<p>As parents, we were vigilant with our high school teenage son and he was great (spent what little free time he had in our basement rec room with his friends - playing guitar, watching movies, no drinking). Now that he’s in college, he IS drinking and it seems there’s very little we can do about it. Or is there? We talk to him about the dangers but this seems to have little impact. We are both light drinkers so I don’t think we’re modeling the wrong behavior. So, amdgmom, we’re not kidding ourselves but we don’t really know what to do (other than worry!)</p>
<p>Toneranger, I’d really like to know the answer to that too. My D drinks socially - she has for the 4.5 years she’s been in college. I know for a fact she doesn’t get drunk - I’m around her too much, and if I’m on travel somewhere, she calls me a lot. Plus she has an impossible schedule, so, getting drunk really isn’t possible. </p>
<p>But it bothers me that she drinks even socially. Even one or two beers with friends bothers me tremendously. Added to that, she’s volunteer coaching this year, and at the start of the school year, the coach took her with the other assistant coaches on a retreat out of town. The official reason for the retreat was to strategize, lay out training goals for the year, etc. The real reason appeared to be to drink as much as possible, for as long as possible. D had her customary “social” drinks, but told me that the rest of the group got very drunk, and the one person in their party who didn’t drink at all finally caved and began to drink as well. </p>
<p>I was appalled and disgusted. My child isn’t exactly enamoured with the coach, but, she knows well the value of the recommendation letters and referrals she will net out of the relationship, and of course the day-to-day relationship ends this school year. She also knows me well enough to know how I think - and feel - about use of alcohol, in ANY form or amount. I do not even socialize with adults who drink even the slightest amount of alcohol. We’ve had many, many, many conversations - informational exchanges - not arguments - about drinking. There isn’t anything I can possibly say that I have not said 1,000++ times already, and that she also hasn’t read or heard about through other sources. </p>
<p>I have no idea what to do, and, since she is meeting/exceeding all of her obligations, and I certainly have zero grounds to complain about anything (getting great grades, working multiple jobs, applying to grad schools, coaching, involved in the community, responsive and engaged with family and friends, etc.), I have no earthly idea what I can possibly do or say. It’s not even like I can withdraw support - she doesn’t ask me for money for extraneous things, so I don’t even have any leverage - although if I did have leverage, I am not sure I would use it. </p>
<p>Therefore, I’ve taken the position to say nothing. I am NOT happy with that choice, but, I cannot see any other option - if I complain, my complaints are groundless, and it sort of makes me a nag.</p>
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<p>latetoschool it sounds to me that you have raised a very mature, responsible daughter. Granted, you obviously would prefer that she not drink at all but the fact is that she has chosen to do so. By the sounds of things her choice has had no negative impact on her life. It also seems to me that she has embraced all the values you tried to instill in her with this one exception.
You have a great deal to be proud of IMO.</p>
<p>My advice to both my kids as they went off for senior week was the same. If, after all our discussions on drinking and why you shouldn’t, you still decide to drink please give it 24 hours. Watch your friends and decide if this is right for you. My hope was that they would see kids totally out of control, green around the gills, jockeying for position around the toilet and decide maybe it wasn’t for them.
My thoughts on college are pretty much the same. They will learn more by watching their friends. I can no longer be the immediate “teacher”. Some lessons will be learned pretty quick…other longer term effects they might never see.
