What are parents whose kids drink in high school doing or thinking?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Annecdotal info is not all that persuasive. When I was in HS, college & beyond, I didn’t know many folks who were drinkers, much less heavy drinkers. I pledged a sorority but never drank alcohol, tho it was legal for us at 18 at the time. Even back then, I heard rumors about kids who drank in HS, even drank in class!</p>

<p>What constitues “problem drinking” & alcholism is a bit “fuzzy,” & there is the problem of how accurately these issues are reported to & by authorities, even if it’s part of the “culture.”</p>

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<p>Ah just the response I anticipated. Just to be clear, nobody lies to anybody’s parents, it’s just accepted by all. This complete prohibition of alcohol is a new phenomenon to me. I’ve never seen it in my social circle. I would be curious to see what demographics are involved in such a disparity of opinion.</p>

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<p>This is an incredibly important issue, I think one of the most serious we have to confront as our kids move off to college with all the choices before them.</p>

<p>I once believed like many of you, that a complete moratorium on alcohol consumption was the only way. We moved to Germany as my kids were going into high school, and I was horrified by parents who told me that they are teaching their kids “how to drink”. I gradually changed my mind. I do not prohibit my kids’ going to Oktoberfest or parties (and I know there will be alcohol there). </p>

<p>My eldest is adamantly anti-alcohol (refused to go to prom, as the prom ticket includes 3 alcoholic beverages, which they cut down from 5 because they had “problems”). I had to teach him that there is such a thing as going to a party and holding one bottle of beer all night. No one’s going to know if he drinks it or not, but no one will hassle him.</p>

<p>My second son is barely 16 and has gone to Oktoberfest 2 years in a row with his friends, and goes to many parties. Invariably, there are a few kids who get plastered and have to be taken care of. Invariably, they are American kids from ‘conservative’ homes. My son is always the care-taker, and he finds drunken behavior so repellent that he never wants to be in that position.</p>

<p>Some here say anecdotal (or eyewitness) evidence is not persuasive, but it helped me form my opinion: responsible exposure, plus education from parents with reasonable expectations, is the way to go.</p>

<p>More anecdotal evidence: in my job we help Americans, some of whom get themselves in terrible situations. We repatriate remains, we issue emergency passports, we visit Americans in prison, we locate relatives and work with victims of rape, robbery and assault. The tragic thing is that many of them are college-age, on junior-year-abroad progams or Eurailpass/youth hostel tickets, and the vast majority of those incidents involve irresponsible drinking.
We are very busy during Oktoberfest, Spring Break, and now good God – the World Cup.</p>

<p>During my years at French Grandes-Ecoles (the 80’s – pre-Cambrian), we drank every day. We drank wine or beer with lunch, a beer or ‘shandy’ after class, and wine with dinner. No big deal. The only people that binged or got stinking drunk that I can recall were Americans doing their ‘junior year’ or Brits on internships. Getting drunk and falling all over the place was simply not done. It was considered very bad form. I hardly ever drink alcohol now, maybe a glass of wine or champagne once a month or so. Clearly, drinking every day did not make me an alcoholic.</p>

<p>A couple of people here said that the alcoholism rate in Europe and Russia is high, I can’t dispute that (I don’t have any evidence either way, but I’d be interested in seeing references of those who make that claim). I believe that if a person has a predisposition to alcoholism, that person will become an alcoholic. The alcoholic, or addict, will stop at nothing – lying to family members, breaking the law, hiding bottles, and sometimes getting behind the wheel.</p>

<p>I don’t want my kids to live in a little bubble of ‘my values’. I want them to have their own experiences and their own values. I want them to be in the world and experience it responsibly. I’m sure everyone wants that for their kids. The question is: how?</p>

<p>A.M.</p>

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<p>Right now, in the US, we have few legal options. The only alcohol available to folks under 21 legally is communion wine, pretty much. If we want our kids to be able to learn how to “drink responsibly,” we can only model it for them before than & work to change the national laws which make drinking under 21 illegal. Any other course of conduct is currently not legal.</p>

