Best schools to escape the drug and alcohol culture

[Anonymous]

help me follow this thread…someone please tell me what school STA is; tia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:help me follow this thread…someone please tell me what school STA is; tia

St. Albans School

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Irish Catholic here who brought up the drinking at the Catholic schools. Yes, it is part of the culture, and at some of the parish schools the parents are knowng for frontloading before events. Its starts early on. Just like beach week is incredibly popular among the Catholic families. And these families are more lenient with drinking before prom.

Regarding other cultures, I've never seen any of my many Jewish friends over-imbibe or lose control from drinking too much and I greatly admire that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Irish Catholic here who brought up the drinking at the Catholic schools. Yes, it is part of the culture, and at some of the parish schools the parents are knowng for frontloading before events. Its starts early on. Just like beach week is incredibly popular among the Catholic families. And these families are more lenient with drinking before prom.

Regarding other cultures, I've never seen any of my many Jewish friends over-imbibe or lose control from drinking too much and I greatly admire that.

+1 and I'd add that heavy drinking is not part of Italian culture either.

[Anonymous]

The Catholic schools I've been in have big drinking problems, both at the parents events and the kids. I won't go so far to say it's an Irish Catholic problem as some have said here (I doubt many of the parents are of Irish extraction) but I've really noticed it at fundraisers, events I've hosted at home and the teen parties.

[Anonymous]

I was a very smart kid who once thought just saying no to drugs was easy. I think my own individual path of experimenting with pot and a few other things had a lot to do with watching my parents go through difficult times, which included my moms bout with breast cancer. I am now 45 and quite skeptical and hesitant to take any medication for fear of the unknown side effects. However as a teen, I recall a point in time where I realized I was not afraid of things that I had been taught to be afraid of. It became "why not?" and "its not that big of a deal". I remember reading an article about the damaging effects the overhypiong of drugs evils had on the credibility of parents. "Reefer Madness" comes to mind. By exaggerating the effects to pot, we managed to make ourselves less credible when trying to warn kids about the effects of things like alchohol.

My kid is 7 and homeschooled for now. I talk to her about drunk driving teenagers getting killed on prom night. I want her to know how easy it is to make a wrong choice that could be very costly. I will continue to talk to her about this. Luckily, she is a very receptive child and kind of an old soul type. So she really listens.

MY parents were wonderful, but they had no experience with pot or other drugs. I plan to let my kid know that I made some mistakes that could have been costly. Luckily, I emerged fine, but others are not so fortunate, and I know some of the reasons why.

Your school of choice could be 99.99% drug free, but if DC felt a connection with that .01%, that is all it would take for experimentation to happen.

FWIW, I ended up graduating 2 years early and going to college before age 16 on full scholarship. I learned my lessons early, in just about every way. I am still humbled at the task of how to make sure my daughter does not succumb to any situation that could cost her dearly. I just plan on talking to her about how easy it is for something to go wrong, and how deceptive it can be to observe other people doing "it", whatever "it" might be, and seeming to be invincicble.

Communicating to a teen that they are not immortal or invincible, that is not easy. But there are plenty of examples all around us to use as reference points. Dont make the mistake of labeling "those kids" as bad, but rather be honest and say that most often they are misguided.

My daughter is most likely to fall prey to the influences of a young man, not because they are inherently bad, but because she is inherently a romantic. Just came like that "out of the box". As long as she meets the right kind of boy, it will be ok. But I need to educate her on how that is not so easy to determine from "feelings" but rather "facts". What choices are the people around her making and why? And who should she use a a model and why.

OP: this parenting stuff is hard. I understand you are looking for a safe haven or at least a safer one. But I agree with everyone's assessment, and I base this also on many conversations with teachers who happen to friends of mine: there is no safe haven. YOU are the safe haven. Plan to spend a lot of time really learning about why people drink and do drugs. Other people's kids (classmates) are NOT the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Catholic schools I've been in have big drinking problems, both at the parents events and the kids. I won't go so far to say it's an Irish Catholic problem as some have said here (I doubt many of the parents are of Irish extraction) but I've really noticed it at fundraisers, events I've hosted at home and the teen parties.

