuses drink… When he comes home though, the rules are the same as high school - NO drinking in our house. Even though he’s 20, we try not to be away on weekends and if we are, we have a great neighbor who has agreed to watch for problems and call us(and our s knows this).</p>
<p>I think a lot of it depends on what social crowd the kid is in and how “cool” he or she wants to be. A lot of kids use drugs- pot or stronger. Neither of my kids had any interest. Alcohol was a different story. Some kids are risk takers and live on the edge. Others play it very safe and are afraid of consequences. When I was in high school I was fairly wild, although still a top student. We drank, sneaked out at night to meet boys, drove around in cars etc. However, I never saw even the hint of drugs- not even pot- in my crowd. My sister tells me it was everywhere, but it just wasn’t a part of my social circle.</p>
<p>I did not drink in hs or college and rarely (< 10 drinks/year) drink now. I never developed a taste for beer and dont like the feeling of being out of control. </p>
<p>When I was around eight or nine my parents had a New Years Eve party at our house. My mom never drank and my dad never drank at home. I remember sneaking a peek at the party goers and was shocked at how silly many of the adults were acting, especially the women. My mother was the only one who seemed to be having fun but not acting like an idiot.</p>
<p>D was at a friends house last summer for a barbeque where several of the adults became totally smashed. One was the mother of her friend. D still talks about how embarrassed she felt for the kids whose parents had lost control. I hope D remembers that b-que like I remember that New Years Eve party when she decides to drink.</p>
<p>The kids don’t have to buy the alcohol they steal it. I recently was made aware by a friend in law enforcement that the high school kids don’t bother getting someone to buy they walk into the store stick it in the backpack and walk out. And at the gas station minimarts they don’t even bother to hide it but grab and run. The store attendants are not allowed to run and try to catch the kids. Or they steal it from the parents. This practice might vary state to state as to the different rules for alcohol sales.
With my kids I will not give them alcohol. I also would try to be vigilant about not letting them go to parties with drinking. Obviously that is pretty hard to enforce once they walk out the door. With my son I did not allow him to sleepover at friends senior year- not that he didn’t try mightly hard to sneak out after we went to bed. I did allow his friends to sleep at our house with the understanding no drinking or drugs. We had a few pot instances with one boy. I called the Dad. Jr and senior year were a constant battle. So many of his friends parents would swear their dear kids weren’t drinkers. I knew differently. A few parents served the kids.
He is now in College and I know he drinks. He knows how I feel about it. If he gets in trouble with it at school he is on his own. I think he is is smart enough to not drive. I did notice in high school that the kids usually had a DD. Though I do know of several kids who got DUI’s senior year. And you can bet both sets of parents were sure it had been the kids first time drinking.
Also many teens do a great job hiding it from parents. I sadly also know several young people who have serious addiction problems. In several of those cases no one who knew the kids would have ever guessed. Most lead two lives. The A star over achiever student who secretly was also using some serious drugs. Addictions not a result of bad parenting but of bad choices and bad genetics.
I have also told my kids that if they or the person they are with is in no condition to drive I will pick them up with no consequences.</p>
<p>Mom60- you are right. They steal it. And they fill up the parents’ vodka and gin with water so the levels don’t appear to go down.
My stepson, who was really a good kid, (now 31), wound up stealing alcohol from us! We had no idea, because we never used the hard liquor- it was only in the house from grandparent visits. He wound up with alcohol poisoning and in the hospital. You truly never know.
We laugh about this story now, but at the time it wasn’t so funny, but when WildChild was in 10th grade and at a negligently lax boarding school, my uncle passed away in Dallas (where we lived at the time). My son got into the unoccupied townhouse, stole a bunch of the liquor, and hid it in his own linen closet. I found it and was furious. My son was indignant. He said, “I don’t see what the big deal is. It isn’t even opened. I was just going to take it to school and SELL IT!!!”</p>
<p>In addition, put the thought into their head to ask around the party and seek out a sober kid or designated driver. Some kids know they can call a parent but still don’t.
While it’s not as “good” as yourself, a designated driver is a good second plan.</p>
This is a big reason why Massachusetts voters recently defeated a proposal to allow alcohol sales in grocery stores. It’s a lot harder to steal it if you have to walk into a liquor store where they’re looking.</p>
<p>Chedva, I was confused about that vote. I voted no, but the Shaws supermarket in my town has been selling beer and wine for years. So how would that law have changed things?</p>
<p>Again, this goes back to what the adolescent psychologist said: Teen-proof your home, and start by locking up your alcohol. Kids can’t replace vodka with water if they can’t get to the vodka to begin with.</p>
<p>Also, parents, wake up and be vigilant. Your daughter doesn’t need to bring her perfume to a Sweet 16 party - the perfume in the bottle has been replaced with alcohol. When you have a group of kids in your basement, GO DOWN THERE occasionally to see if they need anything, bring snacks and clean up a little bit - used soda cans, etc - and smell the soda cans when you get back upstairs. Also check the bushes around the basement windows, back door or bulkhead - notorious place for storing alcohol. And there is no reason for kids to bring “water bottles” into your home. Are you a chaperone on an overnight field trip? Check the toilet tank - it was a great cooler back when I was in high school. They may sneak something by you, but at least make them WORK at it! You can smile and laugh when you check these things, so you’re not doing a prison guard imitation.</p>
<p>In our state 11.5% of 10th graders have used a prescription opiate for non-medical reasons in the past 30 days, and 95% of them got them from a parent’s medicine cabinet.</p>
<p>I get to deal with fall-out. The rise in enrollment in state-funded methadone programs from individuals addicted to prescription opiates (many of them quite young) has been so steep, that heroin addicts are being crowded out. (I won’t bore you with the funding details as to why that is so).</p>
<p>In Pennsylvania stores I believe we have similar liquor laws to your neck of the woods. One supermarket near me was the first in the state to open a liquor store next to the supermarket, then they knocked down a wall between the two companies and merged their systems together. </p>
<p>I have to say, when I moved out to California after living in Pennsylvania for 23 years, it was a bit strange to go from the cake and spices isle into hard liquor within three steps! I feel like such a prude since it actually bother me, haha.</p>
<p>I hired 3 local policemen for my daughter’s sweet 16 party. The word was out before the party. They checked each kid’s purse and any bag bigger than an evening bag was not allowed into the party. Anyone appeared drunk at the door was sent home.</p>
<p>Another thing we used to do for my older daughter was to drive her to/from parties before she had her license. It was a big commitment for us, but we did not want her to have to get a ride from anyone intoxicated. Our younger daughter is coming of age now, and we will be driving her also.</p>
<p>I remember worrying about drinking and driving during my s’s high school years.<br>
We also had a “no questions” asked policy - and strongly encouraged him to call us if his only choice was to get in a car with a drunk driver (including himself).<br>
With that, I remember being keenly aware of the set-up on college campuses when we visited. Do kids have to drive somewhere to get to bars? I was worried about places like Richmond and Wake - where it seemed you had to drive to get to the off-campus scene. I preferred the “walking” or “public trans” campuses. Not sure if I was just being paranoid - but it seemed like a big issue. Anybody else worry about this? Do you think it makes a difference in risk?</p>