All we can do now is sit back and wait for them to come talk to us if they need or want to. As parents I think we are all pretty much in the same position. Hold onto your hats, keep your fingers crossed and hope beyond hope that they will be okay.</p>
<p>wharf…well said.</p>
<p>toneranger…seems like you have developed a great, open relationship with your son. It should carry you through…</p>
<p>sax that is so funny you should say this… </p>
<p>I went from ‘big fish in a small pond’ in HS to a very challenging college. Though I had tried drinking in HS a bit, I was so scared about being an academic success during my first semester in college that I did not drink at all. I went to parties; I just had club soda and lime. (Nobody ever batted an eye or investigated what was in my cup.) This way, I could dance, have a good time, socialize-- but be up the next morning for my class, or to do my reading, or whatever.</p>
<p>It was such an informative experience! I got very turned off to excessive drink-to-get-bombed drinking. Plus I saw how much alcohol lubricates interactions that would NEVER happen if both parties were sober. </p>
<p>Once the first semester was over and I realized I was going to be fine academically, I did loosen up substantially for the rest of my time at college-- but it was a very good way to begin.</p>
<p>ahhh…very cool, sbmom. I sure hope it works this way alot more often than we parents think, especially for those lubricated interactions!</p>
<p>My first husband and I were separated when Brandon was 8 months old and Christa 4 years old - because he’s an alcoholic and wife-beater.</p>
<p>Consequently, for the 14 years I raised the children by myself, I had to figure out the best way to deal with the subject of underage drinking. </p>
<p>I decided that expressly forbidding it in the house for myself and of-age guests was foolish. But I sat each child down at the age of 11 and told them alcohol abuse was the reason they were raised in a single-parent household. That alcohol in and of itself was not a bad thing, and that’s why they would see alcohol in our house. But other than a special occasion to try it in our , if they chose to break the law and indulge in getting drunk, there was a good chance, given their genes, that they could end up in the very sad situation their dad was in. </p>
<p>I guess it worked for the most part. Neither of them has been in any kind of trouble with drinking. </p>
<p>Can’t say it would work for everyone, though, cause most kids don’t have the “role model” my children had in their father.</p>
<p>Thanks to livejournal.com, I learned that my DD was in a “minor” auto accident last week at Mary Washington. Although every alarm bell in her body should have gone off to stop her, she climbed into an overloaded car with a driver who had been drinking. Within blocks, the car ran into a building and knocked a hole in it. Apparently, even though the police came and one girl was taken to the hospital for observation, no one was arrested or charged. I would have preferred if everyone in that car, including my DD, had been arrested. I could have easily been at her funeral this week end.</p>
<p>I’m sure Mary Washington is like many other colleges but I believe they are conspiring with the students to allow drinking. I know the RA’s make their presence known before alcohol inspections in the dorm. I believe that the college deliberately covered up a drinking scandal in the athletic department (<a href=“http://www.ncaahazing.com)%5B/url%5D”>www.ncaahazing.com)</a>. </p>
<p>I don’t want my DD, or any one elses, to die because colleges don’t act responsibly.</p>
<p>I asked my smart, level headed, easy going, not easily influenced kid this question when he was in HS: Would you be able to not jump in a car with all your buddies if you knew your buddy, the driver, had been drinking? His reply “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“I DON"T KNOW?” “I DON"T KNOW?” I could have killed him for this response yet he was being honest. </p>
<p>I’m glad your daughter is okay. Hopefully she learned a very valuable lesson…however I would ask her if she would do this again.</p>
<p>Look to the kid…not to the college. It would be ideal if colleges were stricter about alcohol but I’m not holding my breath.</p>
<p>latetoschool- I am really surprised that your daughter isn’t a big drinker. While I’ve met very few people with an aversion to even adult social drinkers as strong as yours appears to be, I have found that the children of the “alcohol is evil” set frequently go over the top in the other direction.</p>
<p>Sax, I agree, it’s up to the individual involved, not the college. Colleges cannot possibly police all student behavior, nor should they. These are young adults who make many individual choices as to how they are going to behave. Personal responsibility is first and foremost.</p>
<p>You know, I can’t agree with that in total. In State College alone (which basically IS Penn State), there are some 90 alcohol-related venues, including state liquor stores. 90. I can’t seem to understand why the town leaders can’t get together with the school administration and address the issue of underage drinking; instead, new bars and restaurants open up each and everyday and the kids seem to be becoming more and more out of control everyday. Most of these kids are under 21. The adults have a responsibility and duty to address the underage drinking issues on campus and in town.</p>
