<p>In my house, I am allowed beer/wine/whatever whenever i want. You want to know the last time i had a sip? New years i had a glass of champagne. Alcohol isn’t “forbidden fruit” in our house so it’s really not that exciting</p>
<p>I’ve been at many grad parties with alcohol and most of the time I will have a beer and nothing else. The reason? My parents have taught me to drink responsibly.</p>
<p>Now, will I probably party in college? Absolutely. But I think I understand my limits and know that it’s not really that great</p>
<p>Rocket, that is wonderful. My dearest friend had the same rules for her kids, and they had no issues surface in high school. When they went to college…well, both of them had a lot of problem with substance abuse. The communal drinking was what really hit them hard. They weren’t interested in having a beer or a cocktail or wine, but getting blitzed with a bunch of friends in like condition became something they did regularly, and that was what led them into trouble. </p>
<p>I don’t think those glasses of wine, champagne, that they sipped so demurely during their high school years had a danged thing to do with the drinking scene at college. It’s a whole other story.</p>
<p>I don’t know if kids are dying more now than in the past, and I don’t think anyone else knows either because we don’t have a list of every student’s death in the 60s, 70s, etc, and the cause. The hyper focus of the news can create illusions.</p>
<p>An example: I know a lot of people who bemoan how teenagers get pregnant “all the time now” and “it didn’t used to be that way”, when actually the teen birth rate peaked in the 40s and has been going down for years.</p>
<p>I think there were a lot more MARRIED teens giving birth in the '40s. (Even if they had only been married recently.) And the teenage birth rate was high in rural communities.</p>
<p>why is alcohol even a consideration. Ive been to and dorm’ed at a party school and have never even tasted alcohol. I simply wouldn’t even consider it and see no need to. </p>
<p>My mother also raised me in a fashion, “do what ever you want, just don’t get arrested”. My mother was the kind of parent, who didn’t protect she enabled. If I was ever in a fight and came home crying, she would go into my closet get my baseball bat and hand it to me. I always figured out what to do, I went back and kicked ass. I liked the way she raised me, I make incredibly good decisions because of it. I wouldn’t have had it any other way and if I do ever have kids they will be raised the same way. </p>
<p>Its not that my mother was not a good parent, which many of you are thinking. She was just incredibly confident in her parenting ability. She never worried, as she always knew she provided us the skills needed for the time. She always said protective parents are that way, solely because they are not confident in their abilities and teachings.</p>
<p>“I don’t think those glasses of wine, champagne, that they sipped so demurely during their high school years had a danged thing to do with the drinking scene at college. It’s a whole other story.”</p>
<p>Whether you label it “peer pressure”, “social consensus” or plain old “herd mentality”, one of the critical facets of college drinking is that a student often finds his or her self in a social milieu where drinking is encouraged or supported. A student will drink not to feel left out from the socializing and because drinking behavior is supported and encouraged by peers. All of this is occurring in a milieu where the student the student is not going to return home at 2 a.m. and face parental oversight but must rely on their own internal governors, if any. Not too dissimilar in the dynamics to what happens when high school seniors go with friends to unsupervised post prom activities or trips down the shore etc except that with college students, the opportunity occurs on a weekly if not nightly basis and is part of the routine social fabric.</p>
<p>That’s part of what makes this a tough issue. How do you address a social structure that often promotes drinking and often drinking to excess. It’s more than simply letting your kid have a drink or 2 around the house. The real question is how do you help your kid develop the internal resources to make prudent decisions when confronted with the dynamics of peer social situations where there are no outside “governors” in place. That’s what I see as a prevalent deficiency in observing what occurs at my daughter’s college.</p>
<p>“My mother also raised me in a fashion, “do what ever you want, just don’t get arrested”. My mother was the kind of parent, who didn’t protect she enabled. If I was ever in a fight and came home crying, she would go into my closet get my baseball bat and hand it to me. I always figured out what to do, I went back and kicked ass. I liked the way she raised me, I make incredibly good decisions because of it.”</p>
