<p>“Alcohol use continues to be one of the most significant risk behaviors engaged in by teens, as indicated, for example, by results from the 2001 Monitoring the Future survey (Johnston, O’Malley, & Bachman, 2002). In that survey, 63.5% of tenth graders and 73.3% of twelfth graders reported drinking in the past year,…”</p>
<p>I am not surprised by the article or the attitudes. I see it every day in the halls of the HS where I teach. Respect for onesself is gone in a certain percentage of the population. You wouldn’t believe the groping, the french kissing, the similated acts I see in the halls where they do this in front of everyone! Not everyone does it. One time, when I went up and told them to stop, the boy looked at me and said, “Jealous?” And we are in a predominantly white, upper middle class suburb, a very well-rated district. I just heard that one of these girls just started going out with a boy that impregnated his girlfriend, then left her when he found out about her condition. Popularity above all! And these same kids have parents who throw drunken parties for the kids, and think nothing of it. They want their kids to be popular, too. I am one of the fuddy-duddy parents. But then, so is my D, thank heaven! This is why it is so important to examine school culture. These kids do get into school somewhere, and they seem to find each other. It may not be pervasive, but these kids all seem to go to the same schools from this area, anyway.</p>
<p>Chipper: Do you have more details on the NIMH brain studies?
I’d be very interested in some specifics.</p>
<pre><code> I think the point you’re making is a good reason for more “in loco parentis” on college campuses in general. The other reason, as I’ve alluded to before, is the enormous investment in college education we are making as a society – parents, the government, the institutions themselves – and to allow the quality of that education to be seriously diluted because some students are spending half their time in a daze is well, not very smart. I realize the extent of daze and the number of students coping under said daze really varies a lot from campus to campus, but it’s the principle of the thing.
I particularly hear this complaint more now from friends who are parents of students who don’t drink at college: that their kids are the ones who get called at 3 or 4 a.m. from blotto friends who don’t know where they are but need a ride… Or that at some campuses, the party doesn’t wait for the weekend, but starts Wed. night and goes through Monday. I agree with those who say that if there is a campus culture that embraces partying four or five days out of the week, then the people footing the bill are not getting their money’s worth out of that college. IMO.
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<p>Ag54: I got stories too, but I’m not going there. Not even my husband has heard some of them. (Although I didn’t discover chocolate syrup til after college.)</p>
<p>Brown and I’ma: I would be happy to see real controls on excessive drinking, which would probably have a ripple effect of better judgement in the sexual arena of college life. Certainly no college is going to want to see their five-word tag line as: “Where sex is closely regulated.”</p>
<p>I understand the Duke lax team is adopting new team standards. Does that mean the frats will follow their lead? Anyone want to post a link here to the new code?</p>
<p>It is really a difficult line that we have to wander back and forth across - at 18 - the rules definitely change for our kids - for us - and for the college thanggg. Colleges are no longer in the baby-sitting states that they were many years ago - not sure if any of you recall what college living used to be like LOL… Colleges and liability - are now 2 words going hand in hand - and schools are doing their best to get out from under the liability umbrella over the past few years.</p>
<p>I am not sure what the answer is - or how to even apply what ever answers are out there. I know what we have tried to do with our own kiddo - sometimes it works - and sometimes it doesn’t. But the law recognizes our kids as legal adults - haha which I do think is weird in the sense that they can do all these things legally - except drink - so a bit of an oxymoron in many ways.</p>
<p>BIG BROTHER watches - but sometimes the blinds are drawn.</p>
<p>My son is only a junior in highschool, so I have no personal experience; however, after listening to the stories some of my friends tell about their children’s decision making in college, I am beginning to seriously question the view of “college freshman as adults” perpecitive. And, BTW, these are wonderful, gifted, kind, mature students who have done some really stupid stuff. </p>
<p>The absolute worst actions seem to take place in the “freshman experience” settings. </p>
<p>When I was in college, we had an environment that gave a bit of support to the transition to freedom, rules that kept “most” of us from creating the environment I am reading about. Members of the opposite sex had to be out of the dorms by 11pm (or at least hidden). Kids that came back to the dorms drunk, loud, obnoxious, etc. were “written up” and it was put on their disciplinary record (so they tiptoed into their room and didn’t wake up the entire hall). </p>
<p>My husband’s fraternity even had a live-in “house mother.”</p>
<p>Admittedly, I have not read all the posts on this thread so there is a chance of redundancy here. The sex did not disturb me, but two things did. One was callousness of the interpersonal relations. I had hoped that relationships among young men and women would be mutually respectful. If I discovered my S acted disrespectfully toward women as described in this article (and I do make inquiries in various ways), he would soon find that money for college tuition was gone. The second was the tying of the focus on appearance to getting ahead and its linkage to the pressure of a career as well as to appealing to the BMOC’s for female students. Perhaps the pressure to go to a top school, to get into a top professional school, to get a top job, at a top salary, all contributes more to this behavior more than we may care to admit. From the article:</p>
<p><strong><em>In 2003, Duke launched a yearlong study, known as the ‘‘Duke Women’s Initiative,’’ to look at the social attitudes and concerns of women on campus. What they found was alarming, says Donna Lisker, director of Duke University’s women’s center. The kind of hyperactivity Allison describes is typical among female undergraduates, whom, Lisker says, feel tremendous pressure ‘‘to excel both academically – get the right grades, the right internships, move your life in the right path – but then you also need to excel physically, if you will,’’ with perfect hair, skin, clothes, makeup and a size-four body. Women interviewed for the study spoke of the immense effort they had to put in to create this illusion of ‘‘effortless perfection.’’</em></strong></p>
<p>I ran across a book today entitled <em>Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education</em> by Harry R. Lewis (former Dean of Harvard College and professor there for thirty years). I’m not picking on Harvard here, but the book is just out and addresses the issues we’ve been discussing: the customer mentality, coddling parents, kids totally abdicating personal responsibility, and a “total failure to articulate what it means to be a good person” on the part of the university. He also spends a couple of chapters discussing the current sexual climate on campus.</p>
<p>I guess it’s important, because if Harvard begins to raise questions about what it means to be an educated human being, I’m sure other schools will follow.</p>
<p>“Live free or die,” I like that…and while you’re “livin’ freely,” and presumably not dying, remember to hear no evil, see no evil and if by chance you do, certainly, don’t mention it; that kind of freedom will get the pontificator’s knickers in a twist every time. …bunch of free people walkin’ around with a snuggie–now, that ain’t no kind a free.</p>
<p>The people I know well who participate/d in anything akin to casual sex did so with a pretty profound difference between outward appearance and what they actually felt. </p>
<p>One friend in a “friends with benefits” relationship consistently expressed optimism to me that the guy would eventually come around and they would have a real relationship and get married (and, presumably, live in a castle on a cloud and eat chocolate-covered strawberries all day). To others (and, critically, to the male in question himself) she expressed her appreciation for the sexual freedom she enjoyed.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of doubletalk going on for the sake of keeping up appearances.</p>
<p>that article was incredibly sad and depressing. I can’t believe that women choose to behave that way. They “get” to hook up with the same guy twice if they’re lucky? How twisted is that. No wonder the guys just take what they can get. Gross.</p>
<p>fountainsiren: Actually, I didn’t say “total failure to articulate what it means to be a good person” - it was a quote I picked off the book jacket - that’s why I put it in quotes.</p>
…bunch of free people walkin’ around with a snuggie–now, that ain’t no kind a free.</p>