<p>Having read the link, if that’s accurate, then I stand by my statement that 90days would have been more than enough. The parents were physically supervising the party, they bought beer of various kinds, not liquor, they took car keys, and they kept the kids from leaving the premises. Still illegal, still a bad choice. But they really didn’t put the kids in danger.</p>
<p>As for the child who died a month earlier: a great deal of responsibility for that has to go to the blame fool child who got into a car with a driver who’d been drinking, the blame fool drunk driver who killed her friend, and the blame fool parents who hadn’t already told their daughter that they would pick her up from anywhere, no questions asked, if she needed a safe ride. Not to mention telling her, as they should have, that if she ever rode with a drunk driver and didn’t get hurt, then THEY would kill her (which is pretty much what my parents told me). I can’t imagine how those parents are suffering, but even so, it doesn’t make kids safer to pretend that the primary culprit was the guy throwing the party.</p>
<p>Ellemenope, 18 months ago I had a major tangle with a parent here who was serving beer to 7th graders. 15 sets of parents let their boys go to this party, and H and I were the only ones who said, “no” to letting our son go. I don’t know if the other parents really knew that there would be beer there, but there was no outrage when people found out it was there and the boys were drinking. The father’s still furious at me for telling him that he was irresponsible for other things that were going on at that party. Who’d ever think that parenting would be such an uphill battle. Where are all the likeminded parents???</p>
I feel your pain, seriously. We’ve not come across this drinking thing personally, as none of my kids’ h.s. friends have been drinkers ('cept a couple of my son’s in his senior year, and it wasn’t enabled by the parents), but we’ve seen quite a few parents who don’t mind pathetic examples being given to kids within our school settings, and yes, it’s both frustrating and frightening.</p>
<p>Drinking is huge in this town, as in many others. It’s a constant battle to keep my kids safe. My older D never drank, and never will. She saw an alcoholic seizure when she was a kid, and never forgot. My younger d is more complicated. She hangs out with a crowd who drinks, and I suspect that she has, although I have not caught her. I feel it’s my duty to stay on her case, and I always make it a point to greet her after a night out. I don’t think it’ll eradicate it altogether…I’m not that naive. But if I make it mighty difficult and uncomfortable for her to drink, with disasterous consequences if she does, it will help get her through her teens alive. I lost 2 brothers to alcohol. One when he was just 17. The police came to my parents’ house with the very worst news a parent could hear. If some idiot of a parent served my underage kid alcohol, not only would I press charges, but I’d have to hold my husband back from going over there. We work hard at the less pleasant parts of parenting. Our kids don’t like it sometimes. But I’ll be damned if I want my kid getting drunk at some idiot’s house just because he/she doesn’t have the guts to stand up to their own kids. Let them serve their time.</p>
<p>I guess you perfer the infamous NJ field parties without any supervision. We all did when we were kids in NJ. Ripple, pot, and maybe some acid–those were the days. Nope no parents. Just 75 kids in a field. hen on the roads. Yee haw. Lucky we all survived.</p>
<p>Oh, sweetie, my heart goes out to your parents and to your whole family for the unbelievably tragic loss of two of their children to alcohol. OMG, there is simply nothing more painful. And I totally understand why you would want parents who furnished alcohol to be duly punished for their actions.</p>
<p>Your story demonstrates perfectly exactly why I have parented in the way that I have. I have reinforced from the get go that my kids are <em>the</em> only ones who have sole responsibility for their own actions, and I’ve made sure that they’ve internalized that message before letting them attend parties at the homes of <em>anyone</em> whose parents I do not know well. Simply because someone has offered something doesn’t mean that it has to be accepted, and each of my kids is very cognizant of this. </p>
<p>In one way, I suppose that I have been fortunate enough to raise extremely independent kids who are not particularly prone to peer pressure. To the contrary, they are usually leaders in that regard, and none of them has chosen to adopt an “partying lifestyle.”</p>