<p>I disagree with your mother’s encouraging you to handle aggression with more aggression. I think that a better way would have been to have taught you how not to get into fights. That would have been instruction on how to make good decisions. </p>
<p>Except for scuffles with my younger brother, I never was in a fight. H grew up in the hood – a dangerous part of Chicago – and was in a fight only once. Neither of my sons were in fights. Both had good instincts about how to avoid trouble. </p>
<p>IMO you are lucky to be alive and to not be in prison. You could have killed someone or have been killed.</p>
<p>“My mother was the kind of parent, who didn’t protect she enabled. If I was ever in a fight and came home crying, she would go into my closet get my baseball bat and hand it to me. I always figured out what to do, I went back and kicked ass. I liked the way she raised me, I make incredibly good decisions because of it. I wouldn’t have had it any other way and if I do ever have kids they will be raised the same way.”</p>
<p>And just what did you do with that baseball bat that you grabbed after you came home from your kiddie fistfight with a bloody nose? Let’s see, a discussion about alcohol and parenting is equated with parenting that promotes bringing a baseball bat to a fistfight. Let’s add a couple of pre or post fight drinks into the mix and we can have a real party. But why be low tech about it. When my son came home upset from a fight, I would just give him a shot of Jack, stick my 45 in his hand and tell him to go out and be a man, addressing issues of alcohol, firearms and masculine self image all at once. A trifecta!</p>
<p>Wow, I was just going to start a post about my daughter’s experience this weekend with a friend and stumbled upon this thread. My daughter was sober. She found the friend at a football game, deserted by her partying cohorts when she became unable to walk. My daughter and another sober friend tried to help her - carrying her off the bleachers, trying to get her to a bathroom. She eventually wet herself, vomited, and passed out. My daughter had never witnessed this type of drunken behavior and was not equipped to handle it. Fortunately, the principal found them and called the paramedics. It sure shook my daughter up to see her friend strapped to a guerney, unconsious, with an oxygen mask tied to her face.</p>
<p>The girl had a blood alcohol level of .3. The mother was called to the school was in complete denial that her daughter was drunk. She asked the paramedics if it could be diabetes! The mom called Saturday morning to thank my daughter for helping her daughter. She them proceded to tell me a fabricated lie from her daughter - th at she accidentally imbibed the alcohol as she took a few chugs from a water bottle with vodka in it.</p>
<p>We have a serious alcohol abuse problem in our high school. I know of 5 kids who have had to be hospitalized since last January. </p>
<p>I think the answers lie within our families and our schools. The schools can not tolerate any drinking. I know a blind eye is often turned, especially when athletes are known to be drinking in order to let them continue to play on the team. </p>
<p>Families need to model responsible drinking and talk with their kids about the dangers of alcohol abuse.</p>
<p>“She them proceded to tell me a fabricated lie from her daughter - th at she accidentally imbibed the alcohol as she took a few chugs from a water bottle with vodka in it.”</p>
<p>Kudos to your daughter for possibly saving her friend’s life. </p>
<p>I feel sorry for the friend, and I wonder if either of her parents also has an alcohol problem as her mother seems to be quite skilled at denying these kind of problems.</p>
<p>[I think the answers lie within our families and our schools. The schools can not tolerate any drinking. I know a blind eye is often turned, especially when athletes are known to be drinking in order to let them continue to play on the team.] </p>
<p>Do not necessarily blame the school. Blame the parents. All the parents. If you know that there is a group of kids at your kids school who routinely drink to excess and you know the parents and you say nothing, you are part of the problem. One of the big issues with drinking in schools is peer pressure. Well, peer pressure doesn’t go away just cause we grow up. To many parents expect their kids to withstand the pressure, but find a hundred ways to justify not pushing back themselves. I made it clear to my kids that I would back them up all the way, including telling other kids parents what I thought of their house rules when it came to behavior I considered risky. This includes drinking inappropriately.</p>