<p>“Sax, I agree, it’s up to the individual involved, not the college. Colleges cannot possibly police all student behavior, nor should they. These are young adults who make many individual choices as to how they are going to behave. Personal responsibility is first and foremost.”</p>
<p>Colleges can do all kinds of things if they choose. We don’t expect community police to police all adult behavior, but that doesn’t absolve communities from setting and enforcing laws and norms. Some very large state universities, including Oklahoma and Georgia, have banned alcohol totally from the campus (UMass I think joined them in September.) There have been major impacts as a result. Yes, some students still go off campus to drink, and some still drink in their rooms, but the extent of binge dringe drinking is way down from where it was. Some campuses (such as Western Washington U. and Northern Illinois and Hobart-William Smith) have heavily employed social marketing campaigns. Some campuses use local police for campus sweeps in the first several weeks of school - if the students want to be treated like adults, they should face the consequences of adults making bad choices. Some colleges have made RAs financially responsible for alcohol infractions. There is a huge raft of possibilities out there, all beginning with the college’s will. </p>
<p>Some colleges fear doing anything, thinking that taking steps open them up to liability. But the reality is that I haven’t heard of a single lawsuit related to an on-campus drinking death losing in a decade. Virtually all of them are settled out of court, and for big bucks. </p>
<p>These are educational institutions; they would do well to act like it.</p>
<p>Mini, I didn’t say that laws should not be enforced, nor did I say that there were not things which colleges could do. I said that colleges should not be expected to police all student behavior. To expect that a college would, or should, be able to prevent a student from making the stupid decision to get into a car with individuals who had been drinking is ridiculous. We don’t even know that these kids were binge drinking, just that they had been drinking. We all want students to be safe and we all, presumably, use the first 18 years of their lives to model responsible behavior. I don’t think that there are too many kids who, when they arrive at college in freshman year, do not know how their parents feel about drinking. There are limits to what colleges and communities can do. That was my point. Ultimately, it is individual personal choices which govern behavior.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild, I don’t think alcohol is “evil”, it just classifies for me - fair or not - with cigarettes, tattoos, drugs, nose piercings, etc. D will never be a big drinker - it’s more the issue that if she’s with friends, and alcohol is ordered, she’ll have a drink as well. She neither likes it or dislikes it - for her, it’s simply “there”. So she’ll order a drink, just like she’ll order a very rich desert that at the end of the day she could either take or leave, just because all the other people at the table ordered the desert too. On the coach’s retreat, she nursed two drinks all night, while the others had, like, ten. And when people leave alcohol in our home (happens often - dinner contribution, gift, etc.), she throws it out, or gives it away - she doesn’t really like having it on the premises, because she think’s it’s “tacky”. But she also doesn’t allow things like cookies, cakes, etc. in the house either. </p>
<p>Personally, I wish she didn’t drink anything at all, ever. I wish she had the guts, class and fortitude to tell the participants at the coaches retreat “no”. But then, I guess I can point that same logic at myself - I wish I were firm with my clients and refused to have wine on the table during business dinners. I totally get how one starts down that road - I, too, order useless deserts during dinners out, food that I don’t especially like, need or particularly want, and that has no nutrutional value, just because everyone else at the table is ordering it too. So it’s kind of hard to complain too much, and as I’ve already posted, I have no grounds to say anything anyway. </p>
<p>Hereshoping - 90!!! That’s quite a number. Sickening. But what’s really horrifying is the realization that those 90 establishments would not be present if the market didn’t support a profit. That’s really something. I wonder what a liquor license costs…and I wonder how much cash those 90 need to bring in to make a profit…</p>
<p>“I said that colleges should not be expected to police all student behavior.”</p>
<p>Well, of course you are right. College shouldn’t be expected to police all student behavior anymore than communities should be expected to police all individual behavior.</p>
<p>BUT - they are educational institutions. If students are repeatedly making stupid decisions, educational institutions have a responsibility to help them make better ones, and to reduce opportunities where such decisions can be made.</p>
<p>Colleges are nowhere close to the limits of what they can do. In fact, I think for the most part they are closer to the denial of responsibility extreme. </p>