<p>I feel very strongly that parents need to work closely with their children to let them know that they DO have choices, even if it is an adult who is leading them in a dangerous or improper direction. Sometimes, our kids have more common sense than adults, especially if they have been encouraged from the very beginning to stand up for themselves and make smart decisions. I personally am not comfortable leaving the responsibility for the safety of my children to <em>anyone</em> except to us, their parents, or themselves. It’s simply too risky.</p>
<p>Again, my sympathies to your family on the loss of two children to alcohol-related deaths. Soooooo tragic–and utterly wasteful.</p>
<p>“Simply because someone has offered something doesn’t mean that it has to be accepted”</p>
<p>Thank you. I understand the legal rationale behind innkeeper rules: society wants to prevent public harm, and it’s easier to control providers of alcohol than it is to control imbibers. The benefit to public health is large enough to compensate for the unfairness of punishing innkeepers for the behavior of their idiotic drunken customers.</p>
<p>But when we’re talking about making a family rule that applies in one house instead of legal rules that apply to all citizens, that argument goes out the window. I don’t care what was served, who else was drinking it, or whose house you found it in: if you do something stupid, it’s on YOU. “Peer pressure” and other BS excuses should not be acceptable coming from kids who are plenty old enough to know better.</p>
This has ALWAYS been our attitude as parents, and I don’t know if we’ve just been “lucky,” but this has worked beautifully for us as a family. I have, however, taken some pretty serious beatings on this forum for expressing this view. I’ve been a proponent of “personal responsibility” since before it was a buzz term (and WAY before I was a parent), and I still adhere to this philosophy now. You simply cannot AFFORD to count on others to make good decisions FOR you or to keep you safe. In fact, it is quite empowering to realize that these sorts of choices are yours alone, and I give my teens a GREAT deal of credit (and responsibility)–and TRUST. They have earned every bit of it.</p>
<p>I think this is probably the biggest factor in whether a kid drinks or not while in high school. My kids were in the “smart kids/band geeks” crowd…not a real party crowd.</p>
<p>But I do have a friend whose daughter goes to one of the top/rich high schools in the county. Her mother told her that she was not allowed to go to parties where alcohol was served. She told her mother that would basically mean that she would be going to ZERO parties. </p>
<p>Is under-age drinking that prevalent? </p>
<p>(dke, your story was downright scary!! Surely, serving alcohol to 7th graders at a party would cross a line that even those who support controlled underage drinking would have!)</p>
<p>Tanyanubin, I’m with you on this. We have issues with alcohol on both sides of our family, and they say that the earlier a kid starts to drink, the more prone they are to develop a drinking problem later in life. Ellenmenope, I was outraged at this family’s audacity to serve the boys beer at 12, but the guy who did is highly respected in this community (because of $$ inherited) and no one dares to cross him. I dared, and as I said, almost two years later am still paying the price. At least my son wasn’t s–tfaced that night with the other 12 yr. olds…ha!</p>
<p>While trying to foster an attitude of independence and a resistance to peer pressure, I still let her know that I’m on it every day, every time. I even have alcohol testing swabs as a backup. They are available over the counter in the pharmacy. So are drug testing kits if anyone is interested. There will be no “No I didn’t, mom!” debate, because the test doesn’t lie. I don’t intend to use them every time she walks in. I just want her to know that I could. I feel that my job is to make it as hard as possible. My consequences, such as grounding for several months or losing her car for a year, are nothing compared to what could happen. The ‘boys will be boys’ attitude of some parents stuns me. Aside from the obvious danger, and the total disregard for other parents’ rules, these people did something ILLEGAL. What message does it send to our kids if we let them know it’s ok, and that we “know they’re going to do it”? What more clearly implied permission is there? My kids know that I expect them NOT to do it, and that they will be in deep trouble if they do. Just like any other illegal activity. I’m not looking to be my kids’ friend, and I’m not afraid to have them hate me temporarily if it keeps them safe.</p>
<p>Exactly, Tanya. The boys will be boys nonsense and let’s be our kids’ best friends mentality makes me sick. And yes, it teaches the kids that they can “get over” and its OK>…its not OK with me. I can see the writing on the wall in my son’s 8th grade class. They’ll be 9th graders next year, and the way they’ve been brought up ? Well, I think there’s going to be an implosion of that class within the next couple of years, I’m sad to say. The brakes aren’t on. I’m glad I"m getting my son out of there.</p>
