Anonymous wrote:Graduated from local all-boys school in mid-80s. Junior year, we went to beach week for one week. Senior year, we did two weeks. Lots of drinking, partying, puking and hooking up. 12 of us stayed in a place meant for 6. It was disgusting. I didn’t check in with my parents for two weeks (no cellphones). We acted like a bunch of fools. It was two of the best weeks of my life, and I would do it all over again, if I could. My friends and I still reminisce about it 35 years later. My son just finished his freshman year at the same high school I attended. I will have no qualms about letting him go. I trust him and our parenting. For those of you who pass negative judgment on me, get a life. Let your kid be a kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, for all you parents flipping out, what do you expect college to be like in two months? There will be parties, sex, drugs and even more celebrating that parents are watching over them like wardens. Just like college, people at beach week are not required to engage and can not attend or just do daytime fun like chill on the beach.

Plus beach week is different now. Most houses have at least 1-2 parents as chaperones. Most ask students to walk a certain line, such as curfew, no hard liquor, no drugs. My student says they plan to have fun at the beach each day, talk to friends from other houses, go to different parties and then play cards later at night their own house with their friends.

Our house has two parents at the house at all times during the week (doing it in shifts so no parent has to do all week).

There was much riskier behavior at beach week than my college orientation and first semester years ago-not even close!

There are more adults around in college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, for all you parents flipping out, what do you expect college to be like in two months? There will be parties, sex, drugs and even more celebrating that parents are watching over them like wardens. Just like college, people at beach week are not required to engage and can not attend or just do daytime fun like chill on the beach.

Plus beach week is different now. Most houses have at least 1-2 parents as chaperones. Most ask students to walk a certain line, such as curfew, no hard liquor, no drugs. My student says they plan to have fun at the beach each day, talk to friends from other houses, go to different parties and then play cards later at night their own house with their friends.

Our house has two parents at the house at all times during the week (doing it in shifts so no parent has to do all week).

There was much riskier behavior at beach week than my college orientation and first semester years ago-not even close!

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, for all you parents flipping out, what do you expect college to be like in two months? There will be parties, sex, drugs and even more celebrating that parents are watching over them like wardens. Just like college, people at beach week are not required to engage and can not attend or just do daytime fun like chill on the beach.

Plus beach week is different now. Most houses have at least 1-2 parents as chaperones. Most ask students to walk a certain line, such as curfew, no hard liquor, no drugs. My student says they plan to have fun at the beach each day, talk to friends from other houses, go to different parties and then play cards later at night their own house with their friends.

Our house has two parents at the house at all times during the week (doing it in shifts so no parent has to do all week).

Anonymous wrote:My DC just got back from beach week today. And the extent of partying really varied from house to house. Not sure why you are all so worried, unless you really don’t trust your own teen. The popular fast crowd will still be popular and fast, the so called “frat” house even with a chaperone. And sometimes it’s the adult chaperones who encourage it because they are still living vicariously through their kids. But most of the other houses are really not any different from life on the weekends with their typical friend group. Yes, they may visit the other houses, but that does not mean every teen is drinking or hooking up. Some honestly just want to have a good time with friends for the last time. Beach week is a microcosm of college. Some party, some don’t.

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, for all you parents flipping out, what do you expect college to be like in two months? There will be parties, sex, drugs and even more celebrating that parents are watching over them like wardens. Just like college, people at beach week are not required to engage and can not attend or just do daytime fun like chill on the beach.

Plus beach week is different now. Most houses have at least 1-2 parents as chaperones. Most ask students to walk a certain line, such as curfew, no hard liquor, no drugs. My student says they plan to have fun at the beach each day, talk to friends from other houses, go to different parties and then play cards later at night their own house with their friends.

Our house has two parents at the house at all times during the week (doing it in shifts so no parent has to do all week).

Anonymous wrote:Is it sex with one partner or more than that?

Anonymous wrote:Beach is the center of all activities: kids gather en masse and play in the ocean, maybe beach volleyball, lots of sunbathing and maybe sunburns.

Nighttime is extra fun: weenie roasts, s’mores and singalongs on the beach - someone always brings a guitar! Sometimes couples will pair off during the campfire and hold hands and walk on the beach at night. Rotating houses host move nights and it’s popcorn and ice cream floats and deck dancing.

Depending on where the kids are - a night on the boardwalk is also in order; arcade games, rides, and all-night diners.

One morning a house full of girls invited neighboring boys in for a pancake breakfast followed by a limbo contest in the driveway.

Loads of good, clean, wholesome fun in the fresh sea air.

Anonymous wrote:Am planning to offer our son and daughter the ability to arrange a different kind of trip with close friends. I do think it’s really nice to have something to memorialize the end of high school and to get a bit of independence. When I went to beach week at Dewey, from a local public school, there was drinking, some drugs and lots of sex. The extent to which that was the guiding factor of the week was shocking even then to me as a teenager. There was also a good amount of what we would now recognize as date rape, and some group sex with teenagers who were clearly drunk. I’m not a prude and I’m a relatively hands-off parent, but that situation was far more extreme than I encountered at any time in college (or after). I would far rather our kids decide upon and plan a trip with good friends somewhere they want to go then to follow along with beach week just because it seems like eight right of passage or ritual that is, frankly, pretty gross and not fun for a many involved.