<p>Sad to read about all the folks you’ve seen/worked with who have problems due to alcohol. I have read about american Us where they are trying to teach their 21+ students to drink alcohol responsibly with meals (if they chose), but obviously that’s limited since it can only begin when the students are 21+.</p>

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<p>There are plenty of internet links which focus on the European drinking problems. Canada does not seem to have fewer problems:</p>

<p>“31.6% of undergraduates reported at least one indicator of dependent drinking such as being unable to stop, failing to perform normal everyday activities or needing a drink first thing in the morning.”
Source: <a href=“The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health | CAMH”>The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health | CAMH;

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<p>Himom, that’s not true in all states. There are states where it is not illegal for your own children to have a drink in your own home. </p>

<p>edad, as I said earlier, I’ve lived much of my adult life living ON college campuses and coming into contact with hundreds of college aged kids on a daily basis. My experience, that of my many friends and colleagues who are professors, college counsellors, deans, presidents of universities, doctors at student health centres, etc. is the experience which I’ve noted in several posts. Having kids at schools in both countries gives me an additional window into the comparison. You may not want to believe it but it’s true. Kids drink, always have, always will. What’s different is that more kids drink responsibly when they’re allowed to drink legally. You can cite all the surveys you want but I’ve lived and worked with college kids on both sides of the border for 25+ years. </p>

<p>Does this mean that no kids in Canada get drunk? Of course not. However, in my opinion, and in my experience, it is a better way of teaching kids to drink responsibly than how it’s done in the U.S. There’s no panacea here, just different possibilities for dealing with an issue which will face every college kid out there. Anecdotal evidence may not be satisfactory for all who post here on CC, but I prefer to rely on the direct evidence I’ve seen over 25+ years of daily contact with hundreds of college kids, and the experience of my colleagues, to streams of numbers from anonymous surveys. I’m not discounting every statistical report out there but you know what they say about statistics. The one I find the most interesting in the report you linked is the one which states that:</p>

<p>Two drinking types represent more than half of students: light infrequent drinking and light frequent drinking. </p>

<p>Given what I’ve observed and experienced over such a long period of time, I would much rather have kids handle this issue the way it’s done in Canada than in the U.S.</p>

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<p>Wouldn’t lowering the legal drinking age just push illegal drinking to an even younger age?</p>

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<p>“What’s different is that more kids drink responsibly when they’re allowed to drink legally”
Id agree with this
My daughter is a resident of wa state
Outside of an incident when she was a senior in high school, she waited till she was 21 to drink, in fact she waited for 3 months after she turned 21. Since then I can say she is very responsible in her substance use</p>

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<p>Fact is, some people don’t drink responsibly, no matter what the legal age. There are plenty of adults who behave abominably with alcohol, despite their being of age.</p>

<p>My DH and I are responsible with alcohol. We have no respect whatsoever for fall down drunks, and excessive drinking is not acceptable to us. We are raising our children to have a similar respect for the harm of too much alcohol, by not shunning it to the closest, but understanding that it is a very present part of high school and college (as well as adult) life, and our kids had best learn how to deal with its presence responsibly.</p>

<p>Other people can do whatever they like with their own kids. However, the Facebook photos of many college kids proves that they surely haven’t learned any lesson about responsible drinking, from anyone.</p>

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<p>What constitues “problem drinking” & alcholism is a bit "fuzzy, 0-</p>

<p>I do not know why you say this. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases - Fourth Edition of the American Psychiatric Association is used in all 50 states for the diagnosis of alcohol abuse and dependence (alcoholism). In all 50 states, trained and licensed chemical dependency professionals, who are required to have 2,000 hours of on-the-job training in addition to their classroom education, provide the diagnosis. It is less “fuzzy” than diabetes, any number of mental conditions, and heart disease. The accuracy of diagnoses is greater than is generally found elsewhere within the medical profession.</p>

<p>Think it works abroad? In Russia, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is roughly 8X what it is in the U.S., with many of the children born to drinking teen girls ages 15-17:</p>

<p><a href=“Web Page Under Construction”>Web Page Under Construction;

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<p>“From extensive visiting in Europe, I would absolutely contend that the teenaged and college aged mindset towards alcohol is much saner.”</p>