<p>You can disagree all you want, it doesn’t make you right. It does not make the way you raise your children any better or make you a better parent. There is nothing wrong with boys fighting, at all. It builds moral and confidence, far greater than anything else. </p>
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<p>OK, but none of my mothers children have ever even considered drinking alcohol or doing drugs. Something very different than what most protective parents are referring to here.</p>
<p>Mmm-hmm. There have been two knife fights at D1’s school in the last 4 weeks, each putting a boy in the hospital. I’m sure that all concerned had their “moral and confidence” built.</p>
<p>After seeing alcohol destroy nearly half my family, divorces, and taking the life of a cousin and two of his friends, yeah, I have a very nasty hatred for the stuff, and do not allow it in my life. People can do as they please, but also after seeing a few college students drop dead because of abuse and a car wreck I’ve concluded that the stuff is just bad all around. You are in college to get an education, to become a clear thinking professional, a leader in society, and a contributing citizen. None of these characteristics go along with drunkenness. Having a few drinks in moderation is one thing if one so chooses, but wanting to actually get drunk for every party or social gathering is way different. I would have to start asking some deeper questions about what is going on inside an individual, or what is wrong with there emotional state if they want to get drunk. I’ve seen many a person destroy their lives over a substance, and I conclude that it is sad. Life is too short to waste, or to forget any portion of your life due to alcohol, or to do something you regret in the end. What young kids should know is to be wise, to have wisdom and make wise decisions, to see the greater scheme of things. To see how their decisions can impact their lives forever. You never get time back and you never get your life back either. Equip them with knowledge and self responsibility. Doing something because of peer pressure or doing something to please friends is never worth it. Do something because you want to do it, and because it is you, always knowing the in full the consequences that go along with that decision. You only have one life, and one reputation, don’t throw it down the trash chute.</p>
<p>“You can disagree all you want, it doesn’t make you right. It does not make the way you raise your children any better or make you a better parent. There is nothing wrong with boys fighting, at all. It builds moral and confidence, far greater than anything else.”</p>
<p>Tell that to the mothers of boys who have been killed, maimed and imprisoned due to fights.</p>
<p>The best things to teach kids are “Call for help if someone is in trouble”
and “Never leave an impaired person alone–or let that person go off alone.”</p>
<p>MNK: “Whether you label it “peer pressure”, “social consensus” or plain old “herd mentality”, one of the critical facets of college drinking is that a student often finds himself/herself in a social milieu where drinking is encouraged or supported. A student will drink not to feel left out from the socializing and because drinking behavior is supported and encouraged by peers.”
– Thanks. IMO this explains what turns a lot of high school non-drinkers/light drinkers into heavy/binge drinkers in college, whether or not they had any “training” at home.</p>
<p>I don’t think things have changed that much–plenty of binge drinking when I was in college (early 80s). Legal drinking age was 18 my freshman year–two kids in my freshman class died (that I know of )–one driving drunk, another was a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver. If anything, I think it is better now because a lot of kids actually do obey the law and aren’t drinking at 18-20.</p>
<p>I must say that every gross or stupid thing I ever saw (or did) in college–well, alcohol was involved.</p>
<p>HS drinking seems to vary widely. I’d put it at less than 10% at my kid’s school.</p>
<p>"Why would you want that [referring to teaching a kid to call for help if someone is in trouble]. I would much rather my child be able to take action into their own hands. "</p>
<p>Take action into their own hands with a baseball bat or by allowing someone to sleep it off who’s so drunk they’ve wet themselves ? Great way to have someone die or be otherwise in deeper trouble.</p>
<p>I mean a medical emergency. Unless your kid is an EMT, better to call a professional. Certainly kids should be taught what to look for and what to do to help a friend, but make the call first if the situation is serious.</p>