<p>And no, I don’t think personal responsibility is “first and foremost”. Personal responsibility goes hand in hand with community responsibility. They are inseparable. We don’t, generally speaking, allow unsafe cars on the road, adulterated foods to be sold, the marketing of toys to little kids where they can swallow the pieces, chainsaws that go awry. And we are getting pretty good about nicotine sales to minors, too. Can communities eliminate all risks? No, nor do I think they should. Can communities reduce the risks of individual behavior gone awry? You bet, but only if we take responsibility for them.</p>
<p>My d., who is 18 and in Italy where it is legal, drinks some wine. But alcohol figured heavily in her college decision, and she turned down my alma mater partly on those grounds (and the college pres. could a letter from me as a result - and he is VERY concerned.) My younger one won’t touch the stuff (she has adult friends who are both former alcoholics and drug addicts). The alcoholic and addiction alleles don’t seem to exist in my family, though half a beer or so will generally put me to sleep. At least three times a year since each was 10, we have sat them both down and given them the “drinking and driving” lecture (“I trust you not to drink until you a blue in the face, so I’m not going to lecture you about that. I don’t trust you to always good judgment about getting into a car with someone who has been drinking, so I’m afraid you are going to happen to listen to me and your mom about this until you are blue in the face… Got it?”)</p>
<p>Mini, I’m not sure if you’re deliberately missing my point or not. The individual personal choices to which I’m referring were those made by the students who got into that car. I’m not talking about unsafe cars or chainsaws here. The fact is that the college in question could have banned all alcohol from its campus and these kids may have still made this same stupid choice. I’m not saying that colleges shouldn’t do more. I’m saying that even if they do everything possible under the sun, some students will still make stupid decisions. Not all behavior can be controlled, as much as some parents might like it to be. Ultimately, those kids made the decision to get into that car, despite the law, despite the admonitions from parents, despite common sense, despite possible recriminations from their college. If you have the magic solution for that, short of locking them in their rooms til they’re 40, I think a lot of people would like to hear it.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. What exactly is the attraction to this stuff that makes especially young people want so much of it, and that supports 90 businesses in what I assume is otherwise a small town? </p>
<p>I’ve seen people post here “I really enjoy being drunk” or some such thing - why? How can that possibly be even slightly enjoyable? Furthermore, even if one isn’t “drunk”, what is the attraction in being just a bit “uninhibited” or whatever the correct word is. A person has to do SOME work to get there - after all, the stuff tastes like household cleaning products, insecticide, etc., so some effort has to go into actually drinking and swallowing. </p>
<p>Plus what it must feel like the next day. I simply don’t understand.</p>
<p>“I’m saying that even if they do everything possible under the sun, some students will still make stupid decisions. Not all behavior can be controlled, as much as some parents might like it to be.”</p>
<p>Agreed. However, the kinds of decisions that individuals make are often informed by and/or in response to community laws and norms. When laws are poorly enforced, and norms against drinking and driving not universally established, it is more likely that young people (many of whom are still in the process of learning to think clearly for themselves) will make unfortunate choices. </p>
<p>Community behavior is controlled all the time, though not for all individuals. Some folks steal from stores; most don’t. It isn’t because they fear getting caught, but because community norms are such that it just isn’t “something people do”. Drinking and driving by young people, or heavy drinking on college campuses just hasn’t reached that point yet. But there is no theoretical reason why it couldn’t.</p>
<p>I’m not sure at all that colleges should lift a finger to do anything about alcohol. For one thing, it seems that it would be impossible to control/enforce. For another thing, it seems that students (and everyone else) would simply step off campus for their fill of alcohol, and, in at least one small town, they’d have 90 shopping choices. </p>
<p>Given that, at least if everyone is drinking on campus, presumably, first responders are closer at hand. </p>
<p>I actually wonder if - since making alcohol illegal years and years ago didn’t work - ALL drugs should be made legal. And taxed. I seriously see absolutely no difference between alcohol (beer, wine, whatever) and marijuana, cocaine, heroin, etc. Actually, marijuana might actually be a healthier choice - at least it doesn’t have empty calories, unless one begins to eat a lot following smoking. Cocaine and heroin are probably far more addictive, but, maybe if ALL the drugs were available and legal, perhaps the risk would be spread around, and in the aggregate all of the substances would be far less attractive.</p>