Big drinking is not necessarily a "problem" to all. There are cultural differences and living in a diverse society requires that we give others space to live according to their cultural norms. You don't have to drink, but we know from the horrid experiment with prohibition that imposing a teetotaler culture doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

My babysitter said her public high school had only a few drugs and that druggie group was not very bright... they got caught sneaking into the auditorium and smoking weed, during the day, like no one would smell that. We're in Loudoun, but not Valley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, and you might want to keep this anecdote in mind folks... My parents were at Standord in grad school in the 60s. They had really good friends at Stanford who worked in the labs. Total nerds, all of them. Not an athlete in the bunch. These guys regularly had LSD parties supplied by the products they concocted in the lab at school. Mind you, this was long before anyone in the general population knew what LSD was or before even these kids knew what it could do. My mother still shudders at how close she came to giving it a try. Thank God one of the straight (and smartest) nerds was my dad's best friend.

You are joking right? Right a suriprise LSD parties at Standord....I think that school is in California of all places LOL!

[Anonymous]

As a new high school parent I’m just now becoming aware that there is still a problem with kids drinking alcohol in high school. I’m not naïve enough to think that raising the drinking age to 21 would eliminate all drinking in high school, but I’m beginning to think that alcohol consumption is far more pervasive than I imagined. I’ve learned from my DC that even “good kids” that we’ve known for years are drinking as early as 9th grade and not just beer, but hard alcohol. After picking myself up off the floor, I’m trying to sort this out and understand how kids who are not even old enough to drive are getting alcohol? BTW DC’s private school is NOT one of the schools with a reputation for drinking or drugs. What advice do parents have to address this issue?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a new high school parent I’m just now becoming aware that there is still a problem with kids drinking alcohol in high school. I’m not naïve enough to think that raising the drinking age to 21 would eliminate all drinking in high school, but I’m beginning to think that alcohol consumption is far more pervasive than I imagined. I’ve learned from my DC that even “good kids” that we’ve known for years are drinking as early as 9th grade and not just beer, but hard alcohol. After picking myself up off the floor, I’m trying to sort this out and understand how kids who are not even old enough to drive are getting alcohol? BTW DC’s private school is NOT one of the schools with a reputation for drinking or drugs. What advice do parents have to address this issue?

HUH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a new high school parent I’m just now becoming aware that there is still a problem with kids drinking alcohol in high school. I’m not naïve enough to think that raising the drinking age to 21 would eliminate all drinking in high school, but I’m beginning to think that alcohol consumption is far more pervasive than I imagined. I’ve learned from my DC that even “good kids” that we’ve known for years are drinking as early as 9th grade and not just beer, but hard alcohol. After picking myself up off the floor, I’m trying to sort this out and understand how kids who are not even old enough to drive are getting alcohol? BTW DC’s private school is NOT one of the schools with a reputation for drinking or drugs. What advice do parents have to address this issue?

First, accept the fact that there will be experimentation. It is developmentally appropriate, actually. Not that all kids do it, but most will try something at some point. The most important thing to teach is safety. Your children need to know never to drive under the influence or get in the car with someone who is under the influence. Girls should not take drinks (all drinks) from guys, even guys they know. That sort of thing.

9th grade is too young for any kind of experimentation and I would come down hard if my kid was caught at that age. Older teens are different. I told my DD that we have an absolute amnesty policy -- if she is in a unsafe situation and calls us for help, she will never be punished even if she has been drinking. However, if she puts herself in an unsafe situation and doesn't reach out for help, there will be hell to pay.

Senior year we allowed a glass of wine at special occasions. Sometimes DD took us up on it, many times she declined. My feeling is that she learned to have a healthy relationship with alcohol.

I consulted several child psychs about this issue because it was concerning to me and I was told consistently that it is actually a good thing for kids to experiment when they are under your roof and you are there for them. That doesn't mean you encourage it or even say you allow it, it just means that you understand it will happen and don't freak out. Kids who go to college without ever having learned their limits for alcohol can get into serious trouble with alcohol poisoning.

Read Lessons of a B- by Wendy Mogel. Best book on this and other subjects concerning teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school ncs had way less drugs than maret or gds. not sure if that is still the case. I didnt see or smell pot till high school. I'd say very few people did drugs ninth and tenth grade and junior and senior year it was maybe fifteen percent of the class. No on in my clique of ten girls did drugs. We didnt even drink on prom night.

Well when I went to NCS we did all those things and since I have a DD there I know they still do. Bot everyone, of course. But it was and is way more than 15%.

What years did you both graduate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was in high school ncs had way less drugs than maret or gds. not sure if that is still the case. I didnt see or smell pot till high school. I'd say very few people did drugs ninth and tenth grade and junior and senior year it was maybe fifteen percent of the class. No on in my clique of ten girls did drugs. We didnt even drink on prom night.

Well when I went to NCS we did all those things and since I have a DD there I know they still do. Bot everyone, of course. But it was and is way more than 15%.

What years did you both graduate?

Early 80s, early teens.