Drinking before college

[Anonymous]

If your DC is headed off to college this fall, how much drinking will you allow at high school graduation parties and over the summer? DC says it’s common for parents to provide alcohol at parties and beach week. Is that true? It seems very unsafe for kids to be drinking before they get to college.

[Anonymous]

Those parents are stupid and you are not stupid, OP.

I'm French and in France kids can drink at 18. In the US I obey US laws. I am absolutely not serving alcohol to anyone under 21.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those parents are stupid and you are not stupid, OP.

I'm French and in France kids can drink at 18. In the US I obey US laws. I am absolutely not serving alcohol to anyone under 21.

+1. Unfortunately your DC is partially correct. There are always idiot parents who will provide alcohol for underage kids. Don’t be that parent OP.

[Anonymous]

Most parents don’t necessarily “let” them kids drink but the kids are drinking anyway. DS and his friends drink. He knows we don’t approve but also that we’re not going to punish him as long as he doesn’t drink in excess and never drives or rides with someone who has had a drink.

[Anonymous]

Agree it’s really stupid for parents to do this for other people’s kids.
Also this is the worst time. The month before and after HS graduation is the most deadly time for American youth. They are already making bad choices — don’t add fuel to that fire. I had a lot of conversations about this and basically said — if you see someone take even a sip of alcohol or a single toke of weed or ant drug, do not get in their car. I will drive you or you use my uber account. Period. If you’re embarrassed, make up a dumb story like your brother broke his arm and you need to go help your mom. Or your mom has food poisoning and you need to go home. Or whatever. I will cover for you.

And it’s not just alchohol—it’s also exhaustion. These kids have been burning the candle at both ends for months and now feel like they need to “make memories for life”. There have been a nimber of accidents where the kids were just too tired or too ramped up to drive — no booze involved.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for a kid to have a beer or cocktail at home with family the summer before they leave so they have some sense of how alcohol hits them. We didn’t really do that but did have a lot of conversations about safe drinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those parents are stupid and you are not stupid, OP.

I'm French and in France kids can drink at 18. In the US I obey US laws. I am absolutely not serving alcohol to anyone under 21.

+1. Unfortunately your DC is partially correct. There are always idiot parents who will provide alcohol for underage kids. Don’t be that parent OP.

+100 Do these irresponsible parents not understand they are liable when something goes wrong? Do they not realize colleges can revoke admission all because their kid wanted to drink?

[Anonymous]

My kids drank before college but I never provided it for them. I would absolutely never provide it for someone else’s kid.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely stupid and potentially life altering in so many ways for a parent to supply alcohol to underage teenagers. If anything happens…

[Anonymous]

I never provided alcohol for my kids, but, I felt it was important that they learned how to handle it before they were off to college and in a totally unsupervised environment - bars are supervised but they wouldn't be able to go there until they had a good ID or were actually 21.

As a result, I turned a blind eye around graduation and the summer, making sure they knew I was available to pick them up, no questions asked, in the event they were in a position to have to drive or be driven by someone under the influence.

It worked out fine.

[Anonymous]

My kids aren't even in high school yet, but every grad party I've been to for my friends' kids had copious amount of alcohol. The kids were playing beer pong, the girls were sipping Veuve and high noons. I started drinking freshman year of high school, so I don't find this odd, but it would make me nervous as a parent from a liability standpoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your DC is headed off to college this fall, how much drinking will you allow at high school graduation parties and over the summer? DC says it’s common for parents to provide alcohol at parties and beach week. Is that true? It seems very unsafe for kids to be drinking before they get to college.

You mean it seems unsafe a month or two before? What difference does it make? I certainly would never buy my kid and his friends alcohol but they will find a way. They always have and always will. You can keep them locked up if you prefer.

[Anonymous]

My college freshmen didn’t drink in HS and still doesn’t. He’s very strict with his diet, etc—an athlete.

[Anonymous]

this is how a kid in my HS class died on the night of graduation - drowning in a backyard pool in a home where the parents provided the keg

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids aren't even in high school yet, but every grad party I've been to for my friends' kids had copious amount of alcohol. The kids were playing beer pong, the girls were sipping Veuve and high noons. I started drinking freshman year of high school, so I don't find this odd, but it would make me nervous as a parent from a liability standpoint.

Wow. Prom pre parties and grad parties were dry for anyone under 21 in our crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:this is how a kid in my HS class died on the night of graduation - drowning in a backyard pool in a home where the parents provided the keg

We had a DD crash where 2 kids r wet need up dead. My HS year all of Fairfax county had sober grad night parties - bought tickets at HS and they were held … forget but lots of fun non-drinking stuff,