<p>Agree!</p>

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<p>Along with the fourfold rise of alcoholism in Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union, (where underage drinking was highly regulated), there have been massive increases in syphilis, HIV, and TB, much of it among teenagers, according to Georgetown professor Murray Feshbach, author of The Environmental and Health Atlas of Russia.</p>

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<p>mini, I didn’t see anyone cite Russia as having a better system. Anyone who keeps even moderate tabs on current events and what has transpired in Russia in the past five-ten years knows that there are incredible problems in practically every facet of everyday life, not just alcohol consumption among teenagers. It is hardly a comparable situation to that which exists in western European or North American countries.</p>

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<p>In France, wine consumption has dropped by almost half in the past 30 years. Still, at 12.25 litres of pure alcohol per person, it has among the highest rates of deaths from alcohol-related causes, at 80.43/100,000 (source: World Health Organization.) In contrast, Sweden’s consumption is 6.88 litres, and deaths at 52.11 per 100,000. In other words, in terms of morbidity and mortality, the French system, if there is one, doesn’t work, if one’s concern is the impact of youth drinking on what happens to them as adults. </p>

<p>Again, I would like to believe that introduction to early drinking “works”. It seems commonsensical, it seems like it would be a good idea, it seems like we should like it. Only problem is that there isn’t a shred of statitiscal evidence to support it.</p>

<p>What has worked, overwhelmingly, is raising the drinking age. We have excellent state-to-state, and state-by-state comparisons for before and after the age was raised. Youth mortality from alcohol-related causes is WAY down - deaths from drowning, falls, etc. Alcohol-related motor vehicle deaths among youth are way down - the lowest in 60 years. And drinking (including binge drinking, which I haven’t addressed) is down as well. Abstinence rates are at their highest in 50 years?</p>

<p>And how does it translate to adults? Total per capita alcohol consumption is at its lowest point in 50 years. What is up is the rate of cirrhosis-related and alcohol-related cancer deaths, but these are mostly among folks in their 50s and 60s, who began drinking before the new age restrictions took effect. What is also up (or at least level) is binge drinking at expensive private colleges and some state universities (not all, though: University of Oklahoma has a complete ban on all alcohol on campus, even among those over age 21, and so far it has been tremendously effective - even though it is an approach I don’t support.)</p>

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<p>Is this a HIGH SCHOOL prom??? What kind of high school includes 3 drinks with prom tickets? Is this a public or private school (not that it makes a difference.)</p>

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<p>mini, you can throw around all the figures you want. I prefer to rely on my see-with-my-own-eyes (and that of my colleagues) over more than two decades of personal experience with kids this age in a college setting. If you choose to rely totally on your statistics, that’s your prerogative. My experience has been very different.</p>

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<p>okay, there was a party this weekend called CEOs and Office Ho’s…I kid you not</p>

<p>The moms rented a suite in a very nice hotel, had a guest list, checked off the guests at the door…one mom went to pick up her daughter, the mom at the door, said its okay, I will get her, kind of blocking the door</p>

<p>Apparently this “group” has lots of these parties- themed so the girls can dress like Ho’s…</p>

<p>And they post the pictures everywhere</p>

<p>Really sad</p>

<p>Oh yeah, lots of drinking (according to my sources), Extascy, Coke, and mom is at the door</p>

<p>And these are sophmores, and have been having these parties all year, trying to outdo each other in scankiness</p>

<p>What are these mom’s thinking, and right now, most kids know about the party and are looking at the pictures of the girls in their underwear</p>

<p>My D were just grossed out talking about what they had heard</p>

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<p>Golf pros and tennis hoes is more interesting. However, nobody answered my question about the demographics of drinking prohibition/allowance. As I said, I have never seen such a zero-tolerance policy against alcohol and I’m wondering what the demographics of my world are versus what seems to be the prevailing opinion here.</p>

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<p>This reminds me of the “Tarts and Vicars” party in the movie “Bridget Jone’s Diary”.</p>

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<p>My daughters school has frequent school pride weeks where students dress up re: a theme- seniors decide on a secret different theme-
( one day when the theme was purple and white- their school colors- I believe the senior theme was “pimps & 'hos”)
but generally the themes are things like “triplets” “safari” or “clowns”</p>