I’m with you about the messages sent. I have <em>never</em> communicated to my kids the very damaging message of, “I know you’re going to do this despite what I say.” In fact, I expect (and have received) my kids’ adherence to the relatively few, but significant, rules we have set in stone. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how/why that message got started…maybe some people feel it shows an (<em>wink</em> ) awareness of “real teen life” and confirms their “coolness.” I definitely have higher expectations for my children, and they’ve been made well aware of that. </p>
<p>That said, unless there had been a demonstrated problem already, I personally would stop short of using alcohol testing swabs or drug testing kits. I would be concerned that an adversarial “I don’t trust you” attitude would backfire with my own kids, but then so far, there has not been any reason to institute something like that. If I came upon some problems with any of my kids, I’d have to rethink that issue. So far, thankfully, the positive message approach has work beautifully.</p>
<p>LOL—the swabs are a preemptive strike, just like when they were little and I counted “one, TWO…” I never got to three. I never had to. I never even told them what would happen if I did. My D knows that the swabs are in the cabinet, and I can pull em out if I need to. I just haven’t needed to, which is the point! lol</p>
<p>“I’ve been a proponent of “personal responsibility” since before it was a buzz term (and WAY before I was a parent), and I still adhere to this philosophy now.”</p>
<p>I think that’s great, and now the drug pushers (who could have gotten off with a slap on the wrist had they initially taken responsibility) will have to shoulder the responsibility by doing the time. They made a free choice (actually, several), and now will take the consequences.</p>
Hey mini, how about those illegal immigrants you’re so thrilled to let break the law (including the ones who commit violent crime)? How 'bout some personal responsibility there? </p>
<p>Just in case others any are still trying to piece together the facts of the Robinson case ( I personally could not understand where the reduced 27 month sentence came from), I came across the actual Virginia appellate court’s decisions that affirmed the original trial court decision - there were actually two appellate opinions issued, in 2005, and in 2006 after a rehearing based on new arguments; after losing both of these, the Robinsons then appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Ct. The appeals were based on procedural/constitutional grounds. I did find a statement describing the initial sentence (this is from the 2005 opinion, p. 40 of linked document):</p>
<p>It appears that both of the Robinsons received the same 27 month sentences and the lengths of their sentences were never appealed (which I is what I assumed had happened). </p>
<p>So, they plead guilty, refuse to take the deals offered by the prosecutor, and instead force the case to go to trial (and remember this is juvenile court, so only a judge, no jury), presumably with the expectation that the judge would give them a BETTER deal (ie, treat this as if it were no different from a traffic violation??!!). If so, in hindsight it seems not only ill-advised but rather stupid on their part not to have just taken the original “deal” (aren’t they usually better than the alternative, when one is pleading guilty?). </p>
<p>I dunno, I just come away from this thinking there still isn’t much remorse or actual understanding by the Robinsons in all their efforts to try to get off scott-free for their “bad idea.” They admit their guilt but do not think they should be punished. Maybe I would feel differently had they made a stronger case about why the sentences they received were unfair or too harsh; instead I am left feeling that they knew that the judge was well within his rights. </p>
<p>Perhaps these sentences are not fair, but then how fair is it when a parent feels they have the right to take the law into their own hands and promote illegal activities by minors who are not their own children? What message does this give our kids not only about drinking but about respect for the law? If parents do not respect or obey our laws, how can we ever expect our kids to?</p>
<p>So, perhaps these particular defendants got what they deserved? I wonder if they will now be suing their attorneys for giving them bad legal advice?</p>
OMG, there is simply nothing more painful. And I totally understand why you would want parents who furnished alcohol to be duly punished for their actions.</p>
) awareness of “real teen life” and confirms their “coolness.” I definitely have higher expectations for my children, and they’ve been made well aware of that. </p>
</p>