My friends did two senior weeks. One in Ocean City and one in cancun. I was date raped in OC and almost died in cancun. And I was NOT an overly irresponsible teen. My kids will never go to beach week. Do what you want when you get to college, but not on my watch.

I got alcohol poisoning and ended up in the ER. After a couple weeks, found out I was pregnant. Not a great start to my independence. And I was a totally "good" kid in HS.

Luckily -- mine never asked to go. I wouldn't have liked the idea at all. I don't really get it. Like an earlier poster said -- they have 4 years in college for freedom and to figure out how to live on their own. Beach week seems like an invitation to screw up someone's future...stupid drinking and driving mistakes; destruction of property, etc.

Why do so many parents go for this?

Anonymous wrote:beach week is over. It occurs right after graduation, so usually the first two weeks of June are "beach week" for various schools, depending on when the graduation date was.

Tell that to the kids in Fairfax County, who graduated the end of last week or are graduating the beginning of this week.

And it's not just a DC thing. Kids in NJ and PA go to the Jersey shore for beach week. I've heard of kids in the south going to Myrtle Beach or FL.

beach week is over. It occurs right after graduation, so usually the first two weeks of June are "beach week" for various schools, depending on when the graduation date was.

I like the idea of a cash incentive or cool different trip, i.e. take a few friends somewhere interesting with us instead.

So when is senior week typically? We go to OC a few times in the summer, I'd hate to accidentally go during senior week! Eek! lol

2 of my 3 kids went to OC after high school graduation. The saving grace was that they did not go during Senior/Beach Week. They went 2 weeks before/ They did not want to bother with the crowds. I am sure they drank and partied plenty, but the scene is different without the deluge of teens running around.

Anonymous wrote:This seems to be a very DC thing. There was no such thing as Beach Week growing up in a small town in PA. We had an all-night party put on by the parents the night of graduation and that was the extent of celebrating being HS grads. It is possible to grow up with fond memories of being 18 without Beach Week.

I think it's a DC thing too. I grew up in Virginia Beach and there was no beach week. Of course we pretty much lived beach week, but still, I never heard of kids going off on their own during the week after graduation.

we didn't have beach week where i grew up either (too far of a drive I think for it to be a wide spread event- about 6 hours to NJ/MD/DE beaches)..........but I also had very very strict parents (1st generation americans but really not much different than their immigrant parents except for them being even handed with both boys and girls)- they probably would not have let me go- had a curfew that was midnight until i left home but at least they loosened up after i graduated and i didn't have to tell them exactly where i was going every night, detailed by the hour!

i DO think its funny though that people think "when else are you going to do this? be this free?"................um, for the next 4 years! its not just one week and then off to the convent for these teens. at the same time- I think that if college is 3 months away, beach week is just a natural extension of that. Sophomores and Juniors going..........not so much a good idea in my opinion- sometimes its ok to tell a 15-16 year old that they are in many ways still a child, and things should come in due time not all at once. Then again, I wasn't a pretty girl in HS so I didn't have a vested interest in going to the beach at 15, 16, even 17 really since no one wanted to have sex with me!

This seems to be a very DC thing. There was no such thing as Beach Week growing up in a small town in PA. We had an all-night party put on by the parents the night of graduation and that was the extent of celebrating being HS grads. It is possible to grow up with fond memories of being 18 without Beach Week.

My parents didn't allow me to go (for a number of reasons). Looking back, why on Earth would I have wanted to go to Ocean City for a week with people I by and large couldn't stand? And goodness knows even if my parents had allowed me to go, they wouldn't have paid one cent towards it.

I won't be giving my permission for my kids to go. Kids can grow up without a week of binge drinking and everything that goes along with it.

Anonymous wrote:When I went to beach week parents came along and chaperoned. Plenty of parties, etc. but nothing crazy out of control. Do kids now go alone?

I was wondering about this too? When my DC went to the NJ shore a few years ago there were a number of his friends who were at least nominally chaperoned by adults. Is this not the norm at OC?

When I went to beach week parents came along and chaperoned. Plenty of parties, etc. but nothing crazy out of control. Do kids now go alone?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to beach week. Had an endless week of sex with my boyfriend. Drank lots of wine coolers. Got the best tan. I remember it fondly to this day.

See, that's my thinking on why I'd let my kids go. When will your life ever be that carefree again, especially if you have kidx now. It's a fun, cheap week of fun.

I would make them pay or at least co.tribute some money to it.

Your life might not be so carefree if you end up pregnant, with an STI, injured, or traumatized by a sexual assault